Martha Stewart's Cranberry Upside Down Cake

I cannot take any credit for this - it is all Martha Stewart and is so perfect that it needs no modifications. I've made it 4 times in the last month, and it's always eaten up before I get a chance to take a photo! If you don't have allspice, substitute with a little ground ginger and ground nutmeg.

The topping is made by simply baking cranberries placed in a layer over sugar and spices at the bottom of the pan. As the cake bakes, the sugar caramelizes, forming a rich syrup.

Prep: 20 minutes
Total: 1 hour

Serves at most 8, not very hungry people

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 3/4 cups cranberries (or any other berry, frozen or fresh)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in center. Rub the bottom and sides of an 8-inch round cake pan with 2 tablespoons butter. In a small bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup sugar with the cinnamon and allspice. Sprinkle mixture evenly over bottom of pan; arrange cranberries in a single layer on top.

With an electric mixer, cream remaining 6 tablespoons butter and 1/2 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until well combined. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture to butter mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk, until well combined.

Spoon batter over cranberries in pan, and smooth top. Place pan on a baking sheet; bake cake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes (or more!! Make sure it really is cooked in the middle). Let cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake; invert onto a rimmed platter.

Etli sebze dolması (stuffed vegetables)

Uncooked rice
Dried mint
Tomatoes
Tomato paste
Onions
Ground turkey or beef
Peppers
Salt
zucchini


As you notice, there are no measurements for this recipe. Choose the number of vegetables you would like to stuff and start from there. Cut off the tops of the onions, tomatoes, and peppers and dice the tops and put them into a bowl. Hollow out the tomatoes, onions, and zucchinis, and dice pieces of vegetables that you have removed and add them to the bowl. You can use a melon baller to help you hollow out the zucchinis and onions ~ do not hollow the zucchini all the way through, you must leave one end closed. You can stuff only one type of vegetable if you wish. Remove the seeds from the peppers and discard.

To the bowl of diced veggies, add half as much meat and a quarter as much rice. For example, if you have two cups of diced vegetables, add one cup of meat and ½ cup of uncooked rice. Now add dried mint ~ to the example quantity, you would add about 2 tablespoons of dried mint. Adjust accordingly. Add salt according to your personal preferences. To the example amount, I would add about a teaspoon of salt. Do not get bogged down in the measurements. It is hard to make this dish go wrong.

Now, pull up your sleeves and mix the vegetables, meat and rice together with your hands! If you want to make this dish vegetarian, you could substitute the meat with mushrooms, but you would need to add a few spoonfuls of olive oil to the mixture. This would not be traditional in Turkey, however. Once the mixture is uniform, stuff the hollowed-out vegetables with the mixture. Press the mixture firmly into the vegetables to completely fill them. You may have extra ~ this extra can be frozen and used later. The moisture from the vegetables and meat that is released as the dolma cook will be absorbed by the rice. Put the vegetables open-end up into a saucepan that has a lid. Add about one inch of water to the bottom of the pan and to this add a few spoonfuls of tomato paste. Cover the pan and heat it on medium-low heat until the vegetables are cooked ~ about half an hour. Serve hot with plain yogurt.

OR 5 minutes in a pressure cooker! (quick release method)

**The basic ingredients of the stuffing are the tomatoes, tomato paste, rice, meat, and spices. If you want to stuff only peppers or some other vegetable, you will still need to include these ingredients in your filling.

Tamale Pie

I have been craving chicken tamales from the Olympia Farmer's Market since... the last time I ate one, in September 2005. There aren't any good Mexican restaurants that I know of out here, and it's not too easy to get supplies to make things at home either, such as the requisite dried corn husks. All of a sudden, I remembered hearing about something called Tamale Pie. I looked it up last night and found lots of completely different recipes for it. Today, I decided to make it from one of the recipes. To my dismay, we were almost completely out of corn meal and I don't have a car today so buying it is not an option. So I substituted some fine bulgur for some of the corn meal. I also didn't want to use ground beef, so I used some chicken. And I basically went on to almost completely change the recipe, minus a few of the ratios and the cooking temperature and time. I have already had a slice and it's delicious. I am excited about the possibilities for this one - the filling has so many options, so I'll be back with this one in the future.

Saskia's Almost Tamale Pie

• 1 large onion, chopped


• 1 banana pepper, chopped


• 1 or 2 cloves garlic, crushed


• 1 T olive or canola oil


• 1 pound ground turkey or sliced chicken


• 2 medium tomatoes, chopped plus one tablespoon of tomato paste
  


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• cayenne powder, to taste


• cumin, to taste
  


• 1/2 cup cornmeal


• 1/2 cup fine bulgur wheat
  


• 4 cups water


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon powdered paprika
  


• 1/2 cup grated hard cheese, any type


• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
  

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Sauté the onion, pepper and garlic in the oil until just tender. Crumble the ground turkey into the skillet or add chicken pieces, stirring, and brown. Add the tomatoes, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, cayenne and cumin powders. Cook over low-to-medium heat for about 20 minutes.

While the filling mixture is simmering, bring 3 cups of the water to a boil. It is handy to do this in a nonstick pan or skillet. Slowly pour the corn meal and bulgur into the remaining 1 cup of cold water, stirring until smooth. Add the salt and paprika powder to the boiling water, and then, stirring constantly, add the cold corn meal mixture to the boiling water. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Oil a casserole or baking dish. Using half of the cornmeal-bulgur mixture, line the dish. Fill with the filling mixture and cover with the grated cheese. Using the remaining half of the cornmeal mixture, cover the top of the pie. Sprinkle with cilantro and press the cilantro into the cornmeal mixture.

Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes or until nicely browned. Makes about 6 servings.

German Apple Pancake

This is a perfect dish for brunch and is very impressive to guests. It is easy to make, and the last bit is in the oven, which means that you don't have to stand over the stove. You have to make this in an oven proof pan - meaning one with a metal, not plastic, handle. If you don't have one, you could cook the apples first, as directed in step 3, and then put them into a preheated ovenproof pan (such as pyrex) and continue the recipe as directed. It tastes great with apples, but you could also try with nectarines or peaches. Pears will work if they are a hard variety, and bananas would be great too, but the texture would be different. Try it with other fruits and let me know in the comments! This "pancake" has a heavy egg content and does have an egg flavor, so it's probably not for you if you don't like the taste of eggs.

4 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons melted butter (or oil)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 large apple, cored and sliced
-----------------

1. In a large bowl, blend eggs, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Mix in milk while stirring. Add vanilla and 2 Tablespoons of oil/melted butter. Let mixture stand 30 minutes or overnight.


2. Preheat oven to 220 degrees Celcius (425 Fahrenheit).


3. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a 10" oven-proof skillet and brush the butter up the sides of the pan. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar and the cinnamon over the butter. Line the pan with apple slices. Sprinkle more sugar over the apples (1/4 to 1/2 cup). Cook over medium heat until the mixture bubbles.


4. Gently pour batter over apples.


5. Bake 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 190 C (375 F) and cook 10 more minutes.


6. Keep your eye on the pancake after 15 minutes - it should be puffed up but not burning on top. If it starts to brown significantly, it is done and may not need the extra 10 minutes. Fan assisted ovens will require less time.

Çoban Salata (Shephard’s Salad)

Ingredients:
diced tomatoes
cubes of “white cheese” (aka Feta)
cucumber, cubed
onion diced, optional
green pepper diced, optional
parsley, chopped
lemon
olive oil
salt

Mix all ingredients together. Serve in a bowl. Alternately, serve on a bed of washed arugula.

Imam Bayildi (Cold Eggplant Dish)

There are different ways of presenting this dish, but the ingredients are always the same. The name means, in Turkish, "the imam fainted". Some stories claim that the imam fainted because the dish was so delicious, others claim that the imam fainted when he found out how much olive oil his wife had used to make it. Frying the eggplant is a bit of work, but you can prepare the other ingredients while it's frying so it actually does not take a huge amount of time to make. This is one of my favorite dishes...

Ingredients:
3 long (“asian”) eggplants, or 1 large or 2 small globe eggplants
equal amount of diced tomatoes as you have uncooked eggplant
1 onion, diced large (about ½ to ¾ cup)
5 cloves of garlic, crushed slightly with the side of a knife, but not chopped.
Equal amount of diced tomatoes as you have uncooked eggplant. Can be peeled or unpeeled, seeds are ok. Canned diced tomatoes are NOT a good substitute in this recipe.
vegetable oil for frying
olive oil
green spicy pepper, optional
juice of half a lemon
chopped flat leaf parsley, for garnish

To prepare the eggplant: Peel stripes into the eggplant (don’t peel the whole thing, but leave some stripes of peel) and cut into either 1 to 2 inch cubes or 1-inch thick slices, if globe eggplant. If Asian eggplant, cut into 2-inch lengths. The shape is not too important. Place the eggplant pieces into a colander and sprinkle them with salt (try to get salt on all of the cut parts of the eggplant). Let the eggplant sit for at least half an hour. Rinse the eggplant and squeeze as much liquid out of each piece as you can without breaking the eggplant pieces. Dry each piece with a paper towel.

Fry eggplant in heated oil until brown. You will know the oil is hot enough if you press a bamboo chopstick into the bottom of the pan and small bubbles come up from it. When each piece is fried, take it out of the oil and let excess oil drip off. Place onto paper towel to drain.

For the rest of the recipe: Soften diced onion in some olive oil. Add garlic and tomatoes and stir. If you want to add a chile or pepper, chop into pieces the same size as the onion and add it now. Let these ingredients come to a simmer, then add fried eggplant and cover with boiling water (it should not be more than a cup of water, even less is ok). Add one or two teaspoons of salt, the juice of half a lemon, cover and simmer until the tomato has melted into a sauce.

Empty into a serving platter and cool. Garnish with chopped parsley.

Scrambled egg nests

I saw this recipe in the newspaper and thought it looked worth trying :) I'd just do plain scrambled or scrambled and cheese eggs, personally - maybe add some pieces of smoked salmon and capers on top? Lots of variations possible, I suppose. The cool idea is the shredded potato cups :)


In these easy and charming bites, shredded potatoes are baked in a muffin tin to form crunchy cups, which are then filled with scrambled eggs to make a festive finger food.
Ingredients:
3 1/2 cup shredded potatoes
1/2 cup vegetable oil or butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
6 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup finely diced onions
1/3 cup finely diced bell peppers
1/3 cup diced cooked breakfast sausage
Shredded cheddar
Chopped parsley for garnish

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, toss together the potatoes, 1/4 cup of the oil or butter, salt and pepper. Spoon about 1/3 cup of the potato mixture into each cup of a 12-serving muffin tin. Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of each cup, then bake until golden brown, about 30 to 35 minutes. Remove the nests from the oven and allow them to cool.

Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs and milk. Heat a large nonstick saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the remaining oil or butter to the pan and heat. Add the onions and peppers to the pan and saute until both are soft and the onions are slightly golden, about two to three minutes. Add the sausage and cook until heated through. Add the egg mixture and stir until the eggs have set and small curds have formed. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Remove the potato nests from the muffin tin and place them on an ovenproof platter or cookie sheet. Fill each cup with some of the egg mixture, top with a sprinkling of the cheese, and place the nests in a 375-degree oven until the cheese is melted, about two to three minutes. If you like, garnish each nest with a little parsley.