Times spent in the kitchen: variation and near fiasco

by Pat Laster

 

                In a recent post, I said I didn’t spend much time in the kitchen. Meaning, I don’t ordinarily cook. But one day, I did, and it turned out swell [Slang: excellent]. 

          I needed a dessert for a family dinner I was hosting in a week or so. Frozen pear sauce (with peelings) from last year’s early crop lay in the chest freezer. [Advice to self: if you do this again, put the hard little knobs through the sausage grinder.] I thought: look for a recipe for applesauce cake; it should be the same thing, right?

                From a Piggott United Methodist Church cookbook, I found one. Since I already had ingredients similar to those in the recipe, I thought again: what about substituting what’s already in my pantry/fridge. I set all the needed supplies except eggs out on the countertop thinking I would cook either early morning or late night. I did neither. For a week or so, those things took up habitation.

                But on a day when the temps were supposed to be MUCH cooler, the spirit finally moved and I got busy.

                I turned the oven to 350 degrees, then greased and floured a glass 9 x 13 inch glass dish instead of a bundt pan, per the recipe. I had one, but I didn’t want to use it.

                In place of “one box French vanilla cake mix,” I used what I had: a Betty Crocker white cake mix, expiration date, August 2012.

                In lieu of “one package French vanilla pudding mix,” I used a plain old vanilla, store brand box.

                The four eggs were a no-brainer. Nor the one-third cup vegetable oil.

                Instead of “one cup raisins” I used one cup of mixed dried fruits—cranberries, yellow and dark raisins.

                Rather than “one cup chopped pecans,” I used one cup sunflower kernels. Cinnamon and nutmeg amounts remained the same.

                Instead of “one cup applesauce,” a cup of pear sauce.

                I beat the eggs together first with a whisk, then added and “blend[ed] all the ingredients.” With the same whisk—no getting out the hand beater and counting three minutes as some recipes say to do.

                Voila! A perfect cake using similar ingredients. Now, if I can keep from eating it before company comes.

             Do you suppose I could copyright the recipe?

                Oh, and now, the new crop of pears is coming on, er, down. Just today, I gathered a bailed bucket of windfall or weightfall or too-crowded-I’m-getting-outta-the-way-fall. This is the second batch I’ve brought in.

                The first batch of small green pears, I cored and gouged out the rot, dropped them into water sprinkled with Fruit Fresh. I would cook them with the peelings, and then rice them into smooth pear sauce. In my aluminum kettle, I dumped the fruit, added sugars, both brown and white, a dash or two of salt, and a dash or three of cinnamon. Put the heat at 5/10 [medium?] and went off to the computer.

                Soon, I smelled something. I ran into the kitchen and turned the fire off before grabbing a hot pad to the metal handle of the lid. The fruit was prettily glazed and sitting in a little floor of honey-textured syrup. Well, a little thicker than honey, to be truthful. No need to rice these skins. They are as tender as the pears.

                Maybe I’d better stay out of the kitchen after all.

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press