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
