bits of color

easy coffee cake

After looking around for an easy, won't break the bank, coffee cake that I would be able to cook on the wood stove or on top of the wood cook top, I ended up just making my own recipe using bits and pieces of other recipes and then tweaking it to my liking. Although I was a bit weary of how it would taste, it came out quite lovely.

‎1 cup butter

1 ½ cups sugar

4 eggs

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 cups flour

1 quart peaches or other fruit

Cinnamon

½ cup brown sugar

Topping

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 tablespoons butter

Soften butter, mix with eggs n sugar. Then throw flour, sugar, salt and powder in and mix it up nice. Spread about half the mixture into a greased pan (9x13 or whatever). Drain peaches and chuck over the top of the mixture in pan, shake cinnamon around to your liking. Sprinkle the brown sugar around and spread the other half of the mixture on top. Bake at 350 until tooth pick comes out clean.

for the topping

Mix sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter, until it makes coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the topping over the cake and bake

Since I cook over wood, I typically use a large cast iron skillet rather than a baking pan although a dutch oven would also work well. If I was actually baking in an oven I would make a crumble topping but, since I don't, I make a confectionery sugar drool for the top and shake a bit of cinnamon around. Nutmeg is good in place of or with cinnamon.

drool

½ cup confectionery or brown sugar

½ tsp vanilla

1-2 tbsp water

chicken of the woods

It is the fall mushroom season and this is one of the finest that can be found. Commonly called chicken mushroom or chicken of the woods, Laetipous sulfureus can be used in any recipe that calls for chicken or in traditional mushroom dishes. Rather than rewrite what has been written many times before here is a link to read more on it. When we had a chicken the other night, I made an Argentinian recipe called pollo el verdeo with it. It was quite tasty and very easy to make.

3 cups sliced mushroom or chicken
1/2 cup cream (plain yogurt works well)
6 green onions, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 cup vegetable stock or chicken stock
1.2 cup white wine
2 tablespoons cornstarch
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp butter

Cook "chicken" and garlic in skillet with butter til done. Add wine and green onion to skillet. In a bowl, mix cornstarch with cold broth and stir until completely dissolved and no lumps then add broth to prepared chicken. Reduce heat and cook 5 minutes. Add cream and mix thoroughly and cook until desired consistency. Serve over rice or pasta.