Smuggler's Mystery Cake

I love:  using up stuff in the cupboard and fridge; making do with what I have on hand; avoiding in-person shopping of all kinds; making easy quick cheap nutritious food for my family, AND smuggling some nutritive value (healthy goodness) into my adult vegetarian daughter's diet.  You may wonder why a vegetarian needs smuggled vegetables but her version of vegetarian means she gets to limit her diet to the sweet extras, not caring much for most vegetables or fruits, and definitely not potatoes or ancient grains.

Hence the special cake tonight in lieu of dinner, and having enjoyed a healthy Sunday breakfast and lunch...

Smuggler's Mystery Cake

Mix dry ingredients:
1 3/4 c. all purpose (King Arthur) flour http://amzn.to/2pN1fYX
1/4 c. cocoa*                      *having suffered kitchen cabinet avalanches TWICE with the cocoa, it's                                                not in its original packaging and I also know to be VERY CAREFUL                                                    mixing dry ingredients with cocoa BECAUSE IT'S LIKE TALC, EASY                                                TO BREATHE IN AND DIFFICULT TO SPONGE UP!
2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder (I use Aluminum Free)                                  
                                                 

1 tsp. salt
2 cups sugar*       *I used two small fist-sized clumps of brown                                       sugar, having used up what was left                                                     in the sugar bowl....It looked like 2 scant cups

                http://amzn.to/2qnegFA
                      
Dump in:
8 oz. tomato soup
1/2 c. olive oil*                 *As a patriot I used to use California olive oil, but my son and his                                                          California student girlfriend having recently split up, I am trying to avoid                                              C-word memories around the house.  Imported will do fine.
2 eggs                                   \                                                   http://amzn.to/2qiThX2
1 cup "soured" milk    *Similar recipes call for buttermilk but I didn't have it or yogurt on hand.
                                  Since the baking soda is for the buttermilk chemistry, I used nonfat milk with
                                  a squeeze of half a lemon.
Beat all together for several minutes to aerate and create the cake's structure.

Pour into olive oiled oblong pan (I used the same rubber scraper to grease the pan and to scrape down the sides of the bowl, I try to keep my hands and fingers out of the food) and bake at 350 degrees 35 minutes.

                                         chocolate mystery batter

You know with chocolate cake, it's ready before the usual tests apply, before it shrinks in the pan, before it's altogether dry in the middle on testing.

Beautiful, glossy, level!


I iced with a Cream Cheese glaze:  I had about 6 oz. of cream cheese leftover and the only confectionary sugar in the house was about 1/2 cup in my sugar shaker, which I keep in a plastic bag but still wanted to empty and wash before ant season!  I mixed these together with maybe a half teaspoon of lemon juice.  Spread on warm cake . Yummmmm....

.
The cake has a tender crumb and is not too sweet,has an adult flavor and is as good served with red wine as with coffee.
Job Done!
                               

This Little Piggy

I wasn’t going to serve any more pork because pigs are so smart and I hate to eat tortured meat.  But it’s Easter and I’ve recently discovered online food shopping like groceries from Jet or Amazon and decided to look for humanely raised ham, just for Easter this year (I imagine there’s no hope for kielbasa.  Anyway last few times I ate this family favorite I felt like it was going directly to my heart.)  I found some heritage pigs pasture raised in Canada and shipped to my heavenly place on Earth, Vermont, to be cured in maple syrup at Shelburne Farms—but they were sold out until after Easter.  SO I tried two others.  William Sonoma, same heritage pigs, but spiral sliced (easy to serve but never as tasty), and a boneless one from Circle B Ranch.  They were both good. 

Since I spent a fortune on humane meat I decided to be frugal as I USUALLY am in all the dishes on Dinner Accomplished!  So is used the ham bone to make a stock:

Simmer the ham bone in a stock pot with water, and the usual stock vegetables.  I only had two carrots. I cooked it about an hour , it made nice steam and it’s a cold rainy April Saturday.  Skim the fat, scum, bubbles off the top (there wasn’t much with my William Sonoma ham!).  Remove the ham bone and the carrots.  I added a whole handful of parsley, roughly chopped (I just read that parsley and also grapefruit are magic weight loss foods and parsley is usually a cheap herb so I keep bunches of it on hand now and use it everyday!).  I added an entire bag of DRIED RED LENTILS, a chopped yellow onion, salt, pepper, ginger to taste, cumin to taste, simmered until the lentils soft—or much longer like I did, achieving disintegration like pea soup. 

I reheated it with roughly chopped spinach and a chopped tomato,

and served it over rice with the most delicious (humanely produced) sausages from Circle B Ranch!  (I had to add  more products to have the ham shipped so….)

This also makes a super vegetarian dish without the ham bone and the sausages (I know, I make everything twice to include a vegetarian version for my daughter.  Well actually I usually just make things vegetarian for everyone, but sometimes there’s precious Easter ham and sausages)