Quick cake with plums

I´ve always had a bit of a cookbook habit, but of late it´s spiralled out of control. I´ve realised it´s the perfect reading when you have a new baby cornering the market for attention.

Cookbooks are cut down into very manageable chunks, so that even if you have the concentration span of a mosquito, you can generally get to the end of a recipe. There are no sub-plots, barring the occasional suggestion to serve with mashed potatoes. And always, always, there´s a happy ending: serves 4-6.

But this is strictly for entertainment. Now I only cook things that I know by heart, that are very simple, and can either be done ahead of time or in a very short flash. The soups, sandwich fillings, roast tomatoes or rice I might do while Pía lounges in her buggy and looks on with very mild interest. The quick stuff I reserve for just before dinner, when J can look after her and I am left alone. At the risk of sounding like an evil mother, I´ll say it´s a very relaxing break. I focus on the food, and the food only, and come back to my baby much refreshed. And I get to eat dinner, too.

The shopping is somewhat more erratic than it used to be, and I find myself with surplus stuff that needs to be used, fast. This is what I did yesterday with a bowl of plums that needed to be eaten. I´m very pleased with the result: a dead-easy, delicious cake that can be done on the spur of a moment (no need to remember to leave butter to soften), isn´t guilt-inducingly decadent, cooks fast and keeps very well for a day. I know that for a fact, because that´s how long it´s lasted, but for all I know, it might keep for longer.

All you do is use the batter for these little lemon cupcakes, sans lemon, and put it in a square pan of 21x21 cm. Then cut 8 plums in half, and arrange them in the batter so that you can later cut sixteen squares.

Bake as you would a normal cake. Sorry to be so imprecise, but my oven has no buttons. It took somewhere around 40 minutes in a mid to lowish one, with the heat coming only from below.
The result is a dense, slightly coarse sponge that surrounds quivering sweet fruit. Can´t wait to try it with pears.

Another blog header

I´d meant to post this picture ages ago, before the little mite was born, in fact. It´s the blog header for Lego y Pulgón, a favourite blog. Go check it out. It´s not all food, but it´s lovely. Just don´t blame me if you begin to feel very dejected at not being in the Canary Islands under flowering fruit trees.

With one hand

First off, a big thank you to every one of your very sweet messages. I´ve loved them all, and would have loved to answer each and every one, except that typing with one hand free and a baby in the other isn´t my forte, yet (I´m getting better).

This morning I managed a pretty impressive one-armed feat, and prepared toast with tomatoes and olive oil and salt. Slicing tomatoes, now, that´s not easy, beleive you me.
The baby ensded up covered in crumbs, which made me feel I´m not cut out to be anyone´s self-sacrificing mother. But hey, if I don´t have a good breakfast, I can´t keep up my status as a dairy queen, right?

Blog abandonment explained

Dear readers, this is the post where I Explain All. The abandonement of the blog, the not answering the comments and other faults in etiquette. It´s not because it´s too hot, or because I´ve left and gone to eat my weight in wild rasperries on a Baltic beach.
The reason, and you´ll have to agree that as reasons go, there´s none better, is that exactly two weeks ago I had a little baby girl. And it´s not that I don´t have time for anything else, exactly, because I´m staying at my parents´, and there´s always someone more than willing to hold the baby. In fact, there´s usually a group of bessotted adults standing round the crib.
But it´s proving kind of hard to not drool a lot, myself, so it seems to be all I do. And as for food, well, mostly I´m concentrating on producing milk, right now.
So it´s safe to assume that I´ll neglect the blogs a little, but I hope to bounce back at some point, and not stare at Pía´s toes for more than three hours on end.

Too hot to cook

Is anyone, anywhere, going into the kitchen for anything more than sprinkling lemon juice over chunks of watermelon? If so, you have my deepest envy.

The one and only kitchen tool for summer

Well, let´s face it: I don´t really like summer. I don´t mind being cooped up under a whirring fan in a darkended room, but I hate not being able to go out between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.
There are millions of delicious summery foods I´d love to be eating, to make full use of the season´s bounty. But I´d rather cut off my foot than turn on the oven; my expeditions to the market are short and to the point, and have to be made when J is at hand to carry home the watermelons; and there are plenty of establishments happy to serve me icy beer and boquerones en vinagre.

So I have just one word for you, young man: "tin-opener". Summer is the time to rummage around in the cupboard and root out all those exotic jars you found at that darling little stall in the market in the pretty village. The chutney somebody gave you. The tinned fish you only bought for the cool graphics. The packet of slimy looking Oriental pickles. The tube of anchovy paste.

Bring ´em on, I say. It´s all very well to go on about fruit cobblers, clafoutis, coca, grilled fish and escalibada. The truth is, when the thermometer is in the 40ºC range, if you can slice a tomato you´re in Olympic endeavour territory, and good luck to you.

The picture is for a baking group (baking!! gasp! I just went slightly green), the Bakeanistas. Mary, of the Sour Dough blog (and check that out for great bread and new drawings at some point, too) comissioned it, and I had a lot of fun with the Wild, cool and swingin´ Sixties look.

Tote bags and summery dishes

Here´s a site I love: Reusable bags.

They have lots of different models for all sorts of bags that fold into tiny little pockets, perfect for carrying in a handbag and pulling out at the market or grocery store.

I don´t know about you, but I am terribly promiscuous in the market. With meat and fish I´m pretty faithful, but with fruit stalls, forget it. I have one guy for herbs, another for ginger, limes, avocadoes and mangoes, a third for apples and a fourth for all the rest of the normal stuff. And if the plum tomatoes are at 99 cents the kilo, I´ll have a fling with anyone.
I don´t like to arrive at a stall carrying the bag with the logo of another, and it´s my main reason for loving these tote bags.

Also, that they´re more comfortable and planet friendly. And you look so much better with a prettily stamped bag on your shoulder than with several ugly plastic ones dangling from your hands. What´s not to like?

On a more culinary note, here are links to the so-excellent and summery vichyssoise, and this salpicón from last year.

Fake-dukkah dip

I´ve spent the weekend in Galicia, or rather, on the train, which takes all of eight hours to get there, and eight back. Rather cuts into the w/end, and it made us late for the game yesterday, but never mind. Spain won the European football championship, and aren´t we all glad to have passed a pretty sleepless night from all the shouting and singing.

If your team gets to the final (which Spain never had in years and years) you have to see six matches. You´ll probably see some of those with friends, and some will be at their place and some will be at yours. So you´ll be called upon to produce some kind of nibble to quiet the nerves and settle the stomach of the nervous fan.

Here´s a quick dip I made for the semifinals against Russia. I had Greek yogurt and I had cucumber, but no mint, my usual default combo. My dukkah tin has been empty for months, and though I´ve been meaning to mix up a batch, it´s clearly become one of those things I mean to do but never will.
But in the rush to assemble everything before the game began, inspiration struck, and I came up with a quick and pretty tasty alternative.

Fake dukkah dip

Heat up a non-stick pan, and throw in a handful of sesame seeds, some crushed nuts, and a spoonful of a spice mix. I had a tin of Nomu´s
"Moroccan Rub", but I think anything that has cumin and herbs is a pretty safe bet. Toast this until it´s fragrant, then lay aside to cool a little while you grate and squeeze your peeled and deseeded cucumber.
Mix cucumber and spice mix into the yogurt, add salt and pepper to taste (maybe not too much, if you´ll be dipping salty potato chips), and try to enjoy the game.

Strawberry ice tea

Yesterday we had Sunday morning pancakes, a rare occurrence, but one I really love. I make the batter, J makes the cakes, and we take turns to eat them while they´re hot, drenched in maple syrup and lemon juice.
I also tried to make a strawberry sauce to go with them, by boiling down some sorry looking frozen strawberries I had, with a splash of water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar.
But we gobbled up the pancakes very quickly, and the sauce looked rather gross anyway. I tried pressing it trhough a sieve it seemed ok, a syrupy dark red liquid.
I poured two tablespoonfuls of this, later, into some ice tea. And that I am very happy with. Sugar-free Nestea always needs some tricking out, wether a squeeze of lemon juice or a few mint leaves.
This strawberry syrup makes it a little pink, and changes the flavour just enough.
If you put pieces of strawberry in it, it looks so pretty that you feel you have to throw some kind of a tea party, complete with cucumber sandwiches and teddy bears.

Corazón de melón

Here´s another recipe from the blogging of yore (read the original post here).
The heat has finally arrived. I´m taking pains to close my shutters at noon, to top up the bottles of cold water in the fridge, and to plan my walks carefully, so I´m in the shade as much as possible.
Not that it matters, because when it´s hot it´s hot, and that´s that. But melons have arrived, and they´re always a compensation, wether eaten in chunks or served up, retro-style, with cured ham. Or in the chilled-soup version.
A chilled soup is a good thing to have around on 35ºC plus days like these. Especially if you have guests and want to look like you´ve made an effort, when all you have on the table is cheese and bread.
The only important proviso is that you make it with a juicy melon, the kind we call "toad skin". Galias or cantaloupes are not really going to be any use, because what you want is a fruity pulp on which to float your jamón slivers, nothing more.
So anyway, here´s your recipe, perfectly suited for a blistering day, or for that frustrating moment when you realize that the melon you lugged from the market is only so-so.

Cut the melon, blitz in a processor with a pinch of salt, a good sprinkling of lemon juice, and a grind of pepper. Serve in pretty bowls, and dot liberally with shards of serrano ham (the better the better, of course, but it won´t do to waste your prime ibérico on this).
That´s it.