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Here it is.  The only thing is, you have to be comfortable with recipes that say things like "combine a good amount of turmeric with pinches of cumin, hot pepper, coriander, fennel seeds, and enough soy sauce to cover the tofu."    

I fried the tofu in 1/4 inch of coconut oil in a nonstick pan, and it didn't stick at all.  I wish I had made twice as much —  one 14-oz package didn't go very far!  The pickled veg were a hit — with a fairly sugary marinade, my kids loved it, especially crunch-loving Milo.  I made my own peanut-coconut sauce (had a lot of basic sauce left over after an attempt at autumn fruit salad earlier this week, and stirred in some Thai green curry I keep around for just this sort of thing).  Served it with steamed brown rice and garlicky stir-fried broccoli.  

Really, it's worth clicking over — lovely pics.

(Can you tell I've been uninspired lately?  It's all recipes all the time these days.)

First, this traditional sourdough rye.  No baker's yeast added!

 

Notice how the heel of the bread mysteriously acquired a coating of butter and lost a bite or two before I got around to fetching the camera.

This one turned out nicely.  I described my last couple of disasters to Hannah and she suggested modifying my routine to shape the bread only an hour or so before baking it, so the shape wouldn't collapse.  That seemed to help. 

 So now the sponge — I think that's what it is, it's some fresh sourdough plus the flour and water from the recipe — is resting for several hours; it's getting mixed with the other ingredients (things like oil, sugar, caraway) in the bread machine the night before; I'm letting it sit in the bread machine pan, covered, overnight, on a heating pad that takes it up to 78 degrees F or so; in the morning or early afternoon, I'm shaping it, letting it recover for an hour or two tops, and baking it at 350 deg F until it reaches an internal temperature of 210 deg F.

Another thing different about this loaf is that it's a white/rye combination.  So far my rye-white traditional sourdoughs are turning out better than my whole-wheat-rye traditional sourdoughs, and my 100%-whole-wheat traditional sourdoughs are turning out better than my white-flour ones.  No idea if that's just random or if there's some reason for it.   

Oh, and this time I did an egg wash, which certainly made it LOOK nice.  Now if only I'd slashed the top maybe it wouldn't have split along the side — you can't see it, it's the other side of the bread…

Tastes great, by the way. 

Here's my other success from yesterday evening:

Not too bad for a rank amateur, I thought.  Milo is my little apple devourer — he eats apples like an autumn piglet.  I think he eats at least three pounds of apples a week.  Anyway, it seemed like a nice enough theme for an October birthday, so that's what I put on his cake.  

And of course, it's an apple spice cake, too.  I used this recipe from Bon Appétit for Fuji apple spice cake with cream cheese frosting.  The recipe promised a "not-too-sugary cake" that was "inspired by carrot cake," and I don't like a hugely sweet cake, so that's what I went for.  (Remind me to search for the term "not too sweet" in the future.)   I still thought it was pretty sweet!  I substituted whole wheat for 2 of the 3 cups of all-purpose flour, which makes for a tenderer cake as well as a more healthful one (and works extremely well with spice cake).  I also added an extra egg yolk just because I had one lying around after the egg-white wash on my sourdough bread.  And, of course, I didn't split and fill it, but instead put it in the 9×13 pan and decorated it with green and yellow apples and chocolate writing.  I think raisins would have been very nice in this cake but I was afraid some children would not like them so didn't try to add any.  

I think it's easier to write on a cake with melted chocolate from a snipped Ziploc bag than with any sort of frosting contraption.

I think the cake was appreciated more than the sourdough.

The birthday is really Wednesday, but with friends coming over we thought it was as good a day as any to have a birthday cake.

Incidentally, this came after one of the nicest get-together dinners (foodwise) we'd had in a long time.  It was T. O. M.'s idea, after he came back from a business trip to Brazil.  They brought black beans and rice, oranges, and (weirdly, I thought at the time) a couple of bags of pork rinds.  We grilled kielbasas and cooked a pot of garlicky collard greens with a little kale and cabbage thrown in.  When it was all together on one plate with the juices running together, and the pork rinds crunched up on top, it was a kind of magic, let me tell you.   Lubricated with bottles of Crispin's Hard Cider, Extra Dry, over ice, a perfect autumn dinner.

Here's the apple spice cake recipe from Bon Appétit, minus the fancy decorating information and with my changes in orange.  Click over if you want a 2-layer filled cake decorated with pecans.

INGREDIENTS

CAKE

    •    3 cups all purpose flour [I used 2 cups whole wheat and 1 cup APF]

    •    1 3/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

    •    1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

    •    1/2 teaspoon salt

    •    1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

    •    1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg or ground nutmeg

    •    1/4 teaspoon baking soda

    •    1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

    •    1 1/4 cups sugar

    •    3/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

    •    3 large eggs [I added 1 egg yolk to this as well, only because I had it]

    •    2 teaspoons vanilla extract

    •    2 tablespoons bourbon, apple brandy, or rum (optional) [I used Maker's Mark bourbon, and it was yummy, let me tell you — forget bourbon-and-Coke, anyone want to come over for my new cocktail called "Bourbon 'n' Cake (batter)"?]

    •    1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce

    •    2 medium Fuji or Gala apples (13 to 14 ounces total), peeled, halved, cored, cut into 1/3-inch cubes [one of my organic Fujis was rotten when I got it home from the store, so I added enough McIntoshes to make up the weight — I think the important thing is to have a firm apple here]

    •    1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans (about 6 ounces)

FROSTING

    •    1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature

    •    1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

    •    1 tablespoon vanilla extract

    •    Pinch of salt

    •    3 cups powdered sugar (measured, then sifted)

PREPARATION

CAKE

    •    Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter and flour two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line bottom of each pan with parchment paper round.  one 9×13 inch glass dish.  Whisk first 7 ingredients in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat 1 cup butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add both sugars and beat until smooth. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla, then bourbon, if desired (mixture may look curdled). Add flour mixture to egg mixture in 3 additions alternately with applesauce in 2 additions, beating until blended after each addition. Stir in apples and pecans. Divide batter between cake pans; Pour batter into prepared pan; smooth tops.

    •    Bake cakes until tester inserted into center of each comes out clean, about 50 minutes [it was about 1 hour 10 minutes, I think, and the cake got a little done on the edges, but no harm for a birthday cake] . Transfer cakes to racks and cool in pans 15 minutes. Cut around pan sides to loosen cakes. Invert cakes onto racks; peel off parchment paper. Place another rack atop 1 cake and invert again so that cake is rounded side up. Repeat with second cake. Cool completely. DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Wrap each cake in plastic and store at room temperature.   I just stuck the cake in its dish in the fridge for a while.

FROSTING

    •    Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until smooth. Beat in vanilla extract and pinch of salt. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until frosting is smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. 

    •    Using long serrated knife, trim off rounded tops of cakes to make level; brush off any loose crumbs. Transfer 1 cake to platter, trimmed side up. Drop half of frosting (about 1 1/2 cups) by spoonfuls atop cake. Spread frosting evenly to edges of cake. Top with second cake, trimmed side down. Drop remaining frosting by spoonfuls onto top of cake, leaving sides of cake plain. Spread frosting to top edges of cake, swirling and creating peaks, if desired. Sprinkle with pecans. Let cake stand at room temperature 1 hour to allow frosting to set slightly. DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover with cake dome and refrigerate. Let cake stand at room temperature at least 2 hours before serving.   Aaaah.  I frosted the cake.  What more do you need to know?

We had this crock-pot white bean and spinach soup for dinner last night and it was so good and easy, I had to share.

I altered the recipe a bit to suit my schedule for the day, cooking it longer, which is never a problem with bean soup if you ask me.  I did it in two parts.

While I was cooking dinner the night before:

• Sauteed 2 chopped yellow onions in olive oil till soft.  Added 3 sliced cloves garlic and a bay leaf and sauteed a little bit longer.
• Put onions, garlic, and bay leaf into small crock pot with 6 cups of water and 2 cups dried navy beans (unsoaked), plus a ham hock.  Turned on high and let cook till bedtime (about 3 h).
• Stuck in the fridge overnight.

In the morning:

• Took the crockpot out of the fridge.
• Added 2 tsp ground fennel, 1 tsp red pepper flakes, and 1 tsp salt.
• Turned it on low and went away for the rest of the day.

When I got back home 15 minutes before dinner:

• Added about half a bunch of fresh, washed spinach leaves and let 'em wilt in there.

Then it went into the bowls with a drizzle of olive oil.  No blending or mashing of the beans, no correcting of spices.  It was great — the fennel and red pepper flakes gave it lots of flavor.  I served it with grated raw carrots dressed with lemon juice and salt, plus some sourdough toast.  

This one is a winner that may replace the classic "Senate bean soup" in my repertoire.  It was at least as easy.  I think you could have done it without the ham, if you were looking for a vegan version, simply by adding a little bit more garlic and salt, and maybe a dash of Worcestershire sauce to boost the umami a bit.   As it is, it's gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free.

I would probably have enjoyed twice as much spinach stirred in, but my children prefer their soup not quite so green, and so I kept the amount kind of low.

 

I wanted to make yeasted cardamom-raisin buns for breakfast this morning but discovered last night, after loading all the other ingredients in the bread machine, that I don't actually have any ground cardamom.  Only pods.  Mostly I'm happy to have cardamom pods, but in a bun — rather than in a curry — I thought that might be a bit crunchy.  

(Of course, you can soak pods overnight in the liquid you're going to use to make the buns, scenting it, and that's probably preferable to ground cardamom anyway, but I couldn't do that and still get the pods back out, what with the bread machine and all).

The solution was not long in coming:  Chai spices!  (I still have quite a lot of this wonderful chai tin left).  

Just a half teaspoon of chai spices, plus a standard yeast-bun recipe (with apple juice as both sweetener and liquid), plus half a cup of raisins, and we were in business.    The resulting buns were tender and lightly scented.   I drizzled them very lightly with the sort of icing you would put on cinnamon rolls.  Very nice.  Currants might have been even better.

You have to spice yeast buns lightly, because some spices — cinnamon is infamous for this, cloves too I think — suppress the yeast growth.  Good to know if you've got a Candida infloration, not so good if you want spiced yeast buns for breakfast.

In other recipe news, while I was visiting friend and commenter Christy P in Utah, we had lunch with the little girls at a Thai restaurant, and were mutually inspired with a possibility for the autumn fruit salad problem I mentioned before.

  So, I know this is no good if you have allergies, but what say you to a salad of lots of thinly sliced crisp apples and pears, grated carrots, and either seedless grapes or raisins, dressed with a non-garlicked and extra-citrusy version of a Thai peanut sauce?  Maybe with coconut?  I plan to try this later this week.  (Maybe the peanut-phobic could try a sweet tahini-based sauce?  Dunno.)

Please help me find an autumn fruit salad.  Preferably one with no Red Delicious apples or mayonnaise in it.

Look, this is my favorite fruit salad:

• cantaloupe chunks
• sliced strawberries
• halved grapes
• sliced kiwifruit
• dressed with a dressing of lime juice, honey, and chopped fresh mint.

Can anyone help me out for something kind of similarly fresh and enjoyable, only with fruit that's plentiful and inexpensive in the fall?