Mazurki!

No, it's not a folk dance, although it sounds like one -- it's a chewy, moist fruit bar from an old Russian recipe. There's another Mazurki, a Polish pastry, but this recipe is different. As nearly as I can tell, the original recipe probably had candied fruit instead of jam, but otherwise it seems to have changed little.

Let's waltz into the kitchen and begin!

Mazurki

Ingredients:

1 c. each: dried currants, raisins, chopped blanched almonds, chopped walnuts and dried apricots -- or any combination of dried fruit and nuts, as long as the proportions stay the same

1 c. thick jam (such as strawberry or other small fruit)*

2 eggs, unbeaten

1 t. vanilla

2 c. flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour)

Chop apricots. Chop nuts to desired texture -- I chop them fairly fine.





Mix all ingredients, except flour, until well blended. Add flour and stir in.









Spread in an oiled 11" x 15" shallow pan to depth of 1/2 inch. Bake at 300 degrees about 35 minutes.
Remove from oven; cut into diamond shapes (or squares or rectangles or go wild!) and return pan to oven for 5 minutes to dry cut edges. Remove to a wire cake rack to cool, and enjoy!

So... do the foxtrot, waltz, polka, boogie down, jitterbug, watusi, disco on into your kitchen, and give this recipe a spin! And while you're in there, remember, cook, eat, dance, dance, dance... and most important of all, love!

*for this particular batch, I used maple-apple preserves, because it was what I had the most of... you can see the chunks of apple, especially in the photo of the Mazurki still in the pan.

best laid plans...

With the best of intentions I started this blog -- and look how well I'm doing! Ha! It hasn't been lack of interest but more a lack of time... and forgetfulness... but I'm going to make the effort to post once a week. That shouldn't be so hard. Really, no big deal. I write all the time, so why I can't remember to write in my blog... dunno, but I'm going to do better.

For today, a few pictures of my current kitchen are all I have. But it's worth seeing, because you're going to be doubly impressed at all the cooking and baking and jamming and jellying and stuff that I do when you see how small my workspace is. I've had a smaller kitchen, in my very first apartment, where the kitchen was in an old closet, but this one is a close second. Anyway, without further ado...

Chez CookEatDanceLove!

Or at least part of it... I'll add more photos as I have them but this gives you a glimpse.

Le Stove: just your basic gas stove, tucked in one corner. Works fine.















Next, we have Le Counter, or to be precise, about 1/2 of Le Counter. A total of 49 linear inches of counter space, not including the sink in the middle; that amounts to about 2 feet on each side. Yep, that's all, folks! When the two of us getting cooking, it can be cozy, but it works just fine, and is a good time to put the ol' motto into play: clean as you go!

And, for the moment, last but not least, Le Kitchen Chat. Adorable, isn't she? and only 15 years young! Still a great mouser, too...

Banana Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce

All week I've been bemoaning the fact that I haven't had the time to do much cooking/baking and take photos. I wanted to get my blog up and running! I wanted to cook! I wanted to shoot photos! I wanted to eat something yummy!

So Friday afternoon I'm in the kitchen, cooking up things for dinner. Faced with a pile of ripe bananas, I remembered this great banana bread pudding recipe I originally got from Assaggio, an Italian restaurant in the Sellwood district of Portland, Oregon, and then later found on Epicurious.com. And no, it's not what you might be thinking: it's not bread pudding made with banana bread. It's bread pudding made with bananas. In my perhaps not all that humble opinion, a way better use for ripe bananas than banana bread, any day. I grabbed the recipe and was into the initial prep when I remembered my blog. Egads! My chance! So I grabbed my camera and started cooking and shooting.

I was in a hurry so I didn't do the usual kind of setting up and presentation that I might normally do. Not that I get all elaborate but given more time and more thought I would have done things a little differently. But at least I'm getting started.

Here's where you'll find the recipe.

And now, without further ado, here's Banana Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce!



So here it is: bananas are cooked and the first stage of layers is complete.




Second photo, layers are all assembled, custard is poured over. The only change I made from the recipe was to add a light sprinkle of cinnamon on top.



Third photo: Ah, the rum sauce -- pure decadence! Ingredients in the pan: butter, heavy cream, dark brown sugar...









Fourth photo: rum sauce, cooked, about to be removed from the heat for the addition of dark rum. Can you smell the rich caramel? Too yummy, and I'm not even a big caramel fan!








Photo five: the bread pudding after soaking about 20 minutes and just before going in the oven...










Photo six, just out of the oven. The smell is heavenly and so is the sight. Can you say, "Yum!"?


And photo seven, the final delight just before digging in. The rum sauce makes the whole dessert sing. Not a great presentation of the finished dessert, but trust me, it was delicious!

Cook, eat, dance, love!

stay tuned...

So, I got this rather wild idea yesterday to start a cooking blog. I cook like crazy and for years have been taking photos of my food-in-process, for absolutely no reason except it seemed like fun and I've been a photographer longer than I've been cooking. Unless you count frosting cookies when I was maybe 6. I got my first camera when I was 8. But I digress. With this background, it suddenly occurred to me I might as well blog!

It's going to take a few days for me to get things up and running. Like i said, spur of the moment start and I wasn't prepared. But if you're so inclined, come on back.

Meanwhile... cook, eat, dance, love!