mulberryshoots

A couple of years ago, our favorite bakery in town was sold. Although the new owners kept making the cinnamon raisin swirl bread that my husband ate for breakfast all his life, the cinnamon was thinner and the raisins were hard to find. Likewise, the chocolate roll with filling that they made suffered the same consequences: very thin filling, irregularly placed so that one end of the roll was bare of filling — all the while the price went up a dollar per roll, and then another. This was their way of doing business which quickly drove this traditionally popular bakery into the ground.

Now, it’s closed, temporarily or not, but I’ve begun making the cinnamon swirl raisin bread with good results, using a challah bread dough recipe rich with eggs, golden raisins and an egg wash to hold the sugar/cinnamon swirl filling in place. Powdered sugar on top after the loaves cooled. Now that I’ve become comfortable with making these loaves, I decided to try my hand at the chocolate roll.

I’ve made jelly roll cakes before so the process of baking a thin sponge cake, rolled up with parchment while still warm was familiar to me. The filling ingredients, though, had me stumped. I looked at a few recipes online that specified a simple whipped cream filling that didn’t sound like what I had liked about the filling. As I recall, it was more robust than just whipped cream and it didn’t taste like cream cheese nor butter cream filling either.

Finally, I came across some recipes that sounded perhaps like the filling I remembered so fondly. It required butter, a dab of Crisco, Marshmallow Fluff (believe it or not) and powdered sugar. The combo of shortening plus the marshmallow and confectioners sugar seemed to make the filling more robust than just whipped cream.

So that’s what I made this afternoon. Can’t wait to try it out tonight for dessert. And, trust me, it wasn’t that hard to make! More creations resulting from the quarantine!

Tonight’s supper is a pantry/freezer meal. It’s called “American Chop Suey” for reasons that are beyond me – OR Hungarian goulash (ditto.) Anyhow, I defrosted ground beef and 2/3rds of a green pepper from the freezer. Found a partial box of Farfalle pasta, Ragu pizza sauce and Del Monte’s diced tomatoes and an onion in the pantry. From the fridge, a fresh unopened pack of pizza cheeses.

Although the dish is pretty straightforward, there are a couple of issues that account for it being really great tasting or mezza mezza: that is, cooking an onion, garlic, green pepper beef mix with drained diced tomatoes and a splash of pizza sauce, being careful to drain the mixture of too much juice before adding the pasta.

Well, it’s Sunday afternoon – and since there’s no football, baseball, basketball nor golf on TV (except for old games) you might spend the time making a carrot cake for two! Here’s the recipe which is half the Epicurious carrot/orange/raisin cake I’ve been making for decades!

Heat oven to 325. In a mixing bowl, add 3/4 vegetable oil, 1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 large eggs and mix together (I used a portable hand mixer.)

Add 1/2 to 1/3 cup of Navel orange (half an orange) and 1 Tablespoon grated orange peel (same half.)

Homemade pea soup: made it this morning – it’s a perfect “pantry” soup that tastes really delicious:
a) keep strips of bacon (3-4 together) in the freezer (handy for BLT’s and soups/stews);

b) saute bacon with half chopped Vidalia onion;

c) chop up one very large carrot and add to bacon & onion

d) separately, boil some water and soak a packet of dried green peas and let the peas absorb the water;

e) When plump, add the soaked peas (drained of soaking water) to the pot of browned bacon, onion and carrots. Add filtered water to the pot and add a gelatin capsule of Knorr’s chicken broth.

Beef noodle soup for supper tonight! Cut-up beef shin, onions, carrots, broth, Manischewitz thin noodles ~ with leftover buttermilk biscuits and apple crisp for dessert.