Sour Cream Pound Cake by The Careless Cook

 

Today your favorite, The Careless Cook offers a delicious, crowd-pleasing Sour Cream Pound Cake.  From the drool on your lips I knew you’d be excited! Well, at least the few subscribers to my blog are excited. Yes, they are few. But do I have tears soaking my apron and sogging my dough? Hardly. The Careless Cook smiles and sends his best to the lucky few.

 

Very nice older ladies, that I barely knew, begged for this recipe. Free Martinis will do that to the elderly. I’m happy Uber helped them find their way to their homes. I didn’t have enough beds. And besides, they were elderly.

 

No casualties.  Didn’t need a first time.

 

Have you ever made pound cakes? Most folks bake it in a Bundt pan, but not the Careless Cook! He uses a ceramic, four-sided, 9 x 12/5, pan, well-greased. But, do what you will. I do.

 

Ingredients (stand by for a cholesterol infusion)

 

2 sticks of butter (one cup) I softened the butter in the microwave

3 cups of sugar

6 large eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream

2 good splashes of vanilla extract.  

 

I make my own vanilla extract. Vanilla beans (Amazon) chopped and soaking in vodka or bourbon or what you have left from last night. Takes a month or two, but saves money and I think it tastes better. Lots of recipes on the net.

 

Putin’ it together

 

Heat the oven to 325 deg

 

Put sugar and butter in a big bowl and whip until fluffy. I used a hand held, electric mixer.

 

Toss in the eggs one or two at a time and mix well.

 

Stir in the salt, baking powder, and flour and mix, but not too long, just enough.

 

Toss in the sour cream and vanilla extract and mix until you have a smooth batter.

 

Pour the batter in the greased pan and put it in the oven for about an hour, or until the top is light brown. Use the knife test to be sure.   

 

Every oven is different, so always take a peek a time or two along the way.

 

Put on icing if you must, but I don’t must. Went to a “Garden Party to be with my Old Friends”

and they not only devoured the cake, they scraped up the crumbs.

 

The first thing people think:  This take too long! No it ain’t! Takes about 30 minutes and the rest of the time the oven does the work.  Hey! The Careless Cook doesn’t use a recipe that cuts into football or drinking time!  Wait a sec. Those are both the same!

 

You’re gonna love this recipe!

A Meatloaf, Vinaigrette Potatoes, and Broccoli Meal From The Careless Cook

 

 

Most of the time the Careless Cook offers just a single recipe, but this whole meal is easy to put

together and delicious!  Most of the time you settle on the protein, and then just clutter the plate with anything that floats through your mind.  This meal is worth cooking it all!

 

First is meatloaf.  I know, every mother and grandmother has their own recipe. This one is not too different, except it calls for turkey instead of beef.

 

Been shocked by the price of beef lately?  I’m still recovering. 

 

Also, there is a lot of chat about beef not being good for you. Who knows? On the net, medical charlatans abound. Nothing new. Snake oil has been around since the days of the pioneers. But, I’m getting off track.

 

My Meatloaf

 

3 pounds ground turkey

½ cup yellow mustard

½ cup of Catchup 

1/3 cup Worcestershire 

 

Salt and pepper

 

Mash everything together.  Grease a loaf pan. Put the mixture in.  Set the oven to 350 deg F

And cook for an hour and a half.  

 

Potatoes in Truly French Vinaigrette

 

1 bag of small potatoes, cleaned and sliced into halves or more, depending on the size

 

Important to boil only until barely soft.

 

Vinaigrette 

 

¼ cup shallots, minced or use regular onions. I did.

¼ cup white or red wine vinegar (I used red ‘cause that’s what I had!)

¼  cup of Dijon, or stone ground mustard. (I used the stone ground variety ‘cause guess what!)

½ cup virgin olive oil. Personally I prefer oil with a little experience. 

 

Mix everything together very well, cover and let it sit for 10-15 minutes or so. 

 

Put the warm boiled potatoes in a bowl and pour in the vinaigrette. Toss carefully. Don’t want to mash the potatoes.

 

Broccoli 

 

Steam as much broccoli as needed.  Then splash dashes of Balsamic vinegar over the broccoli as you wish.

 

So, how long did it take? An hour and a half, but you’ve been working only thirty minutes or so.

Even my three lazy constant readers can pay attention for thirty minutes! 

 

I should have mentioned wine. That would have kept them focused.

Braised Beans and Sardines with Fennel from The Careless Cook

 

Unlike most recipes from The Careless Cook, this takes a little time, but no worries, the time is just chopping and slicing and dicing. Even The Careless Cook can get this done pretty quickly while he’s sipping an excellent white wine from the Alsace.

 

Another good thing about this recipe is it feeds at least four of your freeloader friends. Bad thing is, this is so delicious, they’ll be embarrassed to invite you over. 

 

Ok, let’s get going!

 

Ingredients

 

1 fennel bulb. Hack off the stalks and fronds

1 lemon, cut in half

¼ cup olive oil. I don’t care if you’re sacrificing a virgin oil or now.

2 medium shallots, sliced thin

6 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped

¼ cup Italian herbs (I used The Spice Lab Italian Rustico from Amazon)

½ teaspoon (or more) red pepper flakes

½ cup dry or barely sweet white wine

6 cups chicken broth (I used Swanson Organic Chicken Broth)

2 cans of beans of choice (I used one can of red beans and one can of chickpeas)

5 chicken Andouille sausages, cut in arounds

1 can of oil packed sardines, drained (Someone in my house does not like sardines. She sliced and cut excellent salami.)        Both are delicious and with no fish or meat, it's still delicious.

1 cup coarsely chopped parsley

Coarse salt to taste

 

Serve with toasted bread.  I bake 2 Hour Fastest No Knead Bread by JennyCanCook.com.  Online recipe. Don’t let 2 hours scare you. The dough sits for an hour and it bakes for 45 minutes.  And no, I do not know this woman, nor does anyone pay me, but I do love her bread.

Puttin’ it together!

 

Slice the fennel bulb in half, then slice the halves thinly.

Thinly slice one half of the lemon and pick out any seeds.

 

Heat the oil in a large pot with the top off. Add the sliced fennel,

shallots, garlic, lemon slices, red pepper flakes, andouille sausage rounds, and cook, stirring occasionally, until everything is soft. 

Takes about 5-7 minutes.

 

Add wine to the pot. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil.

 

Reduce to a simmer, stirring for about five minutes. Fennel should be tender.  

Add the beans and cook another 8-10 minutes to let the beans soak up some broth.

 

Stir in the parsley, taste and add more salt to taste.

 

Serve in bowls of your choice, and place the sardines or whatever your heart desires and squeeze the other half of the lemon over the top.

 

There will be some luscious wine left for you! No worries. Your freeloaders are probably Beer swillers. 

With sardines on top.

 

 

Simple Lemon and Walnut Cake by the Careless Cook

 

I readily admit you haven’t heard from the Careless Cook in a while. Make that a long while. Have a bunch of excuses. No. Not correct.  Only one. Poetry.  

 

I can hear my three faithful readers gurgling as they chug some of their beer and let the rest spill down their faded, stained t-shirts, mumbling: “Stop with the chatter! And gimmie me sump-ten ta eat! And make it good stuff! I ain’t waitin’ much longer!”

 

Ok, zip up your pants and follow this recipe, drunk or sober, as if you have a choice. Get your wife to help you with the big words.

 

Time to cut to the kitchen.

 

Simply a Lemon Walnut Cake that you can start stuffing in your mouth in 45 minutes.

 

Ingredients

 

1 cup white sugar

½ cup of butter, softened (I used 30 second in a microwave oven.)

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or one glug)

2 teaspoons baking powder, more of less 

¾ cup milk (I use oat milk)

1 tablespoon lemon zest – now is when your wife has to stop in

1 tablespoon lemon juice. (Maybe little more, because the Careless Cook just doesn’t care)

A good hand full of walnuts, crushed (I fold the nuts in a dishtowel and use a rolling pin to teach those nuts a lesson)

 

Very Simple Icing

 

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 teaspoons lemon juice

3 heaping teaspoons powdered sugar

 

Stir well.

 

 

Getting’ it Done and Keepin’ it Simple

 

Oven to 350 deg F (175 deg C)

 

For baking, I used a well-greased 9 by 9 inch ceramic pan

 

Use a large mixing bowl and beat sugar and butter until fluffy. I used an electric hand mixer.

Then add eggs and vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice. Use that mixer and really get it together!

 

Add the flour and baking powder. Use that hand mixer viciously.  

 

Add the nuts and do the same.

 

Then add the milk and do more damage. 

 

Drop it all in the 9 by 9 inch baking pan. Bake for 45 minutes. Top should be lightly brown, but still give it the knife test.

 

Make the icing and paint it on.  The first coating it will glisten. When it’s not so glistening, paint on some more and then some more of the same until all the icing is used. 

 

 

 

 

A Plainly Elegant Salad by the Careless Cook

 

I admit I adore salads, with a big BUT! (only one T) Lettuce with bottled commercial dressing, carefully concocted to cover up every delicate, fresh flavor, is an insult to your taste buds and if you serve it to friends, you'll hear a loud choking noise and a call for 911, and hope it's not too late.

 

Doesn’t have to be that way. Lots of things you can do with olive oil and a vast array of vinegars, with many flavors. Red and while vinegars. Balsamic vinegar. Rice vinegar, plain and seasoned.  Think of vinaigrette as the baseline and be adventurous!

 

And when it comes to the salad itself, don’t think of “Dang this stuff is exotic and expensive,” think of what you’re got in your refrigerator, your pantry, and what you can do with what you’ve got.

 

First off, start with sipping a sturdy cup of red wine to stir the savage mind and bring it to boil over with a bursting of ideas. Tell no one what you’re doing. You’ll only confuse them. They don’t have your charming and efervescente palate. They probably won’t even pick a decent wine.

 

The Plainly Elegant Salad

 

Ingredients

 

¾  head of iceberg lettuce, cut or chopped as you wish (mine was coarsely chopped)

 

Handful of flat leaf parsley, coarsely chopped

 

2 stalks of celery, just a little thicker than thinly cut

 

½ red onion, peeled and thinly cut in slivers about half as long as your little finger

 

A handful of broken walnuts or another nut of your choosing

 

2 tangerines, peeled and pulled apart

 

A table spoon of Herbs de Provence. Look up Herbs de Provence if you’re curious. 

Short answer: Lots of herbs. I buy my packets from The Spice Lab on Amazon

 

Smoked salmon (I prefer Norwegian, that comes thinly sliced and smaller than your palm) Don’t savor smoked salmon? Try another type of smoked fish that’s not canned. Shrimp might work. I haven’t tried it.

 

A can of black beans, strained and rinsed. 

 

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Olives, if you wish

 

Next comes the dressing:

 

Red wine vinegar, seasoned rice vinegar, olive oil

 

Puttin’ It Teegether

 

The dressing.  I start with a few tablespoons of the oil and vinegars in a cereal sized bowl, taste and add more that suits me.

 

The Salad

 

In a fairly large salad dish, toss all the ingredients together except for the parsley, smoked salmon and herbs.

 

Cut the salmon to about half the size they come in the package, and use them to decorate a large salad dish. 

 

Scatter the parsley and herbs on top.

 

Voila!

 

 

 

 

Best Burgers You’ll Ever Eat! Says The Careless Cook

 

What’s the best hamburger you’ve ever eaten?  Don’t tell me it was when you were eighteen in the dark of night, in the backseat with…. Be honest or dishonest, I don’t care because either way you don’t remember if you were clutching the hamburgers or the buns. 

 

Let’s stick to your taste buds. Ah, maybe not.  Let’s stick to a hamburger you remember.

 

Most burgers I’ve had were dry and/or tasteless, overcooked, and not worth the calories.

 

Now I’ll stop with nostalgia of your nights in the backseat, or the ruinous burgers and march on to how to make the best burger you’ll ever eat.  

 

Rest easy. It’s not made with beef raised by Japanese farmers in Kyoto and sold at a price that matches what it costs to fix a Ferrari. 

 

This hamburger is made with American beef and you make it in your kitchen.  Which means you can drink wine while you cook and not worry about those sirens and pesky blinking red lights.

 

Ok. Time to pop the cork and get to cookin’!  By the way, I prefer a polite red while I cook, or whatever you say, if you’re buying.

 

Do y’all know that outstanding Chef, Jamie Oliver? He offers a hamburger almost as good as the Careless Cook’s version.

 

Best Burger

 

Ingredients for two burgers

 

2 hamburger buns.

 

6 oz ground beef per burger, with about 84% lean. If you go too lean, your burger will be dry.

 

Cut a handful of strips of onions. 

 

Slice some rounds of pickles. Enough to cover a bun. Any salty pickle will do.  I make my own.

 

Mustard and Catchup.

 

Coarse salt.

 

Black pepper.

 

Unsalted spicy Cajun seasoning

 

Putting it together:

 

Stretch out some parchment paper. 

 Roll the ground beef into two balls until they are solid.  

Slap each ball down on the paper.  Mash it down with your palm.

 

Give each patty a good amount of coarse salt and black pepper, then add a good dose of  unsalted Cajun spice.  Use your palm or a spatula and press the patties to a medium thickness.

 

Add some olive oil to a large skillet and saute the strips of onion until they are browned

 

Before you take out the onions, open and brown each of the buns.  Let them soak up the thin layer of oil. 

 Take out the buns. Don’t let them burn!

 

Put in the beef patties, spices down.  Use your spatula to press the patties down a bit and let ‘em sizzle!  

Add the onions on top of the burgers and flip ‘em over.  I cook my burgers about 2-3 minutes on each side.

 

Put pickles on the bottom buns, then add catsup.

 

Put the burgers on the buns with the onions up. 

 

Put mustard on the top bun.

 

Put the top bun on the burger!

 

Let it sit for a moment.

 

Press it down to allow the juices to absorb into the buns.

 

Cut the burger in half. 

 

Ask your wife if she really wants to eat both halves of her burger.

 

Pour her another glass of wine. Compliment her on how much weight she’s lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slightly Spicy Cheese Biscuits by The Careless Cook

 

Two of the things The Careless Cook likes to bake are biscuits and scones.    Is it because he is thoughtless and lazy?  No! Not entirely.  Often he is called upon to scape together massive amounts on short notice, to feel hordes of hungry and fabulously beautiful women.  Really? You ask.  Well, some are just hungry. 

Do women drop by the Cook’s kitchen and say, “Get with it you bad boy!  Can’t you tell we’re hungry”? It’s worse than that.  There are groups that meet every week and someone close to The Careless Cook insists these ladies are helpless and must be fed, and that he should also bake enough to satisfy their husbands and unknowns who simply pass through and catch a whiff of fresh baked goods.

But, not only does The Careless Cook bake for the multitudes, but also publishes recipes on this blog.  What a guy!

You may have read and perhaps baked the many biscuit and scone recipes that have appeared on these wonderful pages. If so, he applauds your taste and energy.  We shan’t discuss those who don’t bother and just want to be fed.

But, The Careless Cook still has high hopes for those who dedicate themselves to depending on charity, and will change their slovenly ways.   With that in mind, he offers this wonderful (and easy) biscuit recipe for Slightly Spicy Cheese Biscuits.

On to the baking…..

Slightly Spicy Cheese Biscuits

Oven set to 425ºF

Baking time about 14 minutes 

Every oven is different and the size of these drop biscuits may vary.  

You’ll know when the biscuits are done when the edges are brown and crispy and the peaked tops are a beautiful brown.

Ingredients 

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cups course yellow cornmeal

1 heaping tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon red pepper (more if you favor a mouth full of fire)

1 teaspoon salt

1 stick cold butter, chopped fine or shredded

2-3 cups coarsely, not finely shredded sharp cheddar (I used Australian sharp cheddar because I prefer the flavor)

1 cup butter milk (I used whole milk and added a teaspoon of fresh lemon to sour the milk)

Putin’ It T-gether

1. In a medium sized bowl, all all the dry ingredients and mix well
2. Add the butter and use your hands (as The Careless Cook does) or use a beater to mix
3. Add the coarsely shredded cheese and use your hands to mix well
4. Add the milk and mix well.  The Careless Cook uses a Danish hand held whisk/paddle because he finds it a fabulous mixer and easy to clean.

Prepare a cookie sheet by taking a sheet of parchment paper and lightly splash some water on one side so it sticks to the cookie sheet.

Use a tablespoon to scoop up some dough and drop it on the cookie sheet. Keeping going to fill the cookies sheet with lumps of dough about a inch or two apart.

Pop ‘em in the oven, set the timer, and wait for the goodness to happen! This recipe should make about 25 or more biscuits.

Don’t know what a Danish whisk looks like?  Check Amazon!

The Careless Cook has tried this recipe on both the ravenously hungry and the unfortunately picky eaters. Both groups showed surprise and disappointment when the last biscuit disappeared.