Late spring means strawberries in North Alabama. Strawberries require pound cake. They just do.

Good thing is that pound cake is one of simplest things you can bake. I’ve seen a number of recipes similar to this one spread throughout the Internet. More importantly to me is that this is very similar to recipe that my Mom uses for her pound cake.

Basic Pound Cake

Ingredients

1 1/3 c. butter, softened

2 1/2 c. sugar

6 eggs

3 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325dF. Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar in portions, beating at medium until fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, making certain that each egg is blended adding the next egg.

Add flour and buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, beating at low speed until just blended. Stir in vanilla.

Pour into greased and floured tube pan. Bake for between 65 to 70 minutes. Test for doneness if toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 to 15 minutes, remove from pan, and allow to cool for at least another 20 minutes before serving.

Selah.

Today’s Easter Sunday. Got me thinking back to my time working in Israel and remembered a chicken dish that I really liked at one of the restaurants in Tel Aviv. After some digging in my Israeli and Greek cookbooks, I’ve pulled together something I think might be close:

Braised Chicken with Lemon, Orange, Garlic, and Olives

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
Salt and black pepper, to taste
3 Tbs. olive oil
6 garlic closes
2 yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 lemon, juiced, zested, peeled, and thinly sliced
Juice from 2 tangerines
1 tbs. dried basil
1 tsb. oregano
1 cup mixed, pitted olives

Preheat oven to 375dF. Dry chicken and season with salt and pepper. In Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat. Sear chicken until golden brown. Add garlic and zest of lemon. Cook until fragrant. Remove chicken and garlic from the pan and reserve.

Add onions to pan and cook until wilted. Add lemon slices and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add lemon and tangerine juice, basil, and oregano and deglaze pan. Add lemon slices and olives and stir to combine. Nestle thighs skin skin side up onto onion mixture. Cover and bake for 40 to 60 minutes.

Selah.

One of the student organizations at work put on a bake sale around campus this week. Someone had baked a Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie… some of you may know of it as being a pie named after an event of the sport of kings held in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky. However, I have to be rather evasive and not use the actual name as the original developers of the recipe are painfully protective of their trademark.

No matter what, the pie itself was quite tasty; tasty enough that I went back through my files and dug out the recipe I had picked up from some Kentucky friends of mine. Their recipe is very similar to one I saw recently in Southern Living. Both recipes are very similar to the classic pecan pie recipe with the only real difference being the inclusion of chocolate when you put the pecans into the pie.

Chocolate Bourbon Pie

1/2 (15-ounce) package refrigerated piecrusts
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate morsels
1 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cup granulated sugar 
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar 
1/4 cup bourbon or water
4 large eggs 
1/4 cup butter 
2 teaspoons cornmeal
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt 

• Fit piecrust into a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate according to package directions; fold edges under, and crimp.
• Sprinkle pecans and chocolate evenly onto bottom of piecrust; set aside.
• Combine corn syrup and next 3 ingredients in a large saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
• Whisk together eggs and next 4 ingredients. Gradually whisk about one-fourth hot mixture into egg mixture; add to remaining hot mixture, whisking constantly. Pour filling into prepared piecrust.

• Bake at 325° for 55 minutes or until set; cool on wire rack.

A few friends of mine have been talking about ways to cook tofu. Being the “over-educated hillbilly” that I am, that compressed soy curd called tofu isn’t something that you would expect to see in my pantry. However, having worked for a number of years with folks from Japan and China + a few years of graduate school with people who regularly eat this stuff, I’ve tried fixing it a few different ways.

One recipe that I really like is a variation of one found in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything cookbook called “Braised Tofu with Eggplant and Shitakes”:

Braised Tofu with Eggplant and Shiitake Mushrooms

From Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything

1 lb tofu
1/4 cup peanut oil or corn oil
1 c. shiitake mushrooms (soaked and drained)
Salt & pepper, to taste
1 TB garlic, minced
1 TB ginger, minced
1.5 lbs eggplant
1 TB siracha chille sauce
0.5 c. water
2 TB soy sauce
1 TB sesame oil
1 TB toasted sesame seeds
2 TB chopped green onions

• Drain tofu and cut in half lengthwise. Place in-between four sheets of paper towels and then weight down the tofu (no more than 2 lbs weight). Let set for a minimum of 30 minutes but as long as possible.
• Trim eggplant, cut into cubes and place in colander or strainers. Sprinkle liberally with salt and let eggplant drain for 30 minutes. Rinse and then pat dry.
• Saute shiitakes w/ half of oil in deep skillet or wok w/ salt and peper until mushrooms are crisp (about 5 to 10 minutes). Remove to plate.
• Add remaining oil and then sauté garlic and ginger for about a minute. Then add eggplant and sauté for until it browns. Add chile sauce and water and cook until eggplant is tender; add more water if needed.
• Add tofu and soy sauce. Cook until tofu is heated. Add reserved mushrooms and turn off heat. Add sesame oil. Garish w/ sesame seeds and chopped green onions

What’s nice about this recipe is that you can adjust it quite easily if you have meat eaters in the house by replacing the mushrooms with chicken or shrimp (or in addition to the shiitakes). Another variation is to replace both the eggplant and mushrooms with ground pork. Good, quick, and easy way to do something far better than any Chinese takeout you get buy.