Vegan Baltimore Peach Cake

Peaches. Fresh, ripe, juicy peaches are my favorite food in the whole world. I buy 5 pounds of them every single week during the summer at the farmer's market and I eat almost every single one before time to go back to the farmer's market a week later. Sam probably doesn't even realize this, but it is one of the most sacrificial acts of love when I offer him one of my sweet, juicy, golden balls of pure joy and deliciousness!

Lately I've been having a hankering for a recipe my mom-mom used to make. The trouble is, I didn't know what it was called, and even if I did, I don't have her recipe and sadly my mom-mom isn't around anymore to ask. (Although I did send a message to my Aunt to see if she has the recipe… which I now notice she replied to after I already made my own version... next time!)

Here's the thing, my mom-mom is a great cook! It is a wonder that her four children didn't weigh 500 pounds while living in her house. I remember making the drive up to mom-mom's house in Towson, just outside of Baltimore, MD, as a kid. It seemed like the 3-4 hour drive from my childhood home in VA took fooooorever, but I always knew that no matter what hour we arrived there would be delicious treats awaiting us- because that is what good grandmothers do!

And so, this week, staring at my pile of peaches wondering what to do with them all I was transported back to my mom-mom's Towson kitchen and all the wonderful memories I have associated with that kitchen and my mom-mom. The memories and emotions we attach to food are so incredible, aren't they? I remember not only the peach cake thing-y, but standing on a stool so I could reach the counter with a giant apron on sifting flour for whatever delicious concoction my mom-mom was cooking up. One thing I do not remember is ever feeling like I was in the way, which I am sure that I was, but my mom-mom so delighted in her grandchildren that even if we were making a huge mess and slowing her down, she was always happy to have us in her kitchen "helping."

I think this emotional connection to food from my past is one of the more difficult things about transitioning to vegan cooking. It's one thing to give up meat, it's another to give up my mom-mom's roulade or Sam's grandm

om's german sour beef. So when I stumbled upon a recipe for "Baltimore Peach Cake" online that seemed quite similar to the "peach cake thing-y" I remember my Baltimorean mom-mom making, I decided to try my hand at converting it to vegan (as well as making a few other adjustments to suit my tastes). And I must say, I am delighted at the results! First of all, you'd never know it's vegan, and if you're an omnivore, feel free to use butter instead of vegan margarine and milk instead of almond milk if that is what you have on hand (though I doubt it will improve the results).

Molly's Vegan B-more Peach Cake

1 Tbsp vegan margarine (Earth Balance vegan buttery spread), softened

2 1/2 cups unbleached white whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups almond milk

1 cup sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar mixed with 1 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbsp vegan margarine, melted

3-4 peaches, peeled and sliced

Preheat over to 350. Mix first 6 ingredients. Spread in a greased 15"x10" jelly roll pan. Sprinkle with half the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Arrange peach slices in rows. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon/sugar mixture and drizzle melted margarine over all. Bake 25-30 minutes.

Enjoy!

A geometry teacher's musings on CS Lewis's discussion of reasoning

Disclaimer: I'm a nerd. This post is just proof.

Our small group is reading CS Lewis's book, "The Weight of Glory" which is a compilation of various lectures he had given during WWII. The lecture we will discuss this week is titled "Why I am not a pacifist" which has very little to do with why it has me so excited but is very interesting considering all of the men in our small group are active duty military. ANYWAY, there is a wonderful discussion of reasoning that has the geometry teacher in me all excited. I am blogging about it now so that in the future if I ever return to teaching, I will remember this! (I wonder if I could make my students read CS Lewis in geometry class? hum...)

Lewis says that there are 3 elements of reasoning:

1) The reception of facts via either experience or authority

2) Intuition (perceiving self-evident truth)

3) The skill of arranging facts to yield a series of intuitions which produce a proof of truth or falsehood

I am particularly interested in #3 considering my graduate thesis is a formative evaluation of an instructional unit I created on proving geometric theorems which is possibly my favorite topic in all of math (and one of the most important topics in all of education IMHO...).

I LOVE the following quote:

"Thus in a geometrical proof each step is seen by intuition, and to fail to see it is to be not a bad geometrician but an idiot." (excuse me, but LOL! wouldn't I love to say this to my students sometimes? I'd probably be fired...) "The skill comes in arranging the material into a series of intuitable 'steps.' Failure to do this does not mean idiocy, but only lack of ingenuity or invention. Failure to follow it need not mean idiocy, but either inattention or a defect of memory which forbids us to hold all the intuitions together."

I personally can empathize with the defect of memory making it difficult to hold all the intuitions together. I guess I have my ADD to thank for that. But I so enjoy the process of untangling logic that once seemed jumbled and confusing in my head.

Furthermore, Lewis notes that corrections of errors in reasoning are corrections of either the 1st or 3rd element of reasoning because the 2nd element (intuition) cannot be corrected, nor supplied if lacking. At first thought, this was a depressing idea to me. I spent a considerable amount of time during my graduate research trying to uncover how to successfully develop deductive reasoning skills in students and to read someone so logically brilliant as CS Lewis claim that logical intuition cannot be taught was initially somewhat disheartening. Except that he follows it up by noting that it is extremely rare for intuition to truly be lacking, which brings me to the next quote I want to store for use with future students:

"Every teacher knows that people are constantly protesting that they 'can't see' some self-evident inference, but the supposed inability is usually a refusal to see, resulting either from some passion which wants not to see the truth in question or else from sloth which does not want to think at all." [emphasis mine]

Yes! One of the most frustrating things as a teacher is the inability to make a student "see" something that is self-evident (i.e. obvious)! And I couldn't agree more with Lewis' statement attributing the problem to sloth! I know that at times I have claimed not to understand something when really, I just didn't care to put in the necessary effort to exercise my brain to work hard enough to understand it.

This may seem like a nasty thing to say to a student, like something a lazy teacher who doesn't want to take responsibility for their student's success would say... but I actually kind of find this idea hopeful. Hopefully because it means that people most likely DO have the ability to understand logic if they are motivated to try. So my objective as a teacher is not so much to impart logical ability to my students as it is to motivate them to utilize the God-given logical reasoning they already have.

My very own vegetable galette recipe!

If you've been following my blog through the "vegan experiment" then you've likely noticed that I have a slight addiction to these vegetable "pies" (which I learned are actually "galettes"- technically...) from Sweet Elena's booth at the farmer's market. I've been meaning for ages to try to replicate them at home and finally got around to my first attempt today. None of the recipes I found online where really what I wanted so I made my own! Which is a big deal for me because I am a shameless copycat and not really creative at all! Anyway, this didn't turn out exactly like the farmer's market one because I omitted the feta, used yellow onions instead of green onions, added mushrooms, and omitted the tomato because we were out, and I still don't know how to make the crust exactly the same... But despite all that, Sam likes my galette better! I don't know that I like it better or worse, it is just different. But very, very good and will definitely become a staple recipe for us. So without further ado...

Molly's Vegetable Galette:

Crust:

1 1/4 cups unbleached white whole wheat flour (I'm sure you could use all purpose)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

6 tbsp chilled unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1/4 cup all-vegetable shortening

3-4 tbsp ice cold water

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in food processor with 2 pulses. Add butter cubes and pulse. Add shortening in tablespoonful clumps and pulse. Drizzle 3 tbsp water and pulse. If dough holds together well when pinched, it is done, if not, add more ice water. Form into a disc and refrigerate for an hour. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface till it is large enough to fill a pie plate. Lay in pie plate and cut off excess. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes, remove from oven, layer with filling, and return to oven at 350 for 30 minutes.

Filling:

Butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cubed

Yellow onion, peeled, roughly chopped

4 carrots, peeled, roughly chopped

box of brown mushrooms

6 cups spinach

2 tbsp butter

olive oil

oregano

salt and pepper

grated parmesan

Place butternut squash cubes, onion, and carrots on a baking sheet. Drizzle of oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and oregano. Bake at 400 for 35 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes till veggies are soft. Saute spinach in butter till just wilted. Saute mushrooms in butter till just cooked. In partially cooked pie shell layer spinach, grate parmesan over spinach, then butternut squash, onions, carrots, and mushrooms and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can use whatever veggies that are in season or that you prefer, and you can add whatever herbs or spices you like. So try it with your favorite veggies and spices and let me know what good combos you come up with!

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream

There are two types of people in the world, those who eat the cupcake for the cake and those who eat the cupcake for the frosting. Until I came upon this tasty little cake I was definitely the later and now I am teetering on the edge of becoming a cake person! Yes, this vanilla bean cake is THAT good!

I came upon this combo while testing recipes for a baby shower that I am throwing for a friend, and fellow buttercream-lover, in a couple months. She is having a sweet little girl so I needed something sweet and PINK to bake! And I couldn't think of anything more delicious than the strawberry buttercream filling of our wedding cake which I've never been able to replicate. But with the new knowledge I learned from the oreo buttercream I recently posted about I knew what to look for in a good buttercream recipe (cooking egg whites with sugar and creaming them with butter, NO powdered sugar). Anyway, while searching for an acceptable strawberry buttercream I came across this vanilla bean cake recipe that sounded tempting. I did not try the strawberry buttercream that accompanies the cake recipe because it uses powdered sugar which makes buttercream sickeningly sweet in my opinion so I kept searching and found a Martha Stewart strawberry buttercream recipe that meet my approval.

Vanilla Bean Cake (did NOT use this icing recipe):

http://www.sophistimom.com/vanilla-bean-cupcakes-with-strawberry-buttercream/

Strawberry Buttercream:

http://www.marthastewart.com/314981/strawberry-buttercream

The cake is fluffy and moist, the kind of moist I've only previously achieved with store-bought cake mixes, and the vanilla flavor is incredible. The strawberry buttercream is slightly tart, very light and creamy, and tasted just like fresh, ripe, strawberries- just like our wedding cake! Even Sam, who is definitely not a cake (or frosting) person, loved them!