My new best friend in the kitchen

Do you ever consider what the 'best' kitchen tool you own is? Yeah, me neither. However, after spending years (seriously, years) making a colossal butchery of brownies, I started asking around to find out how anyone cuts brownies without have cracked, chipped and otherwise nasty-looking edges on their brownies.

After all, I've been to bake sales with other moms' perfectly square brownies for sale and always wondered how they did that. Not enough back then to ask because I would never make brownies for a bake sale, we were a cupcake kind of family.

But, you know, presentation is sometimes 75% of how something tastes, so I figured I should master this 'square-edged brownie' phenomenon.

Voila! My new best friend in the kitchen arsenal:



Yes, dear reader- a plastic knife. Cuts through warm brownies like buttah. No more crumbly edges, no more cracked tops and chunks missing. PERFECTLY square brownies every time. Ahhh.

White Cedar Inn Bed and Breakfast 178 Main St Freeport, Maine 04032

Peachy Upside Down Cake- September Recipe of the Month

If you've read up on the blog, you know this came about because guests skipped breakfast one day. This was pretty yummy. The cake part is a bit closer to 'shortcake' in consistency, so make adjustments as you like.

Ingredients:

For the peach topping:

1/4 c butter
1/2 c packed light brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
18 peach slices (fresh, canned, whatever you have)

For the cake:

1/2 c butter, softened
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 1/4 c flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 c milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

For the topping:

Melt the 1/4 cup of butter. Press the brown sugar into the bottom of an 8" square pyrex baking dish. Sprinkle the 1/4 tsp of nutmeg over the top. Pour the melted butter over the top, making sure you get all areas of the brown sugar covered (otherwise the peaches will stick). Lay the peach slices on top of the brown sugar in sets of two, 3 rows across, with a slight space between each set of 2 peaches. (makes it easier to cut into 9 servings).



For the cake:

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat in egg. Mix flour, baking powder and salt together and alternating with the milk, add to creamed butter & sugar. Beat well after each addition. The consistency will be thick.



Spread batter over peaches in baking dish. Make sure you get it into all the corners.

Pop in oven for 45 minutes. (That's how long it took in my oven, you may want to start with 40 minutes in your oven.) Cake will be lightly browned on top and a toothpick carefully inserted will come out clean. (Don't poke the peaches when testing.)



Let sit for 5 minutes and then invert on the serving plate. (Do not invert on another surface to take pictures. You really can't MOVE the inverted cake without it falling apart. Lesson learned.) Let cool and gently cut into 9 pieces, cutting between every 2 slices of peaches and along the edges of the 3 rows. If the peaches stick to the baking dish, don't try to get them off until the cake is completely on the serving plate, then you can slide a spatula under the stuck ones and peel them off and replace them where they belong. (I learned a lot making this cake, can you tell?)

Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

White Cedar Inn Bed and Breakfast 178 Main St Freeport, Maine 04032

When guests skip breakfast

OK, I know those of you who have delighted in our breakfasts are staring at your computer screens aghast- skip breakfast? What were they thinking? Sometimes it's not planned, guests just realize it's farther away to wherever they are going than they thought or their flight leaves really early so they don't have time to stop and dawdle over the fabulous fruity french toast or the Irish scrambled eggs (BTW, now known as 'Tuscan Scrambled Eggs' after they were pronounced 'a taste of home' by one of our Italian guests. Plus, 'Tuscan' makes you think of tomatoes and 'Irish' doesn't, so it really does work out better. Sorry Nana.)

Anyway, back to what happens when guests skip breakfast- we have a lot of fruit leftover. Generally, Rock has all the fruit courses made up by 6:30 AM so if anyone leaves after that we have extras. Today, we had 5 extra peach fruit plates leftover and this is what happened to them:


Yum-o! Peach upside down cake! I know most of you know that I am not the cook. I won't mention how old I am but this is the very first upside down cake I have ever made. I'll be tasting it once it has cooled. Hope it's worthy of the pretty photo it took!

White Cedar Inn Bed and Breakfast 178 Main St Freeport, Maine 04032

Crazy busy

You may have noticed the blogs are getting further apart as summer progresses. There is a really good reason for that...YOU!

I'll take just a moment here to thank all of our wonderful guests this summer who have made this the busiest summer we have ever had. I managed to update the website back in July (all new slideshows!) but I haven't sat down since. (OK, I'm sitting right now, but don't tell Rock.)

Rock has been working his magic in the kitchen every morning now since June 24. (June 23 was our last day with no guests in the house!) Looking forward, I think we might squeeze in a day off in September, just before the leaf-peeping season hits.

A hearty 'THANK YOU' to all of you who have visited us this summer, who have plans to visit us soon and even to those of you who are just thinking about making a trip to White Cedar Inn. We appreciate all of you very much!

White Cedar Inn Bed and Breakfast 178 Main St Freeport, Maine 04032

Grilled Eggplant- August Recipe of the Month

So simple, even I can make this! And, eggplant is one of those healthy veggies. Vitamins K & B6, Folate, Thiamin, Potassium, Manganese & dietary fiber. And relatively low calories. (High in salt, tho.)

In trying to eat throughout the color wheel, nothing does purple like eggplant!

What you need to do this:

1 eggplant (medium size for 2)
olive oil
thyme (crushed or fresh)
salt
pepper

Slice eggplant into thick chunks. Slicing on a diagonal gives you nicer looking slices with a long eggplant. A bulbous eggplant will give nice slices cut straight on. Mix the olive oil, salt, pepper & thyme together in a small bowl. Brush both cut sides of the eggplant with mixture. (No specific measurements, just what tastes good to you.)

Preheat grill. Pop those eggplant slices on the grill and cook until the 'white' flesh is soft, but not soggy. This doesn't take long, so if you are having meat, too, you'll want that to be almost done before you start the eggplant on the grill.

We had our eggplant with lamb chops from the Friday farmers market at LL Bean.

White Cedar Inn Bed and Breakfast 178 Main St Freeport, Maine 04032

Roasted Root Veggies- July Recipe of the Month

With farmers markets in full swing everywhere, here is a great recipe for all of those wonderful root veggies you've picked up or will soon have on hand. This recipe can be adapted to ANY root veggies + squashes that you may find. It's very versatile all year long. It might be a little toasty on a hot day to have the oven running, but you can also try these on the grill, wrapped in several layers of heavy-duty foil.

Consider how many you will be feeding and whether or not it would be nice to have leftovers for lunch the next day to determine how much of everything you want.

Ingredients: (for 2)

4 small red potatoes (fingerlings are also a good option)
1 medium sweet potato
2-3 carrots
3-4 small beets
3-4 small hakurei turnips (small, white turnips)
3-4 cloves of garlic (the more the better!)
1 large red onion
1 delicata squash (or other squash type)
salt
pepper
olive oil
rosemary sprigs

Cut all of the veggies into small, bite-size chunks, toss with salt, pepper, rosemary and enough olive oil to coat them. Spread out on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Bake at 400 for 45 minutes, or until veggies are fork-tender. Enjoy!

This makes a perfect side for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner as well.

White Cedar Inn Bed and Breakfast 178 Main St Freeport, Maine 04032

Sneak peek

We had all new photos taken of the inn and the breakfasts with Rock doing a marathon breakfast-cooking for the photographer. You have no idea how hard it is to pour syrup slowly from that height with your arm straight out across the table!

Here's a sneak peek...

White Cedar Inn Bed and Breakfast 178 Main St Freeport, Maine 04032