Food on Friday: Party edition

The recipes for the party food I made for last Saturday's festivities have mostly been previously included on my blog: guacamole, hummus. The onion dip consisted of mixing a packet of onion soup mix with 16 oz of sour cream and letting it sit in the fridge for an hour. I made pita chips by cutting up each pita bread into 8 slices, brushing with olive oil, sprinkling with salt and garlic powder, and toasting them in the toaster oven.

The lemon cake was modified from this Smitten Kitchen recipe. In order to modify the original recipe (scaled to fit bundt pans), I decreased the ingredient ratio by 1/3. Here is my version:

MLE's tasty lemon cake (makes 1 9x13 sheet cake or 2 8 inch rounds)

1 1/3 sticks butter
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
zest of 4 lemons
2 cups flour
1/3 tsp baking soda
1/3 tsp baking powder
2/3 tsp salt
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and zest. Sift dry ingredients in separate bowl. Combine lemon juice, buttermilk, and vanilla in a 3rd bowl. Add flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to butter and sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Pour into cake pan that has been generously greased/floured (or better yet, use parchment paper, which we were out of). Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or until tester comes out clean. Meanwhile, combine 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup lemon juice in a pan over low heat until sugar is melted. Let cake cool for 10 minutes. Invert onto a plate (or, if you're like me and you can't get the cake out of the pan, leave it in) and poke a lot of holes with a toothpick. Spoon sugar/juice mixture slowly over the cake to allow it to soak in.

I frosted the cake using a basic vanilla buttercream, but you can use anything that sounds good!

For Sunday's brunch, I made a variety of things. The recipes for the Broccoli Slaw and Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble also came from Smitten Kitchen and were not modified (or if so, very slightly). The quiche, however, was my own creation.

MLE's Asparagus, Mushroom, and Turkey Sausage Quiche with cheeses

1 single pie crust (I used a premade frozen one since that seems to work better for quiche)
1/2 pound slim asparagus spears, trimmed and chopped into 1-inch pieces
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
4 button mushrooms, sliced
5 turkey breakfast sausage links
5 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/3 grated cheeses of your choice. I used smoked gouda and Irish Dubliner, which both have a lot of flavor

Preheat oven to 425 F. Sautee asparagus, onion, and mushrooms in a skillet with some olive oil, garlic powder, and a splash of balsamic or red wine vinegar, plus a generous pinch of salt and pepper until veggies are tender. Cook frozen sausages in a small saucepan until cooked through and browned, turning regularly. When done, let them cool and then chop into small pieces. Poke a few holes in the pie shell with a fork and stick it in the 425 oven for a few minutes, then remove it and turn the oven down to 350F. Whisk eggs with milk until thoroughly scrambled, add cheese. Pour veggies, sausage, and egg/cheese mixture into pie shell and bake for 30-40 minutes or until egg is set and cheese is melted. (It helps to put a baking sheet under the pie pan to catch any overflow.) Serves 8 as a component of a large brunch or 4 as a main dish.

The only other thing I did that could reasonably be considered "cooking" was to chop up some red grapes, strawberries, and kiwi and mix it with blackberries for a fruit salad.