Savory Butternut, Trinity Shrimp & Tropical C-rice, Scottish Boiled Orange Cake

Gluten-Free Scottish Orange Cake
Scottish and orange?  Yep -- the Scots invented orange marmalade, so the story goes, back in the mid 1700s when a ship came to port with a cargo of oranges that were going bad.  The Captain asked his wife if she could do with the fruit, and marmalade was the result.  Some folks say this recipe evolved from a Jewish recipe.  Who cares?  It's really tasty!

This Orange Cake recipe comes from Kim Nelson, via The Splendid Table, the long running NPR Saturday morning foodie program.  As written this makes a 12" cake.  I used a half recipe and made an 8" cake.  Yes,  an 8" cake is half the volume of a 12" cake -- do the math.

Butter to grease the pan
1-1/4 cups sugar, plus 1 Tbsp for dusting
3/4 cup Almond Flour or meal, plus 1 Tbsp for dusting
3 medium, unpeeled, Navel Oranges (any good, sweet orange should do)
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
9 Large Eggs -- yep, 9 of 'em!!

Put the whole oranges in a deep-ish pot and cover with cold water.  Remove the fruit, add a 1/2 cup of sugar, and stir to dissolve as the water warms up.  Return the fruit and bring to a good simmer.  Simmer for 1 hour, until tender as swollen from absorbing sugar-water.  

Remove the oranges, discard the leftover water.  When cool, quarter the fruit and remove any seeds.  Put the fruit in your food processor and puree until smooth.  You can do this the day before and store the puree in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Generously butter a 12" springform pan, and dust it with the tablespoon of almond flour and the tablespoon of sugar.

In a bowl, combine the 3/4 cup of almond flour and 3/4 cup sugar with the baking powder.

With a mixer, whip the eggs on high until thick and creamy.  With a rubber spatula fold the orange puree into the eggs until just combined, and then fold in the almond flour mixture until smooth. 

Pour the batter into the prepared springform.

Bake 45 minutes or until a knife in the center comes out clean. 

Cool, cover and refrigerate 4 hours or overnight before removing from the pan. 

IMHO overnight is too long, really.  But it does need several hours to set up properly.

Yes the cake sags in the middle; nothing you can do about it unless you decide to fill the divot like I did:  whipped cream smoothed and then topped with sliced strawberries...

What a fabulous, light and flavor-filled dessert!  Really orange-y!

Savory Butternut Dinner
There was this butternut squash, just asking to be made into dinner.  But I just didn't want to make another brown-sugar-maple-butter-orange-juice kind of sweet dish.  I wanted something savory -- a real dinner recipe.  So I dug around a bit, combined bits and pieces from here and there, and this is what we had:

1 Butternut Squash, peeled
1/8 cup shredded Parmesan (from a can)
1/4 cup toasted Pine Nuts
1/8 cup Panko breadcrumbs
6 leaves fresh Basil, sliced julienne
1/8 cup chopped fresh Parsley
a dash of dried Sage
1/4 cup shredded herbed Cheese (Aldi brand)

Toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet for 5-8 minutes, and then set them aside.

I nuked the squash for about 4 minutes, then halved and peeled it.  In retrospect, I should have chopped the squash into 1" cubes at this point and nuked until just tender.  I laid the squash flat side up in a dish, and topped it with all the other ingredients.  Then I put the dish under the broiler for 5 minutes.  Voila!

The neck parts of the squash were undercooked and had to be returned to the microwave, but the flavor combination was really nice.  Next time I'll cube the squash, toss with a splash of EVOO and then toss with the herbs and such so everything gets coated before the second cooking.

Some of my northern readers may wonder why I use the microwave so much.  When it's 85-95 outside and 80 inside (we don't set the AC any lower than 78), it costs too much electricity and heating up the kitchen/house to fire up the oven for 30 minutes or more.  So we microwave, and then use the broiler for  5 minutes or so to give dishes a nice brown topping.

Trinity Shrimp & Tropical C-Rice

All my own invention!  Shrimp and veg in a tasty combination.  

12+ peeled  Shrimp

2 sticks Celery

1/2 Red Bell Pepper, diced

1/4 White Onion, diced

Cajun Spice blend of choice, to taste

2 cups Cauliflower Rice

1 packet Badia brand Sazon Tropicaletm spice blend

Saute the shrimp in a splash of water and Cajun spice or BBQ sauce of your choice.  Don't over-cook them, remove from the heat when they've just turned orange-pink.  Reserve.

In the same skillet, with a splash of EVOO, saute the Trinity -- Celery, Onion and Bell Pepper -- with Cajun spice until they're just soft.  Toss together with the shrimp.

In a pot, cook the c-rice -- home made or store-bought -- with the Tropical seasoning packet and 2/3 cup water.  Stir to mix the spice blend throughout the cauliflower.  Cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat to reduce some of the water.

Plate the c-rice with place the Trinity Shrimp either along side or on top.  Yum!