Love those slow-cooker recipes!

I'm on a recipe roll.

Mr. L and I save the newspaper to read in the evenings. After a day at the computer, we just want to chill out with an adult beverage and the paper. We don't read our local paper (OMG--what a disaster), so every day Mr. L goes to the grocery store and picks up the Buffalo News.

The last thing I want to do after relaxing for an hour or so is get up and cook dinner. That's why I love my slow cooker. Toss everything in and six to eight hours later you've got your evening meal read to serve. And one-pot (or crock) meals are a breeze to clean up, too. (Okay, usually the crock soaks overnight and then it gets washed and put away in the morning.)

One of the easiest recipes I make is Slow Cooker Kielbasa and Beans. It literally couldn't be easier.

Ingredients
1 pound smoked turkey kielbasa, cut into coins
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium sweet red pepper, chopped
2 cans (16 ounces each) beans, rinsed and drained
½ cup chicken broth
Pepper to taste

Add all the ingredients to your slow cooker and switch it to the "high" setting.  Give it a stir and cover. If using raw onions and peppers, let it cook for 5-6 hours. If using frozen onions and peppers, give them a quick thaw in the microwave. Heat on high for 2 to 3 hours. (Everything is pretty much already cooked, so you're really only heating it up.)

Yield:  6 servings

It doesn't matter what kind of beans you use. I've used just kidney beans, and I've switched it around using cannellini, garbanzo, black-eyed peas, great northern beans--anything I had in the cupboard--and it still turns out great.

Another great thing about this recipe: if you use turkey kielbasa, there's very little fat, it tastes great, and has very few calories.  Win-win!

Have you got any easy-peasy slow cooker recipes you'd like to share?

My Easter Dessert

The best part of holidays for me is ... the food. It's so enjoyable to share a wonderful meal with friends and/or family, and this year for Easter we're going traditional with a spiral ham, deviled eggs, honeyed carrots, rolls, and at least one more fresh veggie. We'll see what's at the store tomorrow.

But my favorite part of the meal is the dessert.  Okay, I've got a sweet tooth. This year, I'm leaning toward cake. My upcoming book, The Best From Swans Nest, a Lotus Bay Cookbook, has ten cake recipes and five frosting recipes. YUM! I'm leaning toward making spice cake with maple frosting. (That maple frosting also takes great with carrot cake or hummingbird cake. Yum-yum!)

Spice Cake
Ingredients
¼ cup butter or ½ cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup dark-brown sugar, packed
4 eggs
½ cup milk
½ cup molasses
2¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC, Gas Mark 4). Butter and lightly flour two 8-inch round cake pans. Cream the butter or shortening and slowly add the two sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, then add the milk and molasses, beating thoroughly. In another bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients and add to the wet mixture, beating until well blended. Pour the batter into the pans and bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.

Frost with your favorite cream cheese or buttercream frosting. Also tastes great with maple or caramel frosting, or sift confectioners’ sugar over the top.

Yield:  6 to 8 servings

Maple Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2¾ cups confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
¼ cup chopped walnuts

Place the softened butter in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer for 30 to 40 seconds until whipped. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Sift the confectioner’s sugar into the bowl. Beat with an electric mixer for 30 to 40 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the brown sugar and maple syrup. Beat for 2 to 3 minutes or until the mixture is fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Stir in the walnuts until just until mixed and spread on the cooled cake.

Yield: 3 cups

THE BEST FROM SWANS NEST arrives on May 14th. Pre-order your copy now!

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You'll get only The Best From Swans Nest

Woo-hoo! Two years in the making, but at last THE BEST FROM SWANS NEST is now available for pre-order. It's a companion cookbook for the Lotus Bay Mystery series.

What's been fun for me is giving background information for Kathy Grant and what her inn and food mean to her. If you're a fan of the Lotus Bay Mysteries, and you like to eat, you'll want to add this companion to the series to your ereader. (And yes, it will also be available in print -- hopefully on the same day as the ebook. I'll keep you posted.)

Here's a brief description:

Kathy Grant, owner of the Swans Nest Inn on beautiful Lotus Bay, has collected more than a hundred mouth-watering recipes that she not only offers her B&B guests, but the brides who book their engagement and wedding parties at the inn.

Now you can enjoy the same treats like sweet sausage coffee ring, lots of marvelous muffins, quiche, stuffed mushrooms and many, many more!

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Hooked on British Reality Shows

I don't like American reality TV shows. There, I said it. They're just too scripted and full of drama. I may be wrong, but British reality shows seem a lot more real to me.

It seems like every few months I find another show on YouTube to binge on.  Last month, it was Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords. (Its original title was Bad Tenants, Scum Landlords. I guess they had to change it.)  Over the 40+ episodes, I got to feel like Paul and Chris were chums, helping people with really bad tenants get back their properties. (And there were more than a couple of scary moments that I'm sure were NOT scripted.)

This week, I found a new show to have playing in the background while I do mundane things like pair socks and fold towels:  Eat Well For Less.  This show features two guys (Gregg and Chris) who watch people shop, confront them at the register, and then go to their homes and swap out bad-for-you and expensive food for lower calorie and cheaper (similar) products.

Unfortunately, there aren't many episodes available on YouTube so I'll be looking for something new next week, but I've quite enjoyed the episodes I was able to see.

What I like best is that most of the families eat a LOT of processed food -- mostly because they think they don't have the time or were never taught to cook. I like the cooking portions best. They don't give the recipes, but you can find them online. (There are a few I want to try -- like vegetable croquettes, where you take all the dodgy veggies out of your fridge, chop or cut into ribbons, add a little flour, some garlic, and a couple of eggs, and fry them in a little oil. I can see me making that in the summer when the garden is over-producing. The Rosted Caluiflower with Romesco Sauce sounds good, too.

After watching those shows, it really made me want to get in the kitchen and cook. Unfortunately, I didn't have most of the ingredients for the dishes they made. (Like coconut oil, plain yogurt, etc.) I'm going to have to hit the grocery store and stock up on some of these ingredients.

Any suggestions on what British show I should try to watch next?

Baking with my characters

I was speaking with my hairdresser the other day (got my roots done -- I'm YOUNG again!) and she was telling me that her husband doesn't like to eat. She has to remind him to eat.

A person who doesn't like to eat??????????

I smell cake/cookies/muffins/Yorkshire pudding and I gain weight. Therefore, I live vicariously through my characters who love to bake. Among them: Katie Bonner, Kathy Grant, and most recently Tricia Miles. These ladies are baking up a storm--and they can do it and not get fat because they have an audience they can feed. Katie has her vendors at Artesans Alley, Kathy has been experimenting with recipes for her B&B and feeding her friends Tori, Anissa, Noreen and Paul. Tricia has her employees, Pixie and Mr. Everett (and when you read A Killer Edition, which will be out next year, this will become really obvious.)


But I like to bake, too. And the other day my neighbor, who has a huge garden, put out a little stand for veggies his family can't eat. It's so cute with a colorful umbrella to shade the veggies during the day. And I picked up a zucchini, tomato and a chili pepper. The zucchini was too big for stir fry, but I knew when I picked it up it was destined for zucchini muffins.

Who's my audience? Mr. L. He loves baked goods for breakfast and this will be my second batch of zucchini muffins this summer. In fact, I will need to make a double batch because it is such a big zucchini. That doesn't worry me!  Here's my recipe.

Zucchini Muffins
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups finely shredded unpeeled zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dried currants or chopped raisins

Preheat oven to 350° In a bowl, combine the first six ingredients. Combine the egg and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the zucchini, walnuts and currants. Coat muffin cups with cooking spray or use paper liners; fill three-fourths full with batter. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.

Yield: 12 muffins

Who do you bake for? (And care to share a recipe, too?)

==========================================

Recipes to Die For: A Victoria Square Cookbook, was the first companion book I did for my New York Times bestselling  Victoria Square Mystery series. In it, Katie Bonner shares her favorite recipes, and those of her vendors and the merchants on Victoria Square, plus each contributors signature drink and anecdotes about their lives on Victoria square.

Treat yourself today!

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It's a bumber crop!

This year I've got a bumper crop of rhubarb. Of course, the thing I love to make most is rhubarb chutney, but I made so much of it two years ago, that I haven't even started last year's jars.  And -- holy cow, did I mention that bumper crop???

Luckily, Mr. L loves rhubarb ANYTHING. In years past, I've made him rhubarb crisp and strawberry-rhubarb pies. My folks used to like stewed rhubarb with Bird's custard.

I'm going for rhubarb bread and here's the recipe I'm using.

Rhubarb Bread
Ingredients
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1½ cups brown sugar
1 egg
2½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk (liquid or made from powder)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1½ cup chopped rhubarb (small but not fine)
¾ cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC, Gas Mark 4). Mix the oil, brown sugar, and egg together in mixing bowl. Alternate with flour, salt and soda. Add buttermilk, vanilla, rhubarb and walnuts. Bake in a well-greased tube pan for 34-55 minutes. Test with a toothpick to see if done. This recipe tastes better the day after baking. Refrigerate any leftovers. Keeps well in the freezer for several weeks.

Yield: 12-16 slices

What's your favorite rhubarb recipe?

Fresh from the oven

I made Yorkshire pudding last week using Gordon Ramsey's recipe. I never made them in a muffin pan before (usually in a cast iron skillet), and while they look great, obviously Gordon's oven runs hotter than mine. I think they could have used another couple of minutes, but they did taste good. I'm going to make them again like that soon. Now to buy another $26 rib. Have you made a new recipe lately?

Time for a little comfort

It's that time of year ... Soup Time.

When the weather turns colder, is there anything more comforting than a nice, hot bowl of soup. (Don't answer right now) A few years ago, I made my very first turkey vegetable soup. It wasn't very good. But I made a huge vat so I had a LOT of servings, which I froze. Then I discovered that eating soup for lunch made it possible to lose a couple of pounds. Yes, soup is good food.

So I started making soup on a regular basis. I'd save the chicken carcasses and make chicken soup, but some of the bones on a chicken are really small and no matter how much I sieved it, and picked through the remains, a few little bones got through. Mr. L will NOT eat my chicken soup, so I quit saving the carcasses and, after a reader's suggestion, started buying turkey parts to make soup. Turkey's have much bigger bones, and seldom does one get through. (But Mr. L still won't eat my turkey soup. Go figure! Ah, well. More for me!)

I also make a lot of 16 (or 15--depending on the package) bean soup. Before the end of summer, I visit my favorite Mennonite grocery store and stock up on ham hocks. The ones in my regular store are not only overly smoked, but virtually have no meat on them. The ones from the Mennonite store are a little more money, but man--what a great bean soup they make. (I have 6 hocks in the freezer. That's about enough for 60 bowls of soup! Yum-Yum!)

The other day I made one of my favorite soups: Cabbage Soup. This soup has virtually NO calories, and there's a reason it's got a reputation as a weight-loss diet in and of itself. The thing is, it tastes pretty darn good, too.

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

½ onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 quarts water  

4 teaspoons chicken bouillon granules

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

½ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

½ head cabbage, cored and coarsely chopped Cabbage

1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes, drained and diced

4 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar (optional)

In a large stockpot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Stir in onion and garlic; cook until onion is transparent, about 5 minutes. Stir in water, bouillon, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then stir in cabbage. Simmer until cabbage wilts, about 10 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and the vinegar. Return to a boil, then simmer 15 to 30 minutes, stirring often.

Yield: 6-8 servings

Okay, now spill it. What's your favorite comfort food?

Cakes, Cookies, Pies? It's your choice today!

Can you imagine a world without calories? Nah, neither can I.

BUT ... can you also imagine how sad it would be to live in a world without dessert?

Just think, no cakes, no pies, no cookies, no pastries, no ice cream, no cheesecake, no fruit. It's enough to make you cry! Luckily, that's not the world we live in.

You can go to the grocery store or bakery and indulge yourself and/or your family, or you can take the satisfaction of making dessert yourself.

Recipes To Die For: A Victoria Square Cookbook can help.  Katie Bonner, of the Victoria Square Mysteries, has put together a collection of recipes for breakfast, lunch, happy hour (in the form of signature drinks), and dinner -- but most enjoyably, for teatime and dessert.

Pies, cookies, cakes -- you name it, she's made them and collected recipes from friends and fellow merchants on Victoria Square to share with readers and friends.

So maybe just for this one day -- indulge yourself. Make something wonderful for your family. Katie is glad to lend a hand!

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So, what's YOUR favorite dessert?

I love this holiday!

Now here's a holiday I can get behind. I could eat Yorkshire Pudding every day of the week and NEVER get tired of it. (Had some last week as a matter of fact.) Love it, love it, love it!!!

Click this link for an English #recipe -- so you know it's good. (I use drippings when I can -- otherwise olive oil.)

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9020/best-yorkshire-puddings

My veggie garden gives up its peppers

As a follow-up to Saturday's post, I thought I'd talk about my veggie garden.

Every year I plant a veggie garden. Some years we have good luck, some years ... not so much.  This year Mr. L dislocated his shoulder, and so the veggie garden went in late (in mid-June). I bought plants at the garden center, stuck them in the dirt, and hoped for the best.

The tomatoes have gone absolutely bananas ... but they're only just starting to ripen. If we have a frost, they'll be toast.  I bought two spindly pepper plants that did nothing until about a month ago--then they went bananas. Yesterday I picked 5 of them and there are still 5 or 6 small ones that may or may not get much bigger. I'll keep watching the weather and if it looks like a frost, I'll pick everything.

Meanwhile, it was time for Mr. L's recipe for ...


SAUSAGE-STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS
 Ingredients
4 medium peppers, with tops cut off and seeded
1 pound seasoned sausage, like Bob Evans hot, bulk, 1 pound roll
1 medium onion, chopped
½ tsp. oregano
1 cup mozzarella
2 cups (1 small jar) Traditional Italian Sauce

Directions
Blanch the pepper bottoms in boiling water for 4 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC, Gas Mark 6).   Heat some olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat, and then add the sausage and cook until well browned, stirring often to separate meat.

Stir the onion and oregano into the skillet and cook until the onion is tender. Now, stir in the cheese.

Arrange the pepper halves, cut-side up, in your baking tray. Spoon the sausage mixture into the pepper halves. Pour the sauce over the filled pepper halves. Halfway through baking, poke the peppers so any extra juice can leak out (makes for less soggy peppers).

Bake 40-45 minutes until the peppers are tender.

While this recipe is NOT in The Cozy Chicks Kitchen (after all, Mr. L isn't a Chick), there are lots of great recipes you can try.  If you haven't given it a shot, maybe now is the time to do so!

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So, what are you cooking from your garden?

I like to write cookbooks

And so it's National Homemade Cookie Day!  Naturally, I WANT to participate, but then I looked in the mirror and saw the size of my butt and decided I would enjoy the day "virtually" instead of actually eating any cookies. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy it vicariously.

Like working on my Lotus Bay Cookbook. (No title for it yet.)

The real question is -- why work on a project that isn't likely to bring me any money and certainly not many people will buy or read it.

BECAUSE I WANT TO!

There, I said it.

I love cookbooks, and if it was feasible, I'd do a real one -- like Susan Branch's Heart of the Home, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary. I can't draw/paint like she can, and adding color photos to an ebook is prohibitively expensive. (Did you know authors get charged per download of our books?)  Anyway, it's a fun project and so I putter at it.

I puttered at Recipes To Die For: A Victoria Square Cookbook several years ago and, quite frankly, the sales suck. I'm lucky to sell 5 or 6 a month. But I'm really proud of that little cookbook. The trade paperback edition has little black-and-white clip-art illustrations, some of which were drawn by Mr. L, like the cow to the right. (In the book, the dialog balloon over Bossy's head says "Moo!")

In Recipes To Die For, I included an anecdote to go along with each of the recipes. Surprisingly enough, it was hard. I know the characters pretty well, but I wasn't as familiar with the lesser characters, and having to come up with ideas about their personalities was more difficult than I thought it would be.

My friend Ellery Adams suggested that I start the book with Signature Drinks.  Now that was fun. I had to read the entire Mr. Boston Official Bartending Guide (Mr. L collects them and we have at least 4 different editions, some of them pretty old) to find the exact drinks that would go well with the characters' personalities.  Conrad Stratton's favorite drink is the Corpse Reviver. (Yes, there really is such a drink!) And Mr. Collier, from Collier's Funeral Home, drinks Zombies (maybe in hopes of keeping those not-quite-dead away from his funeral parlor). See, there's lots of fun stuff stuffed into that little book, which is why it was fun to write.

Check it out on my website.

Anyway, over the summer, I've been puttering on two cookbooks; one for Lotus Bay (and features food that you'd find in a B&B, because that's what Kathy intends to open), and the other for the Jeff Resnick series. That would be mostly Brenda's recipes. It wasn't something I planned, but I noticed that in my books, she make a LOT of soup, so it will feature more soup and dinner recipes.

Okay, so if you've read either of those series, what other recipes to do think Kathy and Brenda should include in their cookbooks?

P.S. I've made all the Booktown Recipes available to readers on my website.  Go to the site, look under the Angelica's Recipes drop-down menu, and you can find them from every book in the series.  Just click this link.

Life is like a cupcake ...

There's something very charming and special about pulling the paper cup off a muffin or a cupcake. I always feel a little thrill of anticipation, especially if the cupcake is delightfully decorated.

You can take just about every cake recipe on the planet and make it into a cupcake (or fairy cake, as they call them in the UK--and doesn't that sound enchanting. Wouldn't you just LOVE to eat a fairy cake? Makes you think of fireflies and magic, doesn't it?).

All you have to do is bake the cupcakes at the same temperature called for in the cake recipe, but reduce the baking time by 1/3 to 1/2 the cake's timing (usually 15-20 minutes). Insert a  toothpick in the center of the cupcake. If it comes out clean, the cupcakes are done.

Here's my favorite spice cake recipe. Why not turn it into cupcakes?

Ingredients
¼ cup (115 grams) butter or ½ cup (1dL) shortening
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
½ cup (1 dL) dark-brown sugar, packed
4 eggs
½ cup (1 dL) milk
½ cup (1 dL) molasses
2 ¼ cup (315 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC, Gas Mark 4). Grease or put paper cups in muffin tins. Cream the butter or shortening and slowly add the two sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, then add the milk and molasses, beating thoroughly. In another bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients and add to the wet mixture, beating until well blended. Pour the batter into the muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.

Frost with your favorite cream cheese or butter cream frosting. Also tastes great with Maple or Caramel frosting.

Did you notice I'm putting ingredients into grams? I would like my recipes to work for readers and friends around the world. Is this helpful? Let me know -- because I'm working on two new cookbooks and want to make them as reader friendly as possible.

And remember ...

Why not apply it straight to your thighs?

Doesn't everybody love fudge? I rarely eat it though because of the calorie count. The first time I made fudge, I was about 13 and didn't know what a candy thermometer was. We didn't have one, so I winged it. I didn't end up with fudge, I ended up with chocolate-flavored SAND. I felt like Betty Crocker had failed me.

Here's a recipe for peanut butter fudge that doesn't need a candy thermometer and tastes pretty darn good.

1/2 cup butter
 2 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the brown sugar and milk. Bring it to a boil and boil for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat. Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla. Pour over the confectioners' sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth; pour into an 8x8 inch pan. Chill until firm and cut into 1-inch squares.

Yield: 64 pieces

Celebrate a cheesy day!

For cheese lovers, like my character Angelica Miles, the happy day has finally arrived! National Moldy Cheese Day! (She can hardly curb her excitement!)

And to celebrate, here's a recipe for blue cheese dressing.

¾  cup sour cream
1/3 cups mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½  teaspoon dry mustard
½  teaspoon garlic powder
½  teaspoon salt
½  teaspoon ground black pepper
4 ounces blue cheese, crumbled

In a large bowl, whisk together the sour cream, mayonnaise and Worcestershire sauce. Season with the mustard, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Stir in the blue cheese. Cover, and refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.

Yield:  2 ½ cups

Foodie Friday: Tacos for everyone!

Today is National Taco Day ... and my character Angelica Miles of the Booktown Mysteries is celebrating with her own recipe.  It's from the fourth book in the series, Chapter & Hearse.

Here's the recipe.

Hacienda Tacos

Ingredients
3 cups coarsely chopped or shredded (pulled) simmered chicken
1 onion, chopped
½  green pepper, chopped
1 ½ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 ½ to 2 teaspoon chili powder (according to taste)
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
8 oz. water
12 corn (or flour) 8 or 9 inch tortillas (or taco shells)
1 cup lettuce cut into strips
1 tomato, chopped
¾ cup grated or shredded Cheddar cheese
Your favorite bottled salsa

In a large skillet, mix together the chicken, onion, green pepper, salt, pepper, chili powder, tomato sauce and water. Cook covered over low heat for about 15 minutes. Cook, uncovered for five to ten minutes, until excess liquid is gone. Oven heat the tortillas and fill the lower 3/4 with chicken mixture and the remainder with the tomatoes, cheese and lettuce. Top as needed with a spoonful of the salsa. 

Foodie Friday: A Sweet for your Sweetheart

Oh, how I love cake.  It used to be that cookies were my favorite dessert/sweet, but not anymore.  Mind you, I will not turn down an oatmeal cookie (or chocolate chip, peanute butter, snickerdoodles, molasses ... well, you get the drift).

Once upon a time, I even took a cake decorating course.  It did not go well.  Oh, the cakes tasted fine, and I think once or twice I might actually have made an icing rose that sort of (kind of) resembled a flower. But that was years ago.

These days, I stick to mostly unfrosted cakes.  If not, I always make my own frosting, because those tubs of stuff from the supermarket are LOADED with Trans Fats, which are really, REALLY bad for you. (And you HAVE to look at the ingredients to see it, too--they're not going to advertise the fact next to the dough boy.)

One thing that's bad about cake (one?) is a double layer or bundt cake makes a lot, and we're just two (not so tiny) people. That's why I love this recipe. It's just right!

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
2¼ cups cake flour
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ tablespoons lemon zest
4 ½ tablespoons poppy seeds
1 1/3 cups unsalted butter, softened
5 eggs
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup lemon juice

DIRECTIONS: 
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour one 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.

Sift together the flour, sugar, and salt. Then mix in the lemon peel, poppy seeds and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Meanwhile, In a saucepan over low heat; cook 3/4 cup white sugar and the lemon juice until stirring until sugar is dissolved. Let cool to just warm or to room temperature.
Remove the cake from the oven and place the pan on a wire rack-place a cookie sheet underneath this rack. Prick the top of the cake several times with a toothpick. Brush the top of the cake with the warm or room temperature syrup, allowing lots of the syrup to run down and soak into the sides and bottom of the cake. Cool slightly in the pan before removing the cake to the wire rack to cool completely. When completely cooled, wrap the cake in foil or plastic freezer wrap and let the cake rest at least one day before serving to your guests.

(Okay, I'm not very patient.  I've eaten in the same day.  Tastes great.)

What are you baking up for your sweetheart on this Valentine's Day?