Mom's Plum Cake

1. Sift together:

• 1 c flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 2 T sugar.

1. Add 3 T butter.  Work these ingredients like pastry.  
2. In a measuring cup combine 1 egg with 1/2 t vanilla.  Add enough milk so that it reaches the 1/2 cup line on the measuring cup.  Mix this into the flour mixture.  
3. Press into the bottom of a square baking dish or pie pan.  Add 3-4 cups sliced plums (apples or peaches work as well) to the top of the batter and press them into it.  
4. Mix in a separate bowl 1 c sugar, 3 T melted butter and  2 t cinammon.  Spread over plums/batter.  
5. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes.  This sounds putzy but is quite easy to whip together.

Angie's Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti Squash

1. Preheat Oven to 375
2. Half and clean out the squash
3. Put in pan with some water on the bottom
4. Drizzle with Salt and Olive Oil 
5. Bake for an hour - Really you can't over bake this, so just throw it in the oven and leave it for a while.  We baked it, shut the oven off, went to the splash pad for an hour and came back, and it was finally luke-warm, to where you could handle it a bit 
6. You just take a fork, and gut out the cooked squash.  You can stop here and just eat it with whatever sauce you want, but I found that the saute step is yummier! 
7. Heat some olive oil and garlic/spices if you want
8. Put the shredded squash into the saute pan, and saute, adding water, periodically to not burn the squash / it can help soften and cook it to give it the noddle taste.  
9. Monica and I added pesto to this, and it was AMAZING!!! 
10. Don't get overwhelmed with my wordy junk - bake, saute, enjoy! 

*From Monica: I read an article saying the best thing to do is put the whole squash in the slow cooker with a cup of water and put on low all day.  Eager to see what this tastes like... 

**From Noelle:  Sometimes instead of the pan biz, with brussels I'll just toss in oil salt n pepper and bake, turning twice, until getting brown, then I'll make a tangy sauce mixture of balsamic, Dijon mustard, honey and coat the sprouts on the stove top in a skillet so they caramelize a little.  And if you have bacon crumbles to throw in at this time, forget about it... amazing... 

Monica's Brussels Sprouts

KIDS LIKE BRUSSELS SPROUTS

1.5 lbs Brussels sprouts, bottom

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

5 cloves garlic

1 T balsamic

1. Cut the bottoms off the Brussels sprouts and then cut in half lengthwise (I have a kid do this for me but if you've none around, the extra work is worth it.). Crush and peel garlic cloves
2. Oven to 400.
3. Heat a large skillet with a layer of olive oil on medium-high.
4. Put Brussels sprouts cut side down in pan with garlic and a little salt and pepper.  Shake from time to time until the bottoms of all sprouts is brown.
5. Put whole pan in the oven for 5 minutes.  Open oven, shake pan around a bit.  Close oven for 5 minutes.  Take out.  
6. Stir over 1 T of balsamic and serve.  My kids fight over every these.