Apple cake

You need a 9" springform pan for this one. And some apples that are good for baking, like the tart, sort of dry ones.

Preheat oven to 400. Peel, core, and slice 4 medium or 5 small apples into wedges, 10-12 wedges per apple.

1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
1 T baking powder
1/8 t. salt

Put the above in a bowl and whisk it around to mix.

2 eggs
1/3 c. milk
2 T vegetable oil
1/2 t. vanilla

Put the above in a small bowl and mix.

Put the wet and dry ingredients together. Fold in the apple wedges. The object of this game is to coat the apple wedges thoroughly. Pour the batter into the greased springform pan. IMPORTANT: put the springform pan on a baking sheet to catch any drips. You may think that the springform pan seals well enough to prevent dribbling out the bottom, but you'd be wrong. And then you'd race downstairs at the smell of burning something-or-other only to discover your mistake. Your smelly, smelly mistake.
Bake 25 minutes or so, until it's golden and firm on top. In the meantime, whip up the custard topping:

1 egg
1/3 c. sugar
3 T melted butter
Mix all this together well and pour over the cake. Stick it back in the oven for another 10 minutes, or until the custard is set.

Cool on a rack, and dive in. No ice cream required for this one...

Sauce from fresh tomatoes

I've never had really good results with my marinara made from fresh tomatoes, but that's because I never thought to add carrots. We're inundated with Romas at the moment (tomatoes, not the people), and the best way to use up a gob of them is to do the sauce. Here's an estimation of the very successful sauce I made yesterday:

Roma tomatoes
Diced onions
Chopped garlic
Finely grated carrots
Tomato paste
Salt
Oregano and/or Basil (dried seemed to work better)

1. Fill a large-ish pot with water and bring to a boil. Prepare a large-ish ice bath on the side. Cut a small "X" in the end of each tomato, and drop them into the boiling water, being careful not to burn the hell out of yourself in the process. Let them roll around in the water until you start to see the skin split up the side, pluck them out of the boiling water, and drop them in the ice bath until cool enough to handle. Peel the skin off each tomato and set aside.
2. When all your tomatoes are through that process, core, seed, and dice them. It's a little time-consuming to get all the seeds out, but it's worth it if you're a little fastidious about seeds and wateriness in your sauce, which I am.
3. In a pot big enough to hold all your tomatoes, heat some olive oil and dump in as much diced onion as you like. I ended up with about 5 cups of tomatoes, and I used 1 1/2 small-ish yellow onions, diced. Saute the onions until they start to go translucent, then drop in a few cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped. I always sprinkle in a little crushed red pepper at this point as well.
4. Finely grate a carrot (less or more, depending on the amount of tomatoes), and dump that in to soften. After a couple of minutes, add 1/4 cup or so of tomato paste. Both of these ingredients will give the sauce a richness more than a sweetness, but will take that acidic raw flavor out of the tomatoes. Smush the paste around to warm it through and brown a little on the bottom of the pan.
5. Add the tomatoes and a good amount of salt. I sprinkled directly from the big salt container, probably 1/2 t. or more. Do the same with oregano and basil (I prefer a combination of the two rather than just straight basil, which is too sweet for me). You can always add more of these, but you can't take them away, so while the tomatoes cook down, taste the sauce every now and then and adjust.
6. Let the sauce cook down until the tomatoes are losing their shape and getting all saucy, maybe an hour or more. As for yield, I started with 20 tomatoes and ended up with two 1/2-quart containers.

Rustic Plum Cake

I know you're thinking, "Plums? In a cake? Nah, I'll just have the standard chocolate-with-chocolate frosting." Well, my friend, you would've made the wrong choice. This cake is super good, and easy to boot, since you make the batter in a food processor. The recipe is from Cook's Illustrated, but I ran short on, or didn't have some ingredients, so I improvised.

2T red currant or seedless raspberry jam (I had huckleberry jam from the mother-in-law's trip through Montana)
3T brandy (I used water--you basically just need something to dilute the jam to make syrup)
1 pound Italian prune plums, halved and pitted (This is about 12 plums. Italian plums are the little sort of oblong ones)

3/4 c. sugar
1/3 c. slivered almonds (I didn't have quite enough, so I filled out the amount with walnuts, no harm done)
3/4 c. all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
6T unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces, softened but still cool
1 large egg plus 1 large yolk
1 t. vanilla extract
1/4 t. almond extract (optional: I left it out)

1. Cook jam and brandy/water in a 10-inch skillet 2-3 minutes until reduced to a thick syrup. They say to use nonstick, but I don't have one of those, and my regular old stainless-steel worked fine. Remove skillet from heat and place the plums cut-side down in the syrup. Return skillet to medium heat and cook until plums start to release their juices and a thick syrup forms again, about 5 minutes. While this is going on, shake the pan a few times to keep the plums from sticking. Cool plums in the pan while you make the batter.

2. Put oven rack in the middle and preheat to 350. Grease and flour a 9" springform pan. If you don't have a springform pan, just use a regular 9" cake pan like I did, but make sure you cover all inside surfaces well in the greasing-and-flouring process.

3. In a food processor, process almonds and sugar together until the nuts are finely ground. Add flour, baking powder, and salt, and pulse to combine. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse sand, about ten 1-second pulses. This may take a little longer if, like me, you were impatient and didn't let the butter soften enough. Add eggs, vanilla, and almond extract (if you're using it), and process until smooth, about 5 seconds, scraping the bowl if necessary. This batter is quite thick.

4. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, and spread it around evenly with a spatula. You really have to make sure you keep the batter ahead of the spatula and push it to the edges of the pan. Now, for the plums! Stir them around a bit to get them coated with syrup. By hand, or with a spoon, place the plums one at a time into the batter, cut side up. 12 should be just enough to cover the surface with two concentric circles and one in the middle.

5. Bake 40-50 minutes, or until a wooden skewer or toothpick comes out with a few crumbs attached. If you used a cake pan like I did, let the cake cool for 15-30 min. before you do the magic flip. Invert a dinner plate or cooling rack or other big flat surface onto the pan, then flip both over so the cake falls out upside down onto the plate. Repeat with a serving platter so the cake ends up right side up and ready to serve. Dust it with some confectioner's sugar while you're at it.