....is Vegetables

My favorite cookbook to date is Edible - A Celebration of Local Foods by Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian.

It's part cookbook, part touching stories of local farmers and chefs. It's organized in a few ways that I really appreciate. The stories in the front half are arranged by region (it spans the entirety of the US) and then the recipes are arranged first by season and then by region in an index in the back. I've probably made and remade a dozen recipes and they've all been amazing.


Today I baked a recipe from the Fall section, in my defense Southern California doesn't really have true season anyway. I made the Harvest Cake with Cider-Cinnamon Frosting. Only i went a little off script because I didn't have apple cider and it calls for so little so I instead made Cinnamon-Ginger Frosting.

Harvest Cake Batter

First bowl....
2 Large Carrots (Grated)
1 Large Parsnip (Grated)
1 Medium Zucchini (Grated)
1 Tart Apple (Peeled, Cored, & Grated)

In a second bowl....
1-1/4 C Flour
1/2 C Whole Wheat Flour
1-1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Ginger (Ground)

Final bowl....
3 Eggs
1 C Granulated Sugar
1/4 C Brown Sugar
1/2 C Vegetable Oil
1 tsp Vanilla Extract


Whip the eggs and sugar together until fluffy then add the remaining ingredients of the Third bowl. Slowly add the contents of the Second bowl to the Third. Lastly add the veggies from the First bowl and fold in with a rubber spatula. Cook the Batter at 350 for 30 min in a 9x13 pan.

Cinnamon-Ginger Frosting



3 Tbs Butter
4.5 oz. Cream Cheese
1-1/2 C Powdered Sugar
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ginger

Cream the butter and cream cheese thoroughly before slowly adding the dry ingredients. Let the cake sit and cool 15 min or so before frosting.