Grapefruit Pound Cake

FOUND IT: My wife tore it out of an issue of Cooking Light.
MODIFIED IT: I accidentally included a couple of extra ounces of cream cheese, but that was it.

I'm frequently skeptical of Cooking Light dessert recipes, since they're often healthier but also not very appealing. They usually look great but you can tell the good stuff is missing. This cake is different from their usual in two ways: First, it's better than you'd expect. Secondly, it's not actually very healthy. 1/16th of this cake is a pretty small serving and still contains almost 300 calories.

With that said, I'll probably make this again because it's good. One regular sized grapefruit is likely more than enough for both the grated rind and juice.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp of salt plus a dash, divided
• 1 2/3 cups sugar (some could probably be replaced with Splenda or another substitute)
• 6 tbsp butter, softened
• 6 ounces cream cheese (I used a full eight ounce package. You only live once.)
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 tbsp grated grapefruit rind
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup fresh grapefruit juice
• 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Combine the flour, baking powder and all but a dash of the salt in a bowl. Cream the butter, sugar and cream cheese with a mixer in a large bowl, then add the eggs, oil, grapefruit rind and vanilla in that order.

Add half the dry ingredients to this mixture carefully, then half the milk. Repeat that process with the other half of both, finishing with the milk. Be careful not to overbeat the batter.

Spoon the batter into a greased 10 inch tube pan and bake at 325 for an hour and ten minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out "with moist crumbs clinging."

Allow the cake to cool for ten minutes in the pan, then tip it over onto a wire rack and allow it to finish cooling there.

To make the glaze, heat the grapefruit juice to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Allow it to cook this way until about a third of the liquid has boiled off, then put it in the fridge to cool. Once it's cooled about 10-15 minutes, stir in the powdered sugar and the dash of salt from earlier. Drizzle this mixture over the cake and serve.

Turnip Poutine

FOUND IT: On Hungry Girl on Cooking Channel

MODIFIED IT: I changed the cheese and gravy, and added some seasoning.

Poutine is a somewhat interesting current food fad. Gravy on french fries is still a little weird to me, but it turned out pretty well here.

Turnips, meanwhile, turned out to be a pretty genius healthy substitution for potatoes.

Ingredients:

• 24 ounces turnips, scrubbed (This was six smallish turnips for me, but 2-3 large ones would be better if available.)
• 12 ounces potatoes (one large baking potato should do it.)
• 1 or 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup fat free condensed cream of chicken soup
• 1/8 cup water
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese

Clean the vegetables (no need to peel them) and cut them into french fry spears. Place them in a single layer on a greased baking sheet, sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder and thyme, give them a quick stir and bake at 425 for 40 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Once the potatoes and turnips are browned remove them from the oven, stir again and rearrange them in a pile on the cookie sheet. Combine the condensed soup and water and drizzle it over the pile of fries, then sprinkle the shredded cheese on top. Broil this on high until the cheese has melted and browned just slightly.