Pi Day!

For the last two years we've joined geeks around the world and celebrated Pi Day.  Pi Day is March 14th, or Pi 3.14.

This year's Pi Day almost didn't happen, until Brian whipped up some apple hand pies.  We had leftover phyllo dough in the fridge and it made for a pretty good crust.  They didn't last long.


To add to our celebration:  pound cake.  Will adores pound cake, and he and Brian made this one together.  It was a strange recipe--you put it in a cold oven and turn it on.  Came out nicely so I guess it's a keeper!

"two great tastes that taste great together"

Either Way You're Only Getting Half a Pan

I learned a hard lesson......you don't leave cast iron items in the oven while baking.

For one thing, they make it so that the oven takes forever to heat up.  I left a skillet and a grill pan on the bottom shelf when I was making banana "snack cake" and later on in the week I made magic bars for the karate picnic.  Yes, I made this mistake twice.

The edges were the only cooked pieces on the banana cake, I was able to salvage this much and throw the rest away.  The boys loved it, though.  Will asked for a taste, and then took the piece from me with a big smile and a "Mine!"  :)  It's going to be the first recipe I write into The Notebook in a while.

 Good Cake.

Bad Cake.

The magic bars edges were destroyed.  Not only because of the cast iron roommates hogging space in the oven, but because I thought that the first step of melting butter in the pan would be enough to grease it.  Yeah.....not so much for the sides.  This is how much I had to throw out, and I despise throwing out food.

So....lessons learned and shared from me, so you don't have to learn them for yourself.

Applause for Applesauce

This isn't a great photo, but it's of one of the greatest cakes we have ever made.  Applesauce cake.

When one thinks of "applesauce cake" they usually envision a lighter version of spice cake, using applesauce to replace the fats like butter or shortening.  Not this cake.

This cake is from a Disney cookbook that we brought home from our trip this past summer.  (Hubby gets cookbooks as souvenirs, I usually hit the local yarn shop for mine)  We had one jar of my mother's homemade applesauce left and it was perfect for this cake.  It had a sugar cookie crust on the bottom and the best streusel ever.  Seriously, this cake is worth raving about.  In fact, I wasn't at all upset when Hubby couldn't bring leftovers to work!  It is certainly going to come with us to our next party.

Naturally, There's Cake

Happy New Year!!!  Hubby made this gorgeous, sinful chocolate cake, since we always celebrate NYE with cake.  Wow.....it's so good!

Hope 2015 brings lots of good things.

Birthday Fiesta!

Tomorrow is Sean's second birthday, so yesterday we had the family over for a little Tex-Mex birthday party!  The boys love flour tortillas, cheese and meat so it was a meal enjoyed by everyone.  Plus, a casual birthday party with family is perfect for when your little boy is turning two.

Brian making Alton Brown's "Man Nachos."  I loved his (Alton's, that is) making of "spacers" (i.e. big balls of crunched-up foil) to sit between the nachos.  These nachos were special!  Plus homemade guacamole, soooooo good!

Taco station in the kitchen.  Everyone plates their own meal and then finds a spot to eat.  Love it  :)

Followed by...dessert and our Happy Birthday song stylings.  Vanilla buttercream cupcakes with ice cream.  As usual...Cake Doctor recipe.  Something strange happened when we went to put the sprinkles on the cupcakes...the buttercream had set and the sprinkles would HIT the cupcake, bounce off and land on the floor.  It really was pretty funny.

 The birthday boy is very serious about his chocolate ice cream....not a drop was wasted.

Happy Birthday, Sean!

New Year's Cake

We have a little tradition around here of having a New Year's Cake.  On New Year's Eve we pick out a cake recipe, and make it to have while ushering out the old and bringing in the new.  It's usually not too fancy, just a recipe that's simple and delicious.

This year's cake is from the original Cake Doctor Book:  Maryann's Simple Chocolate Cake.  Instead of the called-for homemade chocolate syrup frosting, we opted to use a cannister of chocolate fudge Duncan Hines in the pantry.

Happy New Year from our family to yours, and Best Wishes in 2012!

Birthday Treats

Tomorrow is my birthday, but my family got together today, being the weekend and all.  Nothing is better than having my family over for my birthday, I love family dinners.

Today's dinner was ALL. ABOUT. ME!!!  A nice dinner at home, and I got to pick everything that went in it.  So Italian it is....with both chicken and eggplant parmesan!  Good Lord I love both of those things.  To have them both on the same plate is just about as perfect as it gets!

For dessert I chose a Cake Doctor Recipe...one that resembles one of my favorite childhood treats.  Hostess Cupcakes!!  Devils' food cake, creamy filling and if they spell out "Happy Birthday Ginny," well, that is just sweet.

Birthday Spoils

Last week was Brian's birthday, and per tradition he made his own cake.  Don't feel bad for the birthday boy--he enjoys making his cake, it's really a gift to himself!

This year, it's a chocolate and peanut butter swirl cake from The Cake Doctor.  Complete with chocolate pan frosting.  Delicious.  And even tastier the second day, if I do say so myself.

The boys and I got him a new puzzle of the New York City skyline, and it glows in the dark.  (Hubby's other hobby, besides cooking, is puzzles.  Loves 'em.  Especially really difficult ones.)  And a cookbook called "Cooking for Geeks."  And yes, it is definitely for geeks.  I can't understand half of that cookbook, with its references to computer programming parameters and binary code.  But he loves it.  Score!!

And from my parents......a wafflemaker!  This one is more professional-grade, with the turn handle that flips it upside-down while cooking so it comes out evenly.    Is the waffle curse broken in our house?

Yes, I'd say that it is.  With some homemade strawberry-lemon syrup from the freezer, a broken curse has never tasted so delicious.

Father and Son Baking

Daddy and Will set out to bake their very first cake together, for us to bring to a cookout.   The recipe?  A buttermilk pound cake with chocolate ganache icing.  Kind of reminiscent of the Stock's Cake that Brian's family in Philly brings to EVERY family gathering!  (It's good stuff, too!)

 I had bought them matching aprons at Christmas Tree Shops.  Brian's said "Big Man" and Will's said "Little Man."  Will did not like his apron, not one bit.

 But he put it on, to be a good sport and appease Mommy.

The cake baking went pretty smoothly, until Brian went to put the batter in the KitchenAid mixer.  Will asked what speed the mixer was going to and Brian replied, "As fast as it goes, Buddy.  Ten!"  Will freaked out a bit.  I think he remembered the time that *he* put the mixer on ten and got a faceful of flour!  He spent the total mixing time hiding in the dining room, with his hands over his ears.

Sean got a little jealous, and wanted to make cake too.  He instead settled for wrestling his big brother while the cake baked in the oven.

The finished product, a gorgeous cake!

The cake got Sean's seal of approval at the cookout.  He kept coming back for more bites, and had most of it smeared on his face.  Success!!

A Double-Header in the Kitchen

I worked on getting the Big Kid to clean up his room while Hubby whipped up this recipe:  Saucy Steak!  The recipe called to be served over mashed potatoes, but we opted for rice instead.  The meal was rounded out with green beans fresh from the garden.

And bonus!  There's plenty of leftovers.  We gave the same dinner to the boys (minus sauce).  Lately we've been trying harder to have everyone eat the same thing at night.  I am really wishing that veggies had been showing up every night on the dinner table from an early age for Will, 'cause I'd be lying if I said it was a walk in the park to get him to eat them now!  But still we try....

What's in the yellow bowl, you say?  That there is homemade chocolate ganache....relaxing so that it can be spread on a cake to take to a cookout tomorrow night.  And that cake....is a whole 'nother blog post!

Mother's Day Treats

My Mother's Day was filled with delectable treats.  First up:

Buttermilk Pancakes and Fresh Strawberry Syrup.  We've made this syrup for years, it's a recipe out of Cooking Light but you'd never know it.  So good....someday I'm going to serve it over ice cream.

Spiced Squash Muffins with Dried Cranberries and Golden Raisins.  I bought butternut squash last week and it sat in the fridge with no plans....so I went to allrecipes.com and found this recipe.  Loved it!  (and so did the kids, and they're packed with good stuff.  So there.)

Chicken Pasta with homemade sauce, fresh italian bread, and salad for supper.  Not to mention my parents and my brother and sister-in-law coming over for a big family dinner.  :)

And the best for last:  Melted Ice Cream Cake with Chocolate Marshmallow Frosting!  Yes, another Cake Doctor creation!!  A tub of melted ice cream replaces all the liquid in the recipe.  Our ice cream choice:  Central Market brand Caramel Caribou.  Left on the counter to melt for the morning.  Brian then scooped out all the caramel choco-cups with a slotted spoon and added them to the cake batter.  Wow.  That is some fine cake.  :)

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Birthday Pizza and Cupcakes

We hosted a small family get-together for Sean's first birthday last weekend.  Since it was about ten people, we had "make-your-own" mini pizzas.  BJ's sells a big pack of personal-size Boboli pizza crusts and individual sauce packets.  They came out great!  Everyone got to have exactly what they wanted for toppings, how much cheese, etc.  Brian put them directly on the oven grates so they would crisp up nicely.  Mmm.....

The birthday cupcakes were out-of-this-world!!!  We went back and forth about whether to make them or buy them, and I'm so glad we made them.  They're from the Cake Doctor's second cake book, and they were the cookie-dough cupcakes.  Yellow cake mix with Tollhouse Cookie Dough in the centers, then frosted with a homemade chocolate buttercream frosting.  The frosting was perfect, perfectly chocolate and not at all sickly-sweet.  We served them as is, I'm glad I didn't add ice cream to the plate because then it would have been just too much and taken away from the goodness of the cupcake.  Everyone loved them!  Sean especially enjoyed his:

Agenda of a Cupcake

It's been a blah day.  It's been a crappy week.  With nowhere to go today, Brian and I had taken to lounging on the couch, watching World Cup and knitting.  (Guess who was doing what??)

So when Will said he was hungry and suggested cupcakes, I was very open to suggestion.  I too am hungry, and well, a cupcake sounds really good.  I tend to eat when I'm sad so it wasn't strange to desire baking.  Plus it gives us something to do instead of sitting and thinking.    I rifled through our cake mixes and had two choices:  spice cake or devils food.  Easy choice, no?  :)  The delectable goodies are baking in the oven, prepared as indicated on the back of the box.   However, to make them extra-special, I am going to make a chocolate-marshmallow frosting from scratch. 

Will's VERY excited about the cupcakes, although he doesn't realize that they're not for dinner.  I mean really, cupcakes for dinner?  I'll bet in his three-year-old mind, that would be wickedly awesome.  He's full of questions, starting with the ever-present "Are the cupcakes done yet?"  Repeated every five minues.  The really interesting one was asking what cupcakes do when they're not baking or being eaten.  Hmmm.  I don't think cupcakes really have an agenda.  No calendar to fill, no appointments to run to, maybe a birthday party to attend, but pretty much all they do is sit.  Bake, sit, get eaten.  The life cycle of a cupcake.

Recent Foodstuff

I've had a few experiences in the past week or so that I've been meaning to blog about, so I'll roll them into one big post!

First, I was at the library last week before my hair appointment and I remembered finally to look for Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."  I'm more looking to drool over the recipes that I saw in "Julie and Julia" than make a whole bunch of them, especially anything involving liver or calf intestine.  They didn't have it, but I took a good look at their food and cooking section and liked what I saw.  I brought home a slow cooker cookbook on a whim, and well, it was pretty disappointing.  I was reading aloud some of the recipes to Brian and commenting on the recipes.  Suddenly Brian asked me if this was also a three-ingredient cookbook.  A quick glance at the cover and yeah, it is.  I had missed that on the cover when checking it out.  Let me tell you something, three ingredients does not make a good cookbook.  Black bean soup cannot be made with a can of corn, a can of black beans and a jar of salsa.  Not good black bean soup, anyway!  Ah well, it was a valiant effort and next time I'm in a food rut, there's free cookbooks to the rescue.  Any kind of food I could imagine!

Going through the cabinets the other night, I found something I've been meaning to ask someone what to do with it.  Every year, one of the tenants at my old job sends me a food gift from this Amish place in Pennsylvania.  (I miss her, she's the nicest lady!)  One year it was homemade salsas from this place, another year jams.  This year it is fruit butters....so far I've opened the peach, and I have apple and pumpkin butter as well.  The last jar is something called "Peanut Butter Schmeir"  What the heck is that???  So I googled it and it turns out it is a dessert dip and sauce.  It's quite peanutty, with a smooth texture.  It makes ice cream really special, with a little drizzle over it.  Mmmmmm.....

I've saved the best for last.  We had our friends Chris and Jenny over yesterday with their boys, Ethan and Nolan.  I made two pans of lasagna, one traditional and one roasted veggie.  She brought bread and a salad to round out the meal.  I am in love with no-boil lasagna noodles, I don't know why I resisted them for so long!   They make putting together a lasagna so much easier.  The veggie lasagna was great, roasting the vegetables first before assembling the dish really brought out their flavor.  The meat one was good as always too.  And dessert.......fresh banana cake with homemade caramel frosting!  That's the best part.  :)  Cake Doctor of course, the cake was full of banana flavor but light instead of dense like a banana bread.  Now, I've always thought that making frosting was really hard, but it wasn't!  You melt brown sugar and butter together on the stove until they're boiling, then add a cup of milk and bring to a boil again.  Then you add vanilla extract and powdered sugar until you get the consistency you're looking for.  Simple and so delicious!! 

Say It with Sweets

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentines aren't a huge deal in our house.  We exchange cards, get something small for the Big Kid, and that's about it.  I had the idea of making some sweets to enjoy with my Sweets this year. 

I had every intention of making the fabulous Alton Brown cinnamon rolls that my friend Shannon made up a couple of weeks ago and blogged about.  But yesterday was just bedlam so I didn't have the time to prep them, and let them sit in the fridge overnight to be baked today.  The best of intentions....Instead, Brian came home with two cans of refrigerated cinnamon bun dough!  Sweet, hot, delicious....what more can you ask for?  It's still an act of love, even if they're not homemade!

 

Tonight's dinner will be simple:  broiled salmon, brown rice and baked asparagus.  It's dessert that will be fabulous, as I've picked out a Warm Chocolate Pudding Cake from my new Cake Doctor cookbook!  It's chocolate cake with a brown sugar topping, that you top with ice cream and serve warm in bowls.  I'll start baking it soon, and it'll be the treat of the day!  Can't wait to sink my spoon into that chocolatey goodness.  Mmmmm.....:)

Blueberry Buckle

 Some of the best ideas for meals come from having an overabundance of ingredient on hand.  This happens a lot in our house; today the magical ingredient is blueberries.  When Brian asked me, as he does every Sunday, what I wanted for breakfast I mentioned that we had a whole lot of blueberries in the fridge.  He headed to the internet and started searching.  Blueberry pancakes?  Nah....we had pancakes yesterday.  Coffee cake?  Hmmmm.....maybe.   How about a blueberry buckle?  What is a "buckle" exactly?? 

This cake is another one of Alton Brown's recipes....if Brian is making something there's a good chance the recipe is one of his!    Warm blueberries and a kick-butt crunch topping.  However,  now that I've had a buckle I'm still not sure what the difference is between a buckle and a plain 'ol coffeecake.  I guess the buckle is a bit softer, and it kind of "falls apart" when cut and requires a spoon to remove it from the pan.  Perhaps an email to A.B. will get that all sorted out, maybe he'll even feature buckles on a future episode of Good Eats!  :)

Cinnamon-y Goodness

Ever since I saw a recipe recently for cinnamon rolls, I've been DYING for some!  Obviously, this wasn't something that I could eat (and feel good about) until recently.  Now that Sean's here, the idea of rolling out dough for cinnamon rolls, letting it rise, etc etc, is daunting to say the least!   So in order to satisfy this craving, Brian brought home a Cinnabon box mix from the local warehouse store the other day.

First of all, the box is HUGE!  There is enough mix to make either 36 muffins, 16 scones or two coffee cakes.  No way could we make 36 muffins disappear before they went stale, and I'm not wild about scones, they're awfully dry.  So Brian turned out a coffee cake the other day.  (What a guy!)  It was delicious and JUST what I was looking for!  Cinnabon box mixes are awesome in my book.

Of course...I have bookmarked the roll recipe for another time when life isn't so chaotic.  :)

Ending the Year with Cake

What better way to end the blogging year than with cake??

  We're going to a small New Year's gathering with a handful of friends, Chinese food and fun.  We're FINALLY getting to try one of my new Cake Doctor recipes.  This one is called "Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Chocolate Toffee Frosting."

Ever notice just how good a cake baking makes your house smell?  That's one of the best smells in the world right there.  And the Cake Doctor, Ann Bryn, is right:  it's ok to make cake from a mix, but the frosting is best made from scratch.  This cake has a chocolate ganache frosting, with toffee candy bits.  I always thought that ganache was this big fancy-pants thing.....really it's heavy whipping cream and chocolate chips.  Simplicity is a beautiful thing!  Know what makes you feel instantly like a kid again?  Licking the beaters after making the frosting.  Brian offered one of the beaters to Will and he asked for something else to eat.  Gee...first the kid doesn't like ice cream, and now won't lick mix off a beater??  Whose kid is he?  :)

I wish all of you a Happy, Healthy 2010, filled with new recipes and new experiences!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Today I'm 30-something.  Ok.....33.  With a sick husband and being preggo, it hasn't been exactly the bday that I thought it would be, but decent nonetheless.  Instead of heading out to a fancy-pants dinner with my husband sans kids, I cooked frozen stuffed chicken breasts with brown sugar sweet potatoes.  These were a little different, stuffed with brie and apple.  For frozen, they were delish!  And I used brown-sugar-Splenda blend on the potatoes and didn't even notice the difference.   My parents came to help out a bit during the day, Mom came to the grocery store with me because I can't handle going alone with the sciatica.   Dad stayed behind to play with Will and give Brian a break.   Plus they brought me a birthday cake.  :)  I opened some lovely presents this morning, including a Wii game and a brand new Droid cellphone.  And TA DA!!!!!  The Cake Doctor's newest cookbook!

I'm totally drooling over the recipes.  I'm like Pavlov's dog, salivating in excitement!  I'm actually having a difficult time choosing which one to make first.   Perhaps tomorrow, while being snowed in, I'll try my hand at one of them.  Can't wait!

Lazy Weekend Banana Cake

Since I find myself with a weekend with no set plans (unheard of!!) I decided I would do what I felt like doing.  I was flipping through my recipe notebook and found a recipe for Banana Chocolate Brunch Cake.  I believe it's a Cooking Light recipe, though I could not tell you from which issue.  (It was years ago, I'm sure.)  I discovered four bananas on their way out, so it seems like a good time to use them up, no?  (We never can get through a whole bunch of bananas!)  I did modify the recipe a little bit this time, instead of regular brown sugar I decided to give Brown Sugar Baking Blends from Splenda a whirl.  I also used semi-sweet chocolate chips in the recipe.  Enjoy!


Chocolate Banana Brunch Cake


2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 c. mashed banana (3 large bananas)
1/4 c. milk
1 lg egg
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped/divided OR 1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips


1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2.  Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.  Stir with wire whisk.
3.  Combine banana, milk and egg until well-blended.  Add banana mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.  Fold in chocolate.  Bake @ 350 for 35 minutes.  Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.