Worlds Ugliest Cake

I am probably going to regret showing this, but I just had to share. Yesterday my sister asked me if I had taken all the pictures of food I put on here - SHA! And now, she and all who see this will know why that is. 

 But to begin the story of the cake; which, by the way, I have to say is one of the tastiest we've made. Jon had told me at 9:30 Monday night that he had invited the missionaries for dinner for Tuesday. I asked why on earth he had done that (there go all my blessings for feeding them)! He said that they wanted to give us a lesson, but that he had told them that we had had it a couple months ago so if they wouldn't give us the "do you have any names for us to visit" talk, then we would feed them. 

  I was excited to try this cake because I had found an icing/glaze recipe that has butter, fruit (strawberries, pineapple etc.) and powdered sugar in it that is SO tasty. At the store that day, they only had raspberries, and since we all love raspberries and chocolate, I thought it would be perfect. 

  I made the my usual chocolate cake (on the back of Hershey's Cocoa - our favorite), and put it in a bundt pan to make it fancy. I decided to use my new, huge toaster oven/convection oven to bake it. Have you heard convection ovens toted as "cooking food more evenly"? LIES! I guess if you turn your food every 10 minutes while baking this would be true, but who wants to babysit a cake baking? When the timer went off, I went in the kitchen and smelled the unmistakable smell of burned cake. I took the cake out and tested it with a toothpick. The top was all charred, but there was one part about 4 inches wide that was still doughy. I turned the cake and put the doughy part back in the hot corner to finish cooking. After it was finally done, I had to chisel out the burned parts (since bundt pans have taller sides, the cake was below the top so I couldn't just slice it off cleanly). Burned parts gone, I turned it upside down on a plate and about 1/3 of the cake stayed in the bundt pan! Argh! I managed to somehow get almost the whole part out in one piece, but the cake still didn't look right. At that point I didn't care! I left it to cool and went on with the rest of the meal. 

  Later, I made the glaze, which looked quite a vibrant pink, but still looked good (and tasted even better), until I started putting it on the cake, at which point it started separating. Too late to do anything but try to make the rest of the meal make up for the look of the cake. When we served the cake to the missionaries, Grace said, "Mom said this looks like someone threw up Pepto Bismol on it". The missionaries each ate two pieces. The end. 

Soups On

      

Since Winter is going to be over soon here in Houston, I am trying to get in all my favorite winter meals, and that includes a lot of soups. This is my moms tomato soup recipe that we always had on hand. It reminds me of summer too because she always bottled this when the tomatoes were ripe and there were bushels of them, so she was canning soup for days. She of course used fresh tomatoes right out of our garden, but one day I didn't have enough fresh tomatoes and decided to use half canned. It still tasted the same. Another day I was in Costco and they had those ginormous cans of crushed tomatoes for around $2.50 so I thought I'd try just canned tomatoes. Although Martha Stewart wouldn't approve or probably agree, it tasted the same to me since you are cooking the tomatoes anyway. So, since Martha is most likely never going to be eating this soup with me, I have included amounts for both fresh and canned tomato amounts and you can choose:

Moms Tomato Soup

3-4 qts. tomatoes, cut up (about 14 cups, 2lbs =1 qt.) OR

3 lg. (30 oz) cans crushed tomatoes OR

One big ginormous can - 100 oz. (when I use this, I add a little more onion and celery)

2 onions chopped

1 stalk celery chopped

3-4 Tbsp. Parsley

1/4 c. flour

1/4 c. butter

3 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. Sugar

1 tsp. pepper

1-2 Bay Leaves

2 tsp. basil (optional)

   Put first list of ingredients (vegetables) in a big pot and cook until celery is tender. Melt butter and add flour to make a roux, cooking the flour for about a minute. Add liquid from the tomatoes to thin it out. Add to soup. Process soup until smooth (I use my heavy duty blender, the food processor doesn't get it smooth enough). Add rest of ingredients and heat through. 

One last note. When I first tasted this, I thought I had done something wrong because it didn't taste like I remembered it. My kids had added some cheddar cheese to theirs so I tasted it and THEN it tasted right. Must be eaten with either a grilled cheese sandwich OR shredded cheddar cheese on top. You choose. Enjoy

Lazy Days of January

Collin was a building machine over the holidays. This is him building a bird feeder as one of his scout requirements and Grace watching him.

I thought Grace looked so cute absorbed in coloring her picture.

Sweetness!! I came in the living room and caught Collin reading Grace a bedtime story. 

This is of the visitors center at Brazos Bend State Park. I thought it looked so Southern.

Having a picnic at the park. 

Rainy Days

Jon has had bronchitis for days now and has been working from home so it seems almost like we've been on Christmas vacation for a month. With this break in the normal routine, we've ended up watching a lot of movies this last month. We watched Jane Eyre on PBS a couple of weeks ago and loved it so of course Jon ended up purchasing it the next day. Years ago we saw Wives and Daughters on PBS and really liked it. I bought the book last year and Jon read it after me. That is a great one too so we bought that DVD also. The kids loved Jane Eyre. Collin said it was one of the best movies he's ever seen and Grace agreed. I think Wives and Daughters was too long for them though and they didn't even see it all. Collin said "there was too much talking and crying and dying". We also have the old stand-bys that we watch yearly:

Flambards is 11 or 12 hours long so it's got Pride and Prejudice beat for time. It also takes a while for the story to develop so it's not the most fast-paced movie you'll see, but it's one of our favorites. I watched in all in one day when I was 16 and had surgery on my foot. 

   

On another topic, as I was taking down our Christmas Decorations last week (the kids kept begging me not to take them down - I love it!) all our snowflake decals were more pronounced. Jon had them made for me - one of the great perks about having your husband have his own wall decal business! I wish we could keep them up, but have been trying to decide which of his other designs I want to put up. Scribble has been featured in a few major newspapers and internet articles lately which has really helped business. This was in the Chicago Tribune:

STICK IT: What an ingenious way to create a dramatic, personal statement in your home without investing too much commitment or elbow grease. Scribble Wall Art Decals were created about a year-and-a-half ago by two designers in Utah who liked art and wanted out of the corporate world. Their business solution, small, stylish vinyl wall decals, have not only successfully freed them from the rat race, but also have begun to take the design -- and dorm-room -- world by storm.

Like the well-known wall-decal brand Blik, this product can be stuck to a wall and peeled off without damage to paint or drywall. Scribble Art, however, offers a slightly hipper or edgier range of designs, with more room for customization.
"We basically gravitate toward any design that we like personally," says co-owner Jon Bybee. Their Wall Tags series, for instance, is basically urban graffiti without the guilt. Their Wall Flower series, on the other hand, would be perfectly at home in the foyer of a stylish grandma's house. "We wanted to have something for the mom out there who wanted an easy way to decorate their kid's room, but also for the interior designers who are looking to create a dramatic scene or border in a client's house," Bybee says.
As of late, the company has taken to tapping talented young designers to turn out new designs. Buy a single piece, or buy several and assemble a design. Most items are available in a range of colors and sizes. Don't see the color you want? Send them a swatch, and they'll try their best to match it for you. A custom option is even available for designs of your own hand.
Cost: $20 to $45, with a few large pieces fetching up to $95. Order online at scribbleonwalls.com.

Recently Tried Recipes

My friend Michelle posts a lot of pictures of food on her website which is one of my favorite parts of her blog and since I love good food and trying new recipes, I thought I would do the same.   

                                     

This one may not look that appetizing, but it it so good. It is Ina Gartens aka The Barefoot Contessas recipe for Sun-dried Tomato Dip. It was a hit. After making it twice, I found that it tastes much better if you make it before hand and let it sit in the fridge. I used Neufchatel and it made it smoother and only about 1/3 cup of sour cream and mayonnaise each. We like it with whole grain crackers, pumpernickel bread and almost any type of vegetables. I think I could eat this every day. 

       I am also very into cupcakes since finding this great cupcake place here called Sugarbabys. I got an assortment of cupcakes on my birthday in lieu of a cake and I think I will do that every year. I have been browsing cupcake recipes and made one with chocolate cake and pineapple frosting. They were so good, they got eaten too fast and I didn't get a chance to take a picture of them. They were some of the best I've ever had. Even Jon - the non sweet eater ate about half of them. I need to make them again so I can write a recipe down. I also want to try a chocolate cupcake with strawberry frosting, so I guess I'd better get baking. I'll put a picture up when I get them baked. 

                                     

  I also made this peach blueberry cake today that I saw on Mitch's site, and since she said it was so good, I tried it, and it is - sooo good. 

Holiday Pictures

Here are some highlights from the holidays. . . 

 These are from Christmas Eve when we had our Ris Ala Mand (Rice pudding). Collin won the luck this year by finding the almond. That makes me 0 for 34. As Jon put it after, "You had a one in three chance of getting it and you still didn't!!". That pretty much sums it up. Collins

excitement over finding it made up for it though!

 

After dinner we have a white elephant exchange but with the Bybee twist of having it be food items, which in my opinion makes it even better. At the end of the night, the kids can open one present which is always jaminas (when Grace was little that's what she called pajamas and it stuck). You would think by their excitement over them that it was Christmas morning! This is my absolute favorite picture of the whole holiday. 

These next ones are from Christmas morning. This is Jons 111th or something watch. 

This one is of our traditional Christmas breakfast of aebleskivers and this year I added a Finnish sweet bread called pulla.  The very attractive picture of me with our Buche de Noel is actually suppose to highlight the pictures/plaques of the vegetables on the cupboards behind me. Jon painted them for me as a surprise. 

Right before New Years we went to our Sister-in-Laws ranch outside of San Antonio so the kids could be with their cousins and the kids could experience a lot of country life/Dangerous Book for Boys activities. They shot guns, fished, played in the treehouse and brought back about 5 pounds of mud in their clothes. We all had a great time. 

      

                               

                 On the way back to the big city, we stopped in San Antonio to go to the Alamo. It was really interesting, even though we didn't get to see the basement. We did however sing "The Stars at Night . . . " and fulfilled one of Collins Bear requirements for Cub Scouts. 

Friday Jan. 18, 2008

Yesterday when Grace got home from school I got all her school papers out of her backpack and found a tattered invitation looking paper in there. I pulled it out and it said that we were receiving this invitation because one our child's pieces of artwork was chosen to be displayed at the Spring Branch ISD Annual Rodeo Art Exhibit. I hadn't heard anything about that, so I asked Grace if the invitation was hers - yes. I asked her when she got it (it looked like it had been at the bottom of her backpack for at least a week) and she said a few days ago. I looked again at the date etc. and it was that night! So, off we went to see what all of this was about. When we got there we looked for the Kindergarten section and Grace found hers. This is of cows (the brown ones - they are a family of course) and a horse (the red one) on a farm on a rainy day. See the lightening? We are very proud of our budding artist.  After we had come home and put the kids to bed I realized I had bread dough still rising in the bread machine!!

I am still trying to figure out how to add pictures etc. and it has taken me so long to do this much that I will have to add my favorite pictures from Christmas later. 

Brazos Bend State Park Trip

We went to Brazos Bend State Park on Saturday to blow off some steam and let our city kids see more of the country. We saw alligators and all sorts of creepy crawly's. Check out the video for some of the highlights (48 MB).