Diet-Coke-Microwave-Chocolate Cake

At a recent Pampered Chef party in my neighborhood, I learned how to make my favorite new summer treat. Diet-Coke-Microwave-Chocolate Cake. It's easy. And it's perfect to make on a day like today, what is anticipated to be the hottest day of the summer in my area. It's also perfect, because your oven and air conditioner don't need to compete. It's mid-July, and I haven't turned on my oven in weeks...recipes like this make that possible.

The ingredient list is short. And bizarre. So I was a skeptic. But then I watched the consultant mix, microwave, and serve this little slice...well, more like a blob...of heaven.

Diet Coke Microwave Chocolate Cake

Mix in a large casserole dish or mixing bowl...

1-dry cake mix (no eggs, no oil, no water...just the mix)
1-12-ounce can of diet coke

Top with dollops of chocolate frosting, using the entire can. You can swirl it around if you want, but it's not necessary.

Microwave it for 8 minutes.

It's not the prettiest dessert, so I recommend churching it up a bit. I topped it with strawberries (sliced and sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and brown sugar) and whipped cream.

Y-U-M!

The 70-Degree Party

I live on a cul de sac in a neighborhood of good folks...we all have fire pits in our backyards, porches or decks, and everyone seems to own more outdoor chairs than their families can occupy alone. All the men in the neighborhood have riding lawn mowers and a competitive spirit when it comes to lawn care. All this neighborly-ness results in frequent neighborhood cookouts...and the first one of the season is often the 70-Degree Party.

As you may have guessed, the 70-Degree Party occurs on a 70-Degree day...ideally the first 70-Degree day in Spring. It's not always convenient. Sometimes it's on a weeknight. Sometimes the forecast is sketchy, so it's hard to plan. This year, the 70-Degree party was no different. The forecast for Sunday, April 10th, was 74 with possible severe weather. Invitations went out on Thursday afternoon. The 70-Degree Party has evolved over the last 3-4 years from shouting out the front door at the neighbors to come over for a beer and a burger, to a full-on potluck with invitations.

Our menu was brats, dogs, and burgers. The Wolff family brought their specialty, Company Potatoes. The Hansen family brought pasta salad. The Barretts brought taco dip. The Kirsts brought Asian/Crunchy/Bok Choy Salad. I threw together a pan of brownies and a pan of Seven Layer Magic Bars, last minute. I haven't made Seven Layer Magic Bars for a while, and golly, what a treat!

It was a feast. We ran out of burgers. Some of the teenagers even showed up (it was good to see you guys!). Our kids played outside all day. The severe weather went north of us, so we didn't even see a drop of rain. The beer tasted really, really good. And the Seven Layer Magic Bars...well...yummy.

Seven Layer Magic Bars

1 stick butter

1 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs

1-14 oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk (not evaporated milk)

1 c butterscotch chips

1 c chocolate chips

1 1/3 c coconut

1 c chopped nuts

Melt the butter in a 9x13 pan

Sprinkle the crumbs over the butter

Pour the milk evenly over the crumbs

Layer the remaining ingredients in order

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. If the coconut isn't toated yet, I recommend turning the broiler on and watching carefully, so the coconut is deliciously toasted.

Let it cool, cut it up.

We really love our neighborhood...and our neighbors. Life is good!

Do It Yourself

My dear son is now two. While I was pregnant with him, we painted the room green, planning for a nature theme...frogs, fish, and turtles if a boy...frogs, ladybugs, and dragonflies if a girl. It was a great idea...but it never really took off. There was no decor in his room...until now, of course.

He's a boy (obviously). So he needed a boy theme...and I found it at Target. Sadly, the artwork that matched the Transportation theme was gone...and after buying a bed in a bag set, extra set of sheets, mattress pad, and mattress/box spring set, I just couldn't stomach another $20 for one thing to hang on the wall anyway...because, of course, I could buy multiple blank canvases and some paint and do it myself!

Here is my first creation...the dump truck...

I'm a little bit giddy. I spent a total of $14 at Hobby Lobby on 4 blank canvases and a multipack of paint...and I had a productive reason to sit down and paint alongside my kids on a random afternoon.

Stay tuned...I'm not sure what's next...fire truck? squad car? backhoe? The possibilities are endless.

Natural Light Photography

I'm not a great photographer. But I love my kids. And I love to take pictures of them. I attend a educational/support/social group for Mothers of Pre-Schools, called MOPS. And we've had some great tips this year from a professional photographer (see her work at http://www.jillvelicer.com/).

Here is my attempt this morning at following her suggestion to use natural light, instead of a flash. And this is where I apply my theory that taking lots and lots of pictures might give me one I like...I ended up with one decent picture of each kid...

 Whoops, she moved...and stuck her tongue out...

 Nice.

"But Mom, I just want to be on the floor."

"But S, I'm trying to take a nice picture of you."

 Sometimes this laying on the ground pose works, but not today.

 "Mama, what's this?"

 Yikes, all around.

 Better, but still not great...

 Fuzzy.

 Bad angle.

 That's okay...see her pretty eyelashes?

 She's picking at her toes, in case you were wondering...

 Still picking.

And...still picking...

 A-ha! There's one I like.

Sometimes the subject is the problem, moreso than the skill of the photographer.

Aside from the skinned nose, I like this one...he skinned that in the driveway on Tuesday...it's probably just the first of a long line of summer injuries to come...

Spring is kind of here. I can't wait to actually go outside to take pictures of my little peeps...

Growing Stuff

Lots of parenting magazines, books, and websites suggest that growing your own vegetables and involving your kids in the process will encourage them to actually EAT vegetables. We're giving this theory a whirl at our house this summer. We bought a cheap plastic "greenhouse" to house some jiffy pots I've had in the shed for a couple years....jiffy pots are little pellets of compressed and dried dirt meant for germinating seeds.

So, I arranged them in the dry tray...

Gathered our seeds...

And called in a helper...she likes "projects"...here she's putting water in the tray...

And now the pots are absorbing water and "growing"...

Then helper #2 showed up. He doesn't help much, but he has potential...

Here's his time-out. I put the camera down to plant the seeds, and he ran away with it.

Naughty, naughty, cute little boy!

And here's helper #1 putting the top on the little greenhouse.

In a week or two, we should see some action. We planted carrots, spinach, cucumbers, and squash...also some sunflowers and cosmos. We have high hopes, but low expectations...on both our harvest and the kids' consumption of it.

A book club that loves food...or a food club that loves books?

My book club meets monthly to discuss a book we have all agreed to read...in theory. In practice, I think we get together to eat and chat. I don't always read the book...but no one cares about that little detail at our book club.

This month we read One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus. It's a story about a woman in the mid-1800's who was committed to an asylum for the "crime" of promiscuity. She fell in love, lived with, and had a couple babies with a man she had not married and who was beneath the social class of her family. Her family had arranged for her commitment, they took her children, and they locked her up. The premise of the story starts two years later. In exchange for her freedom, she agreed to participate in a secret government program to be one of one thousand white women who would travel west to become brides for Cheyenne men. I think, though, that the book is more about relationships the white brides built with each other, their husbands other wives, and the other members of the tribe. I was fascinated how as the story unfolded, the women learned to get along in a society, whose social norms and rules were completely foreign to their way of life. I read this book in just a few days...and I'm famous for not finishing, and sometimes not even starting, our assigned reading. Hee, hee.

Perhaps more important than the book is tonight's menu: taco night. I'm in charge of the shredded cheese. And since I bought generic cheese, I'll have to put it in a fancy bowl to dress it up a bit. In the spirit of taco night, here is a recipe for guacamole...at least I think it is...I gleaned this little formula from watching the gal at Jose's Blue Sombrero restaurant in Brookfield...they have a table-side guacamole gal who mixes it up...well...right at your table.

3 ripe avocados, peeled, pitted, mashed up a little
juice of 1/4 of a lime
1/4 tsp salt, possibly more to taste
1/4 tsp minced garlic, possibly more to taste
a handful of chopped onions
a handful of chopped tomatoes
a smidgen of fresh cilantro, finely chopped

Stir it, doctor it up a bit more, if needed. Serve it with warm tortilla chips.

To store for later, try leaving the pits in it and squeezing a little more lime juice over it to reduce browning...

Happy Birthday!

I know six people who were born on February 17th...not the same year granted, but it is the most highly populated birthday date in my calendar. In honor of Roger Jablonski, Linda Michaels, Amanda Deppert, Adam Wolff, Marie Belzer, and Victoria Brinton, I give you Rum Cake.

But not just any Rum Cake. This is Grandma Rich's Rum Cake. I don't know who Grandma Rich is...but her granddaughter works with my husband. And she brought this cake in to the office once, and despite my best attempts to provide him with a rum cake, none could stand up to this recipe. She was kind enough to share the recipe...

Grandma Rich's Rum Cake

1 boxed yellow cake mix...with pudding in the mix

1 large box vanilla pudding

1/2 c water

1/2 c oil

1/2 c Captain Morgan Spiced Rum

4 eggs

Grease and flour a bundt pan. Mix the above ingredients, pour into the bundt pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Turn the oven down to 325, and bake another 25 minutes...or until it's done. Leave the cake in the pan. While it's cooling, melt...

1 stick of butter

1 c sugar

1/4 c water

Bring it to a boil and let it boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add 1/4 c (perhaps a splash or two more) of Captain Morgan...by now the cake should have pulled away from the sides of the pan a bit...pour the glaze over it, and shimmy the cake around a bit, so the glaze gets into all the nooks and crannies. Save a little bit of glaze to fill in any uncovered spots when you tip it out of the pan.

*****



It's great with ice cream. It's great with whipped cream. It's great plain. It's great with coffee the next morning for breakfast.

Before you wash the serving dish, makes sure you scrape up the crunchy bits and eat those. It might seem gluttonous, but you won't care, once you do it.

Missing Grandma Rita

Grandma Rita, my dad's mom, was a pretty special gal. She was a stubborn lady, a hard worker, a fierce crocheter, and a great cook. Some of her traits and skills have been passed on to me...anyone who knew Grandma Rita might sum up my physical resemblance to her with two words: Wagner Thighs!

I had the foresight in my early 20's, when I was living in the same town as her, that I needed to take advantage of this unique time of my life. I was single and had some spare time on my hands. I also knew my grandma would not live forever. We shared a lot of meals, a few road trips, and countless soap operas in those three years. She helped me move a couple times too! She shared with me a lot of wisdom, some great life skills, and maybe some secrets too...

Grandma Rita didn't feel well for most of the summer before she died...a secret she kept fairly quiet. She lost weight, and her color changed. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in middle of August and died in the middle of September. We didn't have a lot of time to talk in that last month. There were lots of other people who needed to see her...people who hadn't had the same of opportunity and life circumstances I had to spend a lot of time with her. My life had changed a lot by then...I had met and married my husband and moved 100 miles away. I had a one-year-old little girl and a baby boy on the way, whom Grandma Rita didn't get to meet (not on Earth anyway).

What I have now is a grateful heart for the time I spent with her...a collection of special recipes for food she used to make...an emerald ring my grandpa gave her...the silver-rimmed mirror where her perfume stood on her dresser (now used for the same purpose at my house), a doughnut punch... and her last crochet stitches (an unfinished baby blanket for my son) .

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Grandma Rita and my daughter...

February 2008

May 2008 (they both have big, brown eyes!)

Grandmas HAVE to cuddle sleeping babies. It's a rule...

The bottom two pictures were taken 3 1/2 months before she died.

I don't know why I'm missing her so much more lately...maybe it's because I recently scrolled through my cell phone contacts list and realized that after two and a half years, I still can't delete her number.

I bought doughnut pans this week...thinking I should find a way to make a healthier version of the Potato Doughnuts she used to make. If I ever get a hold of a deep-fryer to make the original, super-bad-for-you recipe, I will not over think the nutritional content...instead I'll just make a cup of strong, black coffee...and think about the way I used to play with the veins on her hands in church, the smell of coffee and food and warmth in her house, and the amazing woman she was...

Potato Doughnuts

2 heaping tbsp butter

2 c mashed potatoes
2 c sugar

3-4 eggs

1 c sweet milk

5c or so flour

4 tsp baking powder

Mix the butter in the potatoes while they're still hot. Mix the rest in the order given.
Roll out, punch, cook in hot oil.

Simple and delicious...

Sicilian Pizza

I've been trying to be more creative and budget-minded in the kitchen. This has involved a survey of the contents of our cupboards, refrigerator and freezers...a detailed plan of meals and snacks, and a careful pondering of how to make meals out of what I have, coupled with what is in the grocery store sale flyer. Today we are having Sicilian Pizza...a recipe I cut out of the newspaper before I moved to this house, before I had kids, and before most things I now consider as definitions of "me". Perhaps you'll enjoy Sicilian Pizza at your house someday...we enjoy it at ours often...

Sicilian Pizza

2c Hot Water (110 degrees)
2 packets of yeast
1 Tbsp Sugar
-Combine these three and let sit for a few minutes. Then slowly add up to...

5 c flour (I use a 50/50 blend of white and whole wheat flour)
-Stir until a soft dough forms. Put it in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled in size. Meanwhile...

Grease a pan...9x13 if you like super-thick pizza or a 12x17 cookie sheet if you like slightly thick pizza...coat the pan with cornmeal, if you like that sort of thing...

When the dough has risen, spread it in the prepared pan. Let this rise about half an hour. For toppings...

1 lb mozzarella, cubed in 1/2 to 1 inch cubes
1 large or 2 small cans of Italian style tomatoes
Meat and other stuff is totally optional
Shredded parmesan cheese
Italian bread crumbs
Olive Oil
Garlic Powder
Italian Seasoning

First, press the cubes of cheese into the crust. Place tomatoes on the crust, between the cheese cubes. Top with meat and other stuff. Then sprinkle bread crumbs, seasonings, and parmesan cheese. Drizzle some olive oil over it all and bake it at 350 for about 30 minutes.