Here’s the second cake I made for my class. I got some more help from my instructor on this one (I think she really liked the design I had and wanted to make sure it looked good because it was all I could do to not have her take over the whole thing). She did the dark outline of the mane and helped mound up the frosting to give a three-dimensional effect for the face. And she mixed the gray color. The rest is all me. I copied a onesie of my son’s, then did a transfer of the design using piping gel, then filled in the design with frosting.

After thinking about doing it for several years, I’ve signed up for a cake decorating class at a local store. So far I’ve had two classes and I’ve made one cake. I’ll be making two more cakes during this course, and then I hope to take the additional courses as well; I’ve been having fun and now after buying the equipment and supplies and stuff I want to make sure I use it.

What’s not so good so far is that I HATE “decorator’s icing”. As in the nasty stuff made with shortening and lots of powdered sugar. I’ve added clear vanilla and butter flavor but it still just tastes like nothing but sweet and it leaves that nasty film in your mouth. It’s somewhat discouraging to spend the time (and money on ingredients) making a cake and then not wanting to eat it. Fortunately the instructor will be teaching us a better tasting frosting recipe soon and we can use it and some other versions; we just had to start with the basic one that’s easier to use. Whew.

Tomorrow I’ve got class again. I need to bake another cake and make three more batches of frosting before class. I had hoped to do both today but the boy was a bit of a terror and R was unable to watch him at all to let me focus on what I’d need to do. Well, he could have after G went to bed but that was 9:30 and by then I was too tired to do anything. Yes, our baby does stay up until 8:30 or 9:00 usually. Yes, tonight was later than normal, but not really that much later considering his nap times today.

Overall I’m pleased with my first cake since I started not having any idea how to use the icing bag even. I know it could be better, but hey, it IS my first one.

Simple Bites has a post up today about the ten spices you absolutely, positively must have on your spice rack. I realize that they’re being a bit dramatic for effect but still. Absolutely positively??

I have 8 of their 10, and I can barely count a 7th because I don’t remember using it in YEARS. A 6th I use maybe once a year.

My top ten?

1. Kosher salt. Yes, I definitely agree with them there. Although I still use table salt sometimes, and sea salt other times, I use kosher salt all the time.
2. Black pepper. I have a pepper grinder I LOVE so getting freshly ground pepper is very easy, and so tasty.
3. Oregano. We love Italian flavors and I find I use this frequently.
4. Hot sauce! I’m not even sure how many types we have, but our go-to ones are pretty basic: Tabasco & Franks
5. Greek seasoning blend – love this on fried potatoes on weekend mornings.
6. Dill. I absolutely adore the flavor of dill and go overboard using it in potato, egg & tuna salads. Yummm!
7. Chili powder & cayenne pepper. I know, kind of cheating to group them as one, but I almost always use them together. Not 100% of the time, but probably 95%.
8. Bay leaves. Not so much during the Spring & Summer, but during soup season I use these regularly. I got some huge ones from Penzey’s which have so much more aroma than the ones I’d always gotten from the grocery store.
9. Nutmeg! I actually like the taste of nutmeg much more than cinnamon, so I usually reverse the amounts listed in most recipes. I keep whole nutmeg in the freezer and grate it whenever I need it.
10. Cinnamon. My husband especially loves cinnamon, so I end up using it often for him. Although, I think I use it exclusively for sweet dishes, never savory.

And what is it that I don’t have in my pantry that was recommended?

• Curry powder – I DETEST curry; something in almost all curry blends literally makes me shudder and gag. It’s so bad I don’t even want to make an effort to figure out what it is (maybe the tumeric?) in order to avoid it if possible. I just steer clear. R hates it as much as me, so there is no push from him for me to ever use it so we just don’t.
• Cumin – before getting married I could have almost lumped cumin in with the chili powder & cayenne pepper above; I used it regularly. Then I learned that my husband thinks cumin makes food smell like dirty feet. Specifically, his youngest brother’s nasty feet. Yeah, I haven’t used it since. Who wants to bring up that horrific smell memory for someone they love?
• While I do own arrowroot, I haven’t used it in forever. In fact, I’d need to check to see if it can go bad before I’d want to use what I’ve got in the cabinet. I don’t really cook stirfrys to use it for thickening so it just sits unused on the shelf. I think I got the bottle from my mom, who helped stock my kitchen when I first moved up here.
• And it’s ground ginger that I use so infrequently, and never in savory dishes. Gingerbreads or similar items are about it.

Yesterday I had a “big” baking day. I put big in quotes because, while three items baked is a big day for me now, BB (before baby), that wouldn’t have been such an accomplishment.

I only managed to get all three done, including cleaning up the kitchen afterward, because I got a head start – I measured out all the dry ingredients the night before. I may try to do that more often because that evening’s measuring work seemed very easy, and then it made the assembly and baking the next day super easy. It did result in additional dishes to wash, but most of them could go into the dishwasher so no biggie.

First up was a carrot banana quick bread, made in my new tea loaf pan – longer and skinnier than the regular 9 x 5 pan I would have usually used. It was a new recipe which I picked because I had two small bananas to use up – too small for most of my banana bread recipes, but almost perfect for this one. It was still a little shy of the required 1 cup, so I added a baby food jar of pear puree (G does not care for pears unless I hide them in a lot of other stuff) and that brought it up to the 1 cup line. The verdict? Banana pineapple bread is still L’s favorite, but this one was up there as a strong runner-up.

Next I started some light wheat bread working. I made this several months ago, but I think my whole wheat flour was slightly bad and the loaf was TERRIBLE. I’ve been wanting to retry it with good flour. This time the flour was definitely good, and the loaf was fine. Not spectacular or even great, but ok. I probably won’t make it again, because I know there are some spectacular loaves out there just waiting for me to make them.

I finished the day’s work with chocolate-chip cookie cake. It was basically chocolate chip cookie dough baked in a 13 x 9 pan, but the texture did end up being slightly more cake-like than bar-like. Only slightly though. Still, it’s a delicious chocolate chip cookie/cake/whatever. Yummmm! The recipe came from Flo Braker’s book Baking for All Occasions and isn’t online so no link.

Monday – Rice & beans with cheese
Tuesday – Italian potato soup
Wednesday – Corned beef, potatoes & cabbage. Happy Saint Patrick’s day!
Thursday – Pizza
Friday – clean out the fridge!
Saturday – Spicy black bean burgers with oven fried potatoes and cabbage & lime salad. (yes, this is the same thing I’ve been planning now for three weeks. I still haven’t managed to make it)

More menus at Organizing Junkie!

This is probably going to be one of the easiest menu plans for me ever, because I got my dates mixed up last week and planned a menu taking into account having visitors. Well, the visitors aren’t arriving to this week, so most of the menu got shifted back a week. Let’s not talk about what we ended up eating for dinners last week, let’s just celebrate how easy this week’s plan was for me to do!

Monday – Swiss steak in the slow cooker. Probably with mashed potatoes and peas.
Tuesday – Spicy black bean burgers with oven fried potatoes and cabbage & lime salad.
Wednesday – Creamy onion soup.
Thursday – Bruschetta chicken bake, with roasted carrots and broccoli.
Friday – Clean out the fridge!
Saturday – Layered enchilada bake. Sides TBD.

More menus at Organizing Junkie!

Last week’s plan worked pretty well for us. It at least gave me a starting point anyway, which is probably all I can hope for.

Monday – Macaroni & cheese, with broccoli.
Tuesday – Spicy black bean burgers with oven fried potatoes and cabbage & lime salad.
Wednesday – Italian potato soup.
Thursday – Bruschetta chicken bake, with roasted carrots and broccoli.
Friday – Clean out the fridge!
Saturday – Layered enchilada bake. Sides TBD.

I’m doing a couple of recipes (the chicken & enchilada one) specifically because we’re having houseguests and I know that these will appeal to them. And they make large quantities, which is good when one of those guests is a 20-something guy who can really eat.

More menus at Organizing Junkie!

After the disappointing hot fudge peanut butter pudding cake I made Thursday, I was really wanting something fantastic, and thanks to some persuading from Jennifer (like I needed much at all) I made a recipe I’ve had on my “to try” list for several years.

I’ve generally had very good success with Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) recipes – especially her basic white bread which is so tasty I don’t make it often. I don’t need to be eating that much white bread.
Her brownie pudding recipe calls for basic ingredients which I always have on hand too, which is a plus. Well, except I never have extra-large eggs so I just used large. Since I halved the recipe I hoped the smaller egg size wouldn’t matter.

It’s very easy to make – I think it took me longer to find a pan close to the correct size and another one to fit it into for the water bath than to get it made. I did have trouble with the timing on it. I ended up cooking it for 65 minutes and it was still incredibly gooey, but the crunch top had an almost scorched note to it so I’m glad I pulled it when I did. Perhaps it was the pan size that wasn’t quite right, or maybe this is a recipe that really shouldn’t have been halved.

Overall, I liked it much more than the hot fudge peanut butter pudding cake, but I still wasn’t crazy about it. I’ll finish it, but I doubt I’ll make it again. There are just too many other recipes to try or phenomenal ones for me to make again.

I’m trying to come up with some ideas of things to bake/cook/prepare that would make tasty and reasonably healthy snacks.

I *love* to bake. But I no longer have coworkers with whom to share the items I bake. Our family isn’t big enough to need to eat all of the items either, and even if we were I’d like to have more items that make for better snacks than brownies/cookies/cakes do.

I made granola bars in the fall, and really disliked them. Maybe it was just a bad recipe, and I should try again, because if I could come up with a tasty version I think that would be a great option. Lots of healthy oats with enough yummy dried fruit and nuts to make it delicious.

Maybe some quickbreads or muffins with less oil and sugar then they sometimes have? I’m going to have to do some planning and see what I can come up with…