666 Cake Tricks!

Todays post is kind of a deep cut, going all the way back to when I first started blogging! I used to photograph step-by step recipes, Pioneer Woman style, and post them on my blog. No idea if anyone ever followed them, but I had fun making them.

Anyway, today I'm doing that again! I don't really bake, but for some reason I just out of the blue decided I wanted to try to make a cake. Now I don't have flour, or sugar, or cake ingredients, but I decided to get a cake mix, and use some Pioneer Woman tips and tricks, plus some that I'd seen on YouTube, to fancy it up a bit, and make it more homemade.

So the first thing I did was ignore just about everything on the box. I used whole milk instead of water, butter instead of oil, an extra egg, and a cup of applesauce. (Please excuse my terrible photos, I had to use my phone because my camera is still back home in Harlan, not to mention, the color seems to have been horribly desaturated in the upload.)

I mixed all the wet ingredients together, minus the butter. I used some of it to grease the pan, and the rest I melted on the stove. I didn't want it getting too hot and cooking the eggs, so I saved the melted butter for last. I mixed in the bag of dry ingredients into the wet, and then whisked it together. The box said to mix on medium speed for three minutes. Well, I don't actually own an electric mixer, so I had to mix that stuff by hand like a REAL Pioneer Woman! Mixing cake batter for three minutes is actually kind of an arm workout! While I mixed, I slowly added in the butter, as I figured by that time it was probably cool enough.

Once everything was mixed thoroughly, or at least as thoroughly as my non-Pioneer Woman arm could get it, I also stirred in a cup of chocolate chips. Actually, I didn't pay attention to how many chocolate chips I added, I just had a container that had been in my cupboard for like three years, and I thought this would be a perfect way to get rid of them. Bonus hack! Got ingredients you want to use up? Dump them into a cake!

I baked the cake following the instructions on the box, but I think I ended up adding 10-15 minutes to the cooking time. I kept checking on it with a chop stick, (I don't have toothpicks) but it wasn't done, so I just kept adding to the bake time. While the cake baked, the next step was to improve the frosting. Regular store-bought frosting is okay, but not great. Want to know how to fix that? More butter. I added half a stick, but I think a whole one would have been even better.

When the cake was done I let it cool awhile, but I broke one of the cardinal rules of cakes, and I frosted it while both the cake and the frosting were still warm. I thought it worked beautifully.

It was amazing.

So that was fun. I like to cook, but I generally don't bake. Partly because I really try not to eat this kind of thing too much, but it was still a fun change of pace for me. Now I have an entire cake to eat... Oh well! :)

Oh, incidentally, this was my 666th blog post, and this was a Devil's Food Cake.

Garden Fresh Salsa

I could have posted this quite awhile ago, but I have been preoccupied with other things. See previous posts… Anyway, now that I am shifting my priorities, I am hoping that I will have more time to write and take pictures, as long as I’m caught up on school work of course. :)

I’ve posted a similar salsa recipe before, but I decided to do another one since it is that time of year when everyone is gathering in their crops, and they probably have a lot of produce to use.

Salsa is one of my favorite foods, and I came up with this recipe when I couldn’t find any really good salsas at the store. The best solution is to make your own.

The great thing about this recipe is that you can change it really easily depending on how much produce you have on hand or how big a batch you want to make.

I usually make a pretty big batch of salsa so it’ll last me a whole week. I like having it on hand since it an easy way to get more vegetables in my diet, plus it just tastes so good! Here’s how I made mine, but feel free to take this recipe and change it to make a huge batch for a party, or just use  a couple vegetables for a small batch for one meal.

Start with as much produce as you want. Tomatoes, Green Bell Peppers, Jalapeños, and Onions are the essentials. I used all garden fresh, both from our garden, and stuff dad brought home from his coworkers.

Um, well, it wasn’t quite ALL garden fresh… The onion came from the store…

I also added this thing. I’m not sure what kind of pepper it was, but I decided to use it in the salsa because dad brought it home in a bag of other vegetables, and I didn’t think anyone else was going to use it.

Remove all the blemishes, which you will most likely have if you’re using garden fresh vegetables, and core and peel everything. The only exception would be the jalapeños if you like it hot. If you leave the seeds in them it will make your salsa a lot hotter. Chop everything up into whatever size you like for your vegetables. I like a bit larger chunks for mine, but the jalapeños I chop up really fine so the heat gets spread around more evenly.

The last ingredient is picante sauce.

I use hot, but you can use mild or medium if you prefer.  Don’t add a whole lot if you’re making just a small batch, but if you’re making a lot you’ll want to add at least one jar, if not two, depending on just how big your batch is.

Mix it all together and you have garden fresh salsa. So much better than the store bought variety.

Macaroni and Cheese Salad

This is one of my absolute favorite things to make, so I don’t know why I haven’t blogged it sooner. If this salad were drugs, I’d be an addict.

I’m getting hungry just looking at this picture…

First make a box of macaroni and cheese according to the directions on the box, and as soon as you are done while it’s still hot, add a small bag, about 12 ounces of frozen peas.

You can do this step at any time, but I usually start with this and work on the macaroni and cheese all throughout the preparation of the other ingredients. When you’re done let it sit until you have finished the rest of the salad. This is so that the frozen peas will thaw, and so that the macaroni and cheese will cool down.

To start the rest of the salad, you begin by grating about half an onion into a large mixing bowl.You can do more or less depending on how much you like onion.

Then 3/4 cup of Salad Dressing or Mayonnaise.

Then about half a cup of chopped celery. I usually use two stalks, but you can do more if you want the salad really crunchy.

Then add a half a teaspoon of salt

And grate in 6 hard boiled eggs. Please excuse the awful picture, these are farm fresh eggs, and for some reason they do not peel well at all.

Then add approximately 1 – 1 1/2 cups of cubed cheese. You can use pre-cubed or shredded cheese if you want, but I prefer to make tiny cubes myself, because I like the texture, and the pre-cubed chunks from the store are way too big for my liking. I used Pepper Jack cheese, which is good, but this recipe is best when you use sharp cheddar. I didn’t have any, so I made do with what I could find.

Then stir all this together.

The final step is to add the now cool Macaroni and Peas. Stir it all together and you just made the most amazing pasta salad the world will ever know.

I’d better go find something else to do before I start gnawing on my computer screen…

Potato Salad

Finally! Another recipe post! I haven’t done one of those in quite awhile, but I will be rolling out at least three in the next few days because the other day I spent the whole afternoon cooking as I had invited a friend over for supper. I made three different things and I took pictures the whole time so I could blog about them. The recipe I’ll post first is a potato salad recipe. This is based on my mom’s suggestions for ingredients, but I didn’t have any exact measurements.

As long as you follow my approximate guesses you’ll be fine, and as usual, if you want to add more or less of anything that’s just fine.
You’ll need to start by making the dressing.
I used about 3/4 cup of plain salad dressing as the base.
I added a couple tablespoons of mustard to that.
I also grated in about half an onion.
I added about half a teaspoon each of salt and pepper.
Then I added between one and two tablespoons each of vinegar and sugar.

If you end up with something that looks like this you’re probably fine.

You’ll need about 6 hard boiled eggs

And about 3 stalks of chopped celery.

The next thing I added was home-made lime pickles which I chopped up really fine. I did maybe a quarter cup. You probably won’t have these on hand, but sweet relish or chopped bread and butter pickles would probably make for acceptable substitutes.

Grate in the eggs, add the celery and pickles to the dressing, and mix it  all together.

The final and most important ingredient is the potatoes. I’m not sure how much I added. Mom boiled extra the Sunday before to make this salad. I’m going to guess that there was at least 6 cups here. Usually I would recommend using peeled potatoes, but these are freshly dug new potatoes from our garden, so the skins are really good. If you’re using store bought potatoes, go ahead and peel them.
Mix in the potatoes and it’s done.

For not having any exact measurements, this salad turned out very well, and tasted pretty much like Mom’s. This salad is one of the favorite in our family.

Vitamin K

Today in nutrition class I met my teacher for the very first time, and we are over half-way through the summer semester! As I posted when I first started, our nutrition class is very different than any other class I have attended before. We attend class in the basement of our library in town, and we communicate with our teacher with microphones and cameras. So until today, she was basically a TV show to us. Sure we could talk to her, but it was still not the same as having the actual person there. I really enjoyed class today. It was nice to have a living breathing person in front of us instead of a slightly blurry TV screen.
The reason she came all the way to Harlan, was because today was the day we gave our presentations in class. There really would be no good way of doing that in our current situation, so she drove two hours to see us.
My presentation was on Vitamin K. As part of the presentation we were to create handouts for the entire class. The main part of everyone’s handout was a copy of our PowerPoint slides, but do you think that was good enough for me? Of course not! Some suggestions that were given to us for things to put into our handouts were a quiz, or a word scramble. I did both, and I reformatted my PowerPoint slides, so that it was basically a trivia list. The answers to the quiz came from this list. But of course, my quiz was no ordinary quiz. :)
Those of you who have been reading my blog from the beginning, (Probably almost a year now! I should look up when my first post was…) may remember the questionnaires we had to make for speech class. If you don’t, you can find my first one HERE, and my second one HERE. I had a lot of fun writing those, and I thought I’d do something similar for my quiz.
I ended up having even more fun writing my “Vitamin Kwiz” than I did writing my speech questionnaires. I cracked myself up through the whole thing. As a classmate told me when I told her that, “That’s how you know it’s good.” :) Of course I will have to share it with you all, so you can see what I’m talking about. Who knows, maybe you’ll all learn something new about Vitamin K in the process!
Also, as part of the presentation we were to find a recipe that contained the vitamin we researched, so for the first time in months, I am posting a recipe! And it’s one I invented myself! No pictures though. So sad. Anyway, enjoy the Kwiz!

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Vitamin K!

By Jonathan North

 

Vitamin K is a family of fat soluble vitamins all known collectively as Vitamin K.
This group of vitamins got its name, “K”, from the Danish spelling of the word “Coagulation”.
Vitamin K was discovered in 1939 by a Danish biochemist named Henrik Dam.
He was actually awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1943.
Vitamin K activates proteins in the blood and in the bones.
It is essential for blood clotting.
It is also essential for strong bones
As with other fat soluble vitamins, Vitamin K is absorbed in the intestines.
Females need 90 micrograms of Vitamin K per day.
Males need 120 micrograms.
Vitamin K can be found in plants and plant oils, as well as meats and fish oils.
The main sources of Vitamin K are Green Leafy vegetables such as Kale, Dark Green Lettuces, and Spinach; but you can also find them in Broccoli, Peas, and Green Beans.
Other food sources are Liver, as well as Soybean Oil, and Canola Oil.
In addition to the Vitamin K we receive by eating Vitamin K rich foods, some Vitamin K is also made in our own bodies, not by our bodies themselves, but by bacteria living in our small intestines.
There has never been an upper limit set on the amount of Vitamin K you can ingest, because there have so far been no known toxic effects from eating too much.
The main signs of a Vitamin K deficiency are hemorrhaging and fractures.
Vitamin K helps the body absorb calcium, which is why it is essential for strong bones.
 

Vitamin K Edutainment!

Vitamin Kwiz!

 

1. What kind of prizes do discoverers of Vitamin K receive?

a. Oscars
b. Tonys
c. CMAs
d. Nobel Peaces

 
2. Jamie needs at least 120 micrograms of Vitamin K every day. What gender is Jamie?
a. Male
b. Female
c. Robot
d. Genderless Earthworm
 
3. Susan loves Kale so much she just totally pigged out! What going to happen to her since she ate WAY more than 90 micrograms of Vitamin K?
a. Three weeks of an itchy rash.
b. Cancer of the pinky toe.
c. Gasping, wheezing, and coughing, followed by possible lifelong asthma.
d. Absolutely nothing.
 
4. Bob hates absolutely every kind of leafy green on earth. He refuses to eat any vegetables, and he won’t even go near supplements. Liver makes him gag, and he only cooks with bacon grease. Obviously he’s not getting enough Vitamin K. If he falls down three flights of stairs, what will probably happen to him?
a. He’ll probably be OK.
b. He’ll drown.
c. He’ll be mugged by a feral herd of rodeo clowns.
d. He’ll break every bone in his body, and then bleed to death.
 
5. Bob does get a little bit of Vitamin K because something makes it for him. Where does Bob’s very limited Vitamin K supply come from?
a. The tiny Vitamin Fairy who lives behind his ear.
b. Jojo the tapeworm
c. The Vitamin Fairy’s husband. She sits at home all day watching her stories while he works in the Vitamin K factory.
d. Bacteria
 
6. The maker of Bob’s Vitamin K supply has to live somewhere. Where do they live?
a. Under his left big toenail.
b. Um, behind his ear, don’t you pay attention?
c. The Vitamin Fairy’s husband moved out from behind his ear three weeks ago. He lives in the men’s bathroom at the Vitamin K factory now, in the handicapped stall. He’s a pretty big guy and it’s a lot roomier than the other stalls.
d. In his small intestine.
 
7. Bob just got into a huge fight! That little girl just punched him in the nose! What will happen to him now?
a. He’ll black out, but in a couple hours he’ll wake up and be fine.
b. He’ll have a scarring memory of being beaten up by a little girl and need therapy for the rest of his life.
c. He’ll fall over backwards and crush an innocent street mime who was just passing behind him.
d. Death by bloody nose.
 
8. Bob drinks tons of milk, but without Vitamin K it is pointless. Why?
a. All of life is pointless. Vitamin K means nothing on a cosmic scale.
b. Vitamin K is like chocolate syrup or Capn’ Crunch. You HAVE to have it with milk, or the milk is just gross.
c. Duh, the Vitamin K has magics in it, everyone knows that!
d. Vitamin K helps the body absorb calcium. Why else do you think falling down three flights of stairs would be a death sentence for him?

 

How Many Words Can You Make Using the Scrambled Up Letters in the Danish Name for Vitamin K?

K O A G U L A T I O N S V I T A M I N

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BONUS “CHOCK-FULL OF VITAMIN K” RECIPE!!!

 

Asparagus Casserole

1-2 lbs. Asparagus
Cream of Mushroom Soup
French Fried Onions
Chop up the asparagus into bite size pieces. Prepare just like a green bean casserole, but bake for at least a half an hour, if not longer to make sure the asparagus is cooked through.

So, that was what I’ve been working on this week. Don’t you all wish you could go back to school and learn about vitamins now?! :D

EDIT: So mom informs me that you have to add milk to this recipe. I don't remember that I ever did, but she makes it more than I ever do, so you'd probably better go with what she says...  :)

Quick and Easy Fresh Salsa

I haven’t posted a recipe in quite awhile, and other than a couple recipes, I’ve only posted soups. Well today, I’m posting my recipe for a VERY easy FRESH salsa recipe. It’s not GARDEN fresh, but it’s the middle of February. Beggars can’t be choosers.

To begin, peel and core a tomato.

Then chop it up and put in in a bowl.

Then dice up onions,

And Green Pepper,

And mix it all together.

Here I added black beans, but that isn’t a must. I’ve made it without before, and it’s just as good. If you do add them, be sure to drain and rinse them. Salsa with bean syrup would just be nasty.

The final ingredient: Picante sauce.

Since I used hot I opted not to use jalapenos, but you can add them if you want. I’ve made this before with jalapenos and hot picante sauce, and it was REALLY hot.

Mix all this together and it’s done.

Get some tortilla chips and enjoy.