Cooking

Wacky Cake

cohortjinxyLeave a comment

IMG_1879

This is an old, familiar cake for me. One my mother used to make for all sorts of occasions that always got rave reviews. Now, I usually bake a cake a week to send to work with the man and most often the guys at work pick what sort of cake they want but this week, well, no one came up with a, ‘do you think she could bake this kind of cake’ so I was left to my own devices so I pulled out my mother’s old stand by. I did some research on this cake and learned it was a depression era cake because it doesn’t call for eggs or milk which were rationed. Most were served without any topping or at the most with a dusting of powdered sugar but ours, as I remember it, had a sort of candy bar topping. (Oh and there was one person who said they would lay Hershey bars on the top and melt them. Yikes!)

This recipe is for a small cake baked in an 8 X 8 pan, I doubled mine and it was perfect for my 13 X 9 pan.

  • 1  1/2 C  All Purpose Flour
  • 1  C        Sugar
  • 4 tbls     Baking, unsweetned cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp      Baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp  Salt
  • 1 tsp      Vanilla
  • 1 tbls     Vinegar
  • 6 tbls     Oil
  • 1 C         Water

Sift together the dry ingredients. Stir in wet ingredients until well blended. Pour into a greased and floured cake pan and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. (Well it’s going to come out chocolatey colored, just make sure it’s not doughy) You can let it cool and dust with powdered sugar or top it with our topping.

Topping

  • 1/2 stick of butter melted
  • 1/2 C    brown sugar
  • 1/2 C    shredded coconut
  • chopped nuts, about 1/2 cup
  • 1/2 bag of chocolate chips

Stir brown sugar into melted butter until dissolved, (you can add a bit of milk if you like for more of a German Chocolate cake topping) then stir in coconut until blended and pour over cake fresh from the oven. Cover with chopped nuts and top with chocolate chips. Return to oven until chocolate chips just begin to melt. Remove from oven and let cool completely before serving.

Potato Soup

mistydtuckerLeave a comment

Of all the things the toddlers love for lunch, I never expected potato soup to top the list. I had leftover boiled potatoes from supper last night and, on a whim, decided to give it a go. I forgot to take a picture before it was all gone! Didn’t measure, but here’s the ingredients!

Leftover boiled potatoes with enough starch water to cover them plus an inch.

About a half cup of milk (I didn’t have cream handy)

About a 1/2 inch chunk of butter.

I cut up some green onions that made it through the winter, then added salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme, chives, marjoram, and one in my spice rack that says “savory”.

In a cup of hot water, I stirred in a heaping teaspoon of corn starch to help thicken the soup.

I used the masher to squish the taters a bit so they wouldn’t be such large chunks and let it boil down.

Once it was done, I added cheese, bacon crumbles and a few more cuts of green onions and it was done!

Not exact by any means, but cooking doesn’t have to be. Just throw things together, taste and adjust and you can stumble on something the kids will love!

Quiche — Jinxy’s Version

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IMG_1876Quiche you wonder? Yes, quiche because I have an abundance of fresh eggs coming in at the tune of a dozen a day while we are caring for Uncle Bully’s flock. That and since spring is springing up here in Central Florida, I am always looking for something that isn’t going to be in the oven for hours. With a thirty minute bake time, quiche is wonderful.

So, since I have never made a quiche, I went in search of a great recipe and let me tell you, there are a lot of them out there. Most all call for heavy cream and others get poor ratings for tasting ‘too eggy’. Really? Too eggy? Isn’t supposed to be eggy? So I read countless recipes and then opted to just make my own taking the main elements from all those I read and tweaking them more to my tastes (and what the man likes) to come up with what I served up for supper.

For the crust, I used this recipe, thanks to my niece for sharing it with me it’s my go to for pie crust.    Of course, you can use any store bought pre-made crust as well and have great results as well.

Ingredients: 

1/2 C     Light Condensed Milk at room temperature
1/2 C     Non-fat Milk at room temperature
8 oz.     Ham steak, diced
8 0z.    Shredded Swiss Cheese
1 C        Raw spinach, chopped
5 lg.     Eggs at room temperature
1 tbsp.    Melted butter
Salt, Pepper, Cayenne Pepper to taste

Place diced ham in the pie crust shell. Whisk together condensed milk, non-fat milk and eggs until well blended. Stir in melted butter and seasonings. Fold in shredded cheese and spinach and pour over ham in pie crust shell.  Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.  Serves 8.

Nutrition Facts
Servings 8.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 318
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 22 g 34 %
Saturated Fat 8 g 40 %
Monounsaturated Fat 3 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 170 mg 57 %
Sodium 635 mg 26 %
Potassium 102 mg 3 %
Total Carbohydrate 25 g 8 %
Dietary Fiber 0 g 0 %
Sugars 11 g
Protein 18 g 37 %
Vitamin A 13 %
Vitamin C 3 %
Calcium 20 %
Iron 10 %