Yep, I Did

Last week, on our way home from town, we stopped by Taco Bell for a quick supper.  On the way to Taco Bell, I passed the marquee of a local grocery store, and one of the items flashing caught my eye.  I should have kept driving.  I should have ignored the ".88 cents" price tag on the item.  But I couldn't help it.

I made a fatal right turn, parked my car, and marched into the store.

They had Betty Crocker Cake Mixes on sale for .88 cents!  YES, only .88 cents!

I couldn't let a deal like that pass me by.

I had decided a couple weeks ago that I would take a simple cake with canned raspberry topping to potluck every time we went (at least twice a month).  A simple white or yellow cake was quick and easy to make, everybody likes it because it's not too sweet, and our home canned raspberries as a topping make it pretty.  It was the perfect solution to my potluck brain freeze.

So I thought, "I'll just pick up a 'little supply' of these Betty Crocker cake mixes to have on hand for my potluck cake idea."

As I stood there, looking at all those boxes of cake, that were only .88 cents each, something wild and terrible came over me.

I wanted every flavor. 

I began to devise how I could use every flavor of cake mix.

I began to think of ways to use cake, give away cake, sell cake, donate cake, make cake into amazing kitchen creations that I could post on my languishing Kitchen Blog.

So I began to fill my cart.  I grabbed 10 boxes of this type, 10 boxes of that type.

I made sure to get Vanilla and Yellow.  I mean, that was the reason I came into the store in the first place, right?

I only wish I had taken a picture of my grocery cart, filled to the top with cake boxes.  It was quite a sight.  The checkout lady asked me what I was going to do with all that cake?? 

I heard the words "I'm using it for fund raising" come out of my mouth. 

Where did that come from??

So, what AM I going to do with all this cake?

Well, first, I'm going to give it to my 11 year old son. 

He had tons of fun with it!!

 Spiral tower...



 Fortress...



 Fortress again!!


 Tower...



 Tower Details...



 King in his Castle...



 Throne...


 Happy King on his Throne...

And here it is!  10 boxes of Vanilla.  10 boxes of White.  10 boxes of German Chocolate.  10 boxes of Yellow.  10 boxes of Lemon.  2 boxes of Carrot.  2 boxes of Spice.  2 Boxes of Chocolate.  2 Boxes of Chocolate Fudge. AND 2 boxes of Confetti (for the kids).

I BOUGHT 60 BOXES OF CAKE!!!!!!

Yep, I did.

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Two Layer Tacos

We finally ate something worth telling about!  This is a simple meal, but takes an old standard and gives it a new and fun twist!  I think I got the idea from Taco Bell, but I don't remember for sure.

 First, take a warm corn tortilla...

 Then cover it with a thin layer of refried beans...


 Then wrap it around your warm, crunchy taco shell like an old, worn glove...


 It's really easy to do...


 Then fill with all your favorite Taco fillings.  We like to use veggie beef crumbles in the hard taco (though on this day, we just put in more refried beans), lettuce, tomato, olives, cheese, sour cream...whatever you like to put in a taco...
 And enjoy!!! The beauty of wrapping the hard shell in a soft shell is that when you take that crunchy bite, nothing falls apart!  The hard taco crunches and may actually break, but the soft shell holds it all together!!   These are fun to make and fun to eat!!  
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Nothing Happening

My kitchen is hibernating.  Nothing has been happening in it besides my trying to get my children to do their chores and get the dishes done.  Meals have been haphazard...grab some cereal, toast some bread, grab some cheese and crackers, eat a few cherries, thank goodness for Taco Bell, "there's nothing to eat", "what can we eat?", and so on...

I think by tomorrow, we'll have it clean again, and I need to tackle the tiny, apartment size fridge that we have in our tiny, apartment size kitchen.  We have lettuce in the garden.  The least I could do is make a salad like the Wood Man did (hubby's new blog name).  It would be pretty, taste earthy and fresh, and be full of nutrients.  That will be my goal for tomorrow!  See you then!

First Summer Salad

This is the first salad from our garden this year. 

I'm sure it was delicious! 

I didn't make it, wash it, or pick it, but my hubby did. 

He enjoyed eating it too!

Bad Day in the Kitchen

Threw together Haystacks for lunch and everyone fended for themselves for the rest of the day, including breakfast.  Kitchen is a disaster, table is a disaster, sprouts are rotton and need to be thrown out.  Food from grocery shopping still not put away and cluttering up the living room.  Tomorrow will be a new day.

Oops, Forgot to Water the Sprouts

Sabbath, the day I usually don't have to do much in the kitchen.  This morning I skipped breakfast (only Daryl ate a quick bowl of cereal).  We had potluck at church, and then a picnic supper with the Pathfinder group.  I didn't spend any time in my kitchen, which is a welcome relief, but it also means that I didn't see my sprouters, and therefore, forgot to water my sprouts. 

Oops.

One batch smelled rotton, and the newer batch smelled ok.  I went ahead and watered it tonight, so hopefully, missing one watering won't hurt it too badly.  I am noticing that the sprouts are not doing as well as it's getting warmer in the house overall.  I may have to set aside my sprouting during the summer and pick it back up as September rolls around. 

Carob Drink and Raspberry Syrup

Carob.  It is definitely NOT chocolate.  Not even close.  It has a flavor all it's own, and most of the time, it's not really my favorite.  But there is one way that our whole family loves to eat it, and that's in a Carob Smoothie.

The recipe is simple.  Take a bunch of frozen bananas and fill your Vita Mix 3/4 full.  Then add 3-4 cups of milk (soy or rice milk is what we usually add), and 2 T of Carob Powder.  Put the lid on tight, and turn Vita Mix on high!!  This makes a nice, very thick, carob shake, and while it's not a chocolate shake, it's almost just as good!!

I topped this one with mint leaves from the garden and a home canned raspberry.

I talked about my raspberry syrup in a previous post.  The juice from the home canned raspberries is EXACTLY enough to fill my "Denny's" syrup dispenser.  It feels so professional to serve syrup out of this cute little jar and I'm so excited that this non-kitchen savvy girl figured this little gem out on her own!!

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Cleaning Out the Pantry

When food preparation has been neglected, it's only natural that the Pantry organization would also be neglected.  Today I tackled the Pantry.  Well, actually, I had tackled it a few days ago, but all these bits and pieces were still in ziplock bags, waiting for their permanent homes.





There was all kinds of stuff, some of it, to be honest, I didn't want to keep, but Daryl said he'd eat it, so I durifully put it in a jar.  I found rice crackers, rye crackers, dried onions, dried zucchini...






...dried beets, dried peaches, and some hard black beans that we grew in the garden last year.  I decided to put them all in jars, so I could easily SEE what was inside, and to be doubly sure, I added some labels.  Now, I just have to figure out how I can use these bits and pieces, and turn them into yummy food.  I don't know about those beets.  Where in the world did they come from anyway??? :)


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Quick Pasta Lunch

Fridays are always busy around here, so I opted for a very easy lunch of pasta, spaghetti sauce from a jar, green salad, and boiled broccoli.  I love these noodles from Costco.  One bag is just enough for our family of 5.

I made another green salad, this time adding cold peas, avocados, carrots and tomatoes.  This is my salad before it was tossed!  I also had some croutons that I was able to serve with the salad today.  I love the crunch of a crouton!!

I did add some TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) to the spaghetti sauce.  It is a vegetarian, meaty type of food that can be boiled, and then gently fried, something like hamburger.  I added 3 cloves of garlic chopped, 1/4 cup dried onions, sauteed them together, and then added those to the veggie meat, before adding it all into the spaghetti sauce, giving it a heartier taste.

The broccoli is boiled for 1 minute, and served with simple mayo.  It was a quick and easy meal, perfect for a Friday lunch!

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Home Canned Breakfast Toppings

This is a pretty typical breakfast for us...nothing really new or amazing, but a satisfaction in eating things we've canned ourselves!  I made whole grain pancakes and topped it with almond butter.  It's not homemade, though I know how to do it, but conveniently from Costco.  My kids don't like it, so I get it all to myself!!  Then I added some home canned applesauce, and some homemade raspberry syrup! 

I just discovered that I can pour the juice off the home canned raspberries, add a little sugar, thicken with cornstarch, and make a delicious, sweet, syrup for pancakes.  No more Log Cabin in this house!!  We grow raspberries in an abundance, can over 100 quarts each year, so I should always have a yummy supply of raspberry juice to make raspberry syrup. 

And finally, I topped my creation with Cool Whip.  The eggs are storebought, but we should have our own eggs by the end of the summer, and the orange juice is frozen from a can.  It was a great breakfast!!






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Tofu Pizza for Supper

 

Tofu.  I think for most people it's a love or hate relationship.  For the rest, I don't think they even know it exists!  I learned about Tofu many years ago during college days, and during a time of my life when I was trying to be a strict Vegan.  I never could quite drop all the dairy...a girl has to have a bowl of ice cream now and then...but for quite a while, instead of a scrambled egg on my breakfast plate, there would be scrambled Tofu. 

Tofu comes in a brick, either packaged in water, or packaged air tight, and normally, I crumble it to look like this at first.

 

It is known to be very bland, and it's all about the seasoning when it comes to Tofu.  There are many ways to season it, but I use just one way, about 99% of the time.

For this recipe, which came completely out of my head, I decided to put in some red onion, several cloves of garlic chopped, some cilantro, and some yellow peppers.  I soon realized that the orange or red bell pepper would have been a better choice, since I use McKays Chicken Style seasoning and Turmeric to turn the Tofu yellow anyways.  But I stirred it all together, and it soon looked like this.

Mmmm!  The smell of the garlic filled the house!

I used my handy little Vizalia Chopper, from Target (they also have them at Bed Bath & Beyond), one of my absolute favorite little gadgets in my kitchen.  I'll do a whole post about it when I make pizza, since I have to chop lots of things for our pizza toppings, but for now, I'll just say that this little chopper is fast, easy, and EFFORTLESS!!  It takes slices of bell peppers, and turns them into this in seconds.

The pieces are all the same size and ready for any number of uses!

Once my tofu was ready, I used one of my tiny little scoopers, and put a scoop on each little piece of rye bread.  I purchased these loaves at Costco during the holidays, and never ended up using them.  They've been in my freezer since Christmas, and it was time to figure out a way to use this cute little bread.  Kaelyn used a fork to make the tofu more flat, because we were not done loading up our little pizzas!

We added tomato slices and/or olives on one cookie sheet...

...and tomato, olives and/or cheese on the next.  Darien won't each cheese, so we always have to make some without for him.  The rest of us like it either way. 

Once they were built, we broiled them for a few minutes under the broiler, until the edges of the bread were crispy and toasty brown.

I remembered too late that I should have lined my pan with foil.  Oh well, next time.  I'm hoping those things will begin to come naturally to me as I spend more time in my kitchen.

We rounded out the meal with our wonderful muffins and some cherries.  It was a great supper, and there was nothing leftover when we were finished.

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Light and Summery Lunch

Today was anything but light and summery.  It was cloudy, gray, and raining for most of the day.  I took advantage of the gloomy day and spent a lot of time in my kitchen.  This is what I came up with for lunch.




 The rice, which we call "Jennifer Rice" (since I got the recipe from my friend Jennifer), was leftover from a couple days ago.  I made a quick green salad with lettuce, shredded carrot, avocado, tomatoes, and zucchini, which was leftover from my muffin project and I was wondering how in the world I was going to use it and not end up giving it to the chickens!!   I also had homemade bread from last week, that was thawed last night out of the freezer, sliced some tomato and avocado, and had corn on the cob.  I think this is going to be one of my favorite summer meals!!  It was light, easy, and pretty quick to put together. We also had a muffin for dessert!  
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Zucchini Pumpkin Muffins

I have these great little cookbooks that are Muffins only!  They're called, "Muffins", and "More Muffins" by Jean Childress.  There are several recipes that we love from those books, but I think this was a new one.  It has shot to the top of our "favorite muffins" list.  I'm a little surprised because it has raisins AND chopped almonds, two things my kids usually aren't crazy about in a muffin.

I wanted to show how clean the Pampered Chef muffin pan is when the muffins pop out.  All I did was twist them in the pan, and then lift them right out.  Nothing ever sticks, and you can literally just wipe it out with a paper towel, it's that easy to clean them.

Since I made two different recipes, I used a large can of Pumpkin.  Based on this 1/2 cup leftover, and the 3 cups that were used in the muffin recipes, I know now that a large can of pumpkin is basically 3 1/2 cups of pumpkin.  I don't understand why cans are packaged in oz. instead of cups.  It would be so much easier of each can was 1 cup, or 2 cups, since that is the way we measure here in the states.  This is not quite a full 1/2 cup leftover, but one of the cups I put in the muffins was very generous, so I think it's a pretty good guesstimate.

The recipe called for slivered almonds, chopped, so I used my handy little chopper thingy, that you pound with your hand, and it springs up and down, making this job quick and very easy.

I mixed my muffins in my Kitchen Aid mixer, one of my favorite appliances in my teeny, tiny kitchen.  I have so little counter space, that I have a rule about what can use up that space.  If it isn't used at least 4-5 times per week, it doesn't get to stay out on the counter.  My Kitchen Aid is on my counter, along with my Vita Mix and Toaster.  Those are the only appliances that make the cut!!

My kitchen is so small, we don't have a dishwasher, so it is very important to always have the sink full of soapy water, so cleanup is fast and easy, and food doesn't have time to harden on the dishes.

Here I have turned the muffins to cool right in the muffin tin.  I had already used up all my space on my cooling racks, so had to go with plan B to cool the muffins for this batch.

The Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins are in the back, while the Zucchini Pumpkin Muffins are in the front.  The single batch of Zucchini Pumpkin Muffins made a little more than a dozen, so I baked the excess in a tiny bread pan.

 The darker muffin is the one with the chocolate chips in it.  I prefer the Zucchini ones, but BOTH types of muffins are excellent! 

 

RECIPE

 

(I got this recipe from More Muffins by Jean Childress p. 6)

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Whole wheat flour
• 1 Cup Flour
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Allspice
• 3 Whole Eggs
• 3/4 Cup Vegetable Oil
• 1 Cup Cooked Pumpkin
• 1 Cup Grated Zucchini
• 1/2 Cup Chopped, slivered almonds
• 3/4 Cup Raisins

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375. In large bowl, combine first 7 ingredients. In separate bowl, beat eggs with oil. Add pumpkin & zucchini. Mix lightly. Stir pumpkin mix into dry ingredients. Fold in almonds & raisins. Spoon batter into greased muffin tin & bake 20 min. LOVE this recipe!!

  

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Today I stayed home and baked.  It seems Thursdays work well for baking.  Last Thursday, I made bread, and this Thursday I made muffins.  I had the kids bring their schoolwork upstairs to the kitchen table so I could oversee things while I made the muffins.  I'll just say right now, they were AMAZING!!  (that is, the muffins!)

I am not a Pampered Chef distributor, so there is no personal gain when I say, Pampered Chef muffin tins are hands down, THE VERY BEST pan out there for baking muffins.  I do spray them with a bit of Pam, but the muffins just fall out of them when they're done.

 Another tool that I cannot say enough about is my "scooper".  I have these in all kinds of sizes and use them as much as I possibly can.  I love the uniform size and shape that I get when I use a scooper!
 

Somewhere I've read that if you have any extra spaces in the muffin tin, fill it with some water before baking.  I guess this is better for your pan.  I'm not sure of the technical reason, but it sounded good to me, so when I doubled this recipe, and there was only enough dough/batter for 23 muffins, I went ahead and filled the last space with water before I baked it.

 The finished product!  I thought these would be too sweet with the chocolate chips, but they are amazing!  I will definitely make these again. Since I had all the ingredients out, I decided to try another Pumpkin Muffin recipe, which I'll show in my next post.  

RECIPE

 

(I got this recipe from More Muffins by Jean Childress p. 25)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 Flour
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Cloves
• 1/4 tsp Allspice
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 2 Whole Eggs
• 1 Cup Cooked Pumpkin
• 1/2 Cup Butter (Melted)
• 1 Cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips

Directions

1. Preheat Oven to 350. Grease or line muffin tin. Combine dry ingredients & set aside. In large bowl, beat eggs. Stir in pumpkin, melted butter & chocolate chips. Blend well. Add dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Spoon into muffin tins. Bake 20-25 minutes. These are really sweet and yummy. Can almost be a dessert.

  

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Another One of Those Days...

Food on the run today.  Pathetic eating habits and no meals at all.  I spent my day with the boys, picking Darien up from school, and running errands.  On the way down there, we stopped at Safeway and got cherries, pita chips, apple turnovers, and 2 ice cream bars.  Yep, we ate ice cream for breakfast.  We basically snacked on all those things through the day, and this evening I threw together a mayo, cheese, sprout sandwich on flatbread, and ate 2 veggie hot dogs with ketchup.  I have no idea what anyone else ate today, nope, not a clue.  I'm shaking my head.  This is all too familiar.  My chocolate chips are waiting along with the can of pumpkin, but the result will be more like a dessert than something really worth eating for food value.  This is the type of food lifestyle that I desperately want to change.  One day at a time.

Cake and Leftovers

I'm afraid today was pretty typical as far as our food situation goes.  Today is the type of day I want to see less and less of in our home.  I fixed about 1/2 of a meal today, and people fended for themselves for the rest of it.  Everyone ate cake for breakfast, and for supper, I threw together the leftover Quinoa, a can of black beans rinsed, a can of corn rinsed, 4 Roma tomatoes chopped, a thick slice of red onion chopped, a hug dollop of mayonnaise, and half a bunch of cilantro chopped...mixed it all together and served it on some broken taco shells that served more as a tostado 1/2 than a taco.  I did warm the taco shells in the oven while I was throwing together the salad spread, which currently does not have a name.  I wanted my first kitchen post to report a grand recipe that I tried, which was delicious and amazing, so I was too embarrassed to actually take a picture of this loser supper, BUT it did taste good and nobody complained about it.  I'm sure I'll do the salad again, and even serve it on real tostado shells, but try to fill out the meal with something else yummy too.

I did download the "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" app on my iPad today and browsed around on that for a bit, and pulled out my muffin recipe book to make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins in the next couple of days.  I have several cans of pumpkin, leftover from grand ideas of making pumpkin pie for holidays, and I need to get it used up, and I also have a few chocolate chips left, out of a gigantic bag from Costco that need to be used.  I won't buy that brand again, and will only stick with Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chips in the future.  The "off" brand was a lot cheaper, but now I know why.  They simply don't taste as good as the Nestle chips.

I'm heading to Costco tomorrow and have a list ready (Nestle Chips are on it).  And good or bad, I'll report on what we ate.