Cook. Craft. Enjoy.

Banana Snack Cake

For lunch every day Liam eats a peanut butter sandwich with bananas, spicy hot cheetos and baked Lay's potato chips.  I'm not quite sure how that ritual started, but that's what's on his menu daily.  Once school starts we'll have to come up with another meal (peanut butter/banana sandwiches don't transport well) but for now I have to make sure to always have bananas in the house.

Always having bananas in the house also means several times a week we have old bananas in the house.  (Liam only likes them when they're yellow with no brown spots -- I think he gets that from me.)  So instead of throwing them away I really like to find good ways to use them.  Last week when my mom was here I assigned Adrienne to bake this cake while I was out running errands.

Looks pretty good, doesn't it?  Adrienne had a few issues with the baking of it (like spilling ingredients on the counter, not reading the recipe all the way through first, forgetting to preheat the oven) but even with the mishaps it came out good and we ate our way through it in a couple of days.

Happy Birthday, Travis!

Hard to believe that 16 years ago today Travis was born.  He's grown up into such a wonderful young man and I'm very proud to say that he's my son.  May the future hold nothing but brightness for him.

For his "actual" birthday today we're having Subway for dinner (don't ask -- he loves sandwiches) and I'm sure he'll play Warcraft.  We still have leftover cake from Saturday so we'll do another round of singing as well.

This cake comes from AllRecipes and starts with a box mix ... it tastes great but I had a problem with the center falling (you can kind of tell from the photo).  Guess that really doesn't matter too much -- just add more frosting to the middle.  :)

Week In Review

Since I haven't posted since Tuesday I thought I'd do a quick "week in review".

We've had a pretty busy week -- Liam was sick again with his allergies so back on breathing treatments he went.  The good news is I think we caught it early enough that he won't end up with pneumonia yet again this year.  Adrienne had a big project due this week in math -- a 5 paragraph essay and accompanying charts about a stock market project they've been working on (which you know is just as big of a job for mom as it is for her).

Travis hasn't had as much homework as he usually does so he's been working on his Warcraft character and getting his tailoring level up.  As for my Warcraft "career", I'm trying to decide exactly how I should spec my Paladin -- I was holy/ret for so long then last night switched to protection/holy and really didn't like it so back this morning to holy/ret I am.  (I know most of you have NO clue what I'm talking about so you can skip this ..oops, too late.)  For those of you "in the know", here's a screenshot I took last week of one of my guildies and I after we'd cleared Stratholme.  Gotta love that instance.   :)

Tomorrow is Travis' 16th birthday so last night we celebrated a little early with my brother -- I made ribs, some yucky broccoli salad (packaged from Costco -- it wasn't good AT ALL), garlic french fries and then a coconut cake.  So I'll have something to share tomorrow on his actual birthday, I'll share the rib recipe with you now and the cake tomorrow.

This recipe was originally from a post on rec.food.recipes many years ago (like, um, 15) and I wouldn't make them any other way.

Ugly but Good

I belong to several email recipe lists and though I love to look through the recipes that come through there aren't that many that I choose to make.  Earlier this week a recipe came through for Banana-Coconut Pound Cake that looked so good I had to try it.

The batter came together well -- and took about an hour and a half in the oven to cook.  As usual I sprayed the cake pan with Williams-Sonoma nonstick baking spray.  I have always had good luck with it and never had anything stick (even those fancy patterned cake pans).   I guess there's a first for everything, though, and man did it stick.

I scraped the stuck part out and just placed it on top, so while it looks horrible, the taste is good.

Birthday Dinner

Tomorrow just happens to be my brother's birthday so when he came over for dinner tonight I thought it was only appropriate that I make him something "birthday-ee".  I asked him what he wanted and he replied "well, too bad Alpine Village Inn isn't around anymore".  So the best I could do is re-create a little bit for him.

For those of you (okay, almost all of you) who don't know about the Alpine Village Inn, it was a landmark restaurant here in Las Vegas until the late 90s (I found an article about it here if you'd like to read a little more).  They were where you'd go on your high school dates for prom just because it was so cool.  They were decorated like an old swiss village and served decent German food.  One of my brother's favorites was their cottage cheese "dip" they started you out with and so I started tonight's menu with that.  Simple but brings back so many memories.

If I had thought of it sooner, I would have made Sauerbraten but, alas, we were stuck with bratwurst and red cabbage sauerkraut tonight (tasty too).  That recipe comes from Food Network courtesy of Bobby Flay.

Dessert?  I had thought about going with a German Chocolate cake but finally went with Black Forest cake.  It went together fairly quickly and turned out great.

Adam, hope you have a wonderful birthday tomorrow.  :-)

 

Banana Split Cake

I am so mad at myself today.  I took the kids to the YMCA pool and Liam got his first try at both a diving board and water slide.  I had put my camera aside to take with us and left it sitting on the counter instead.  They had such a great time and the look on Liam's face as he did both those things was priceless.  We'll have to go back before they close down for the season to get some good photos (and let them have a good time again too).

This morning as I was waiting to head us out to the pool I used our almost too ripe bananas to make a cake.  The recipe comes from last years Better Homes & Gardens Holiday Baking magazine in a section for Bundt cakes.  I happen to love to use my Bundt cake pan.  Why?  Well, for the most part there's no frosting to deal with and they cut into such nice pieces.  What's funny about that, though, is that on a "normal" cake usually all I do eat is the frosting (go figure that out!)

The recipe went smoothly enough, though I did have some of it stick to the inside of the pan (mostly because of the strawberry cake part).  The really amazing part though?  It does taste like a banana split!  (Yummy!)

Brunch

Since my mom is here from Costa Rica we've gotten quite a few visitors in the last few days.  Yesterday morning we hosted my great-aunt and great-uncle for brunch and what a nice time we had.

Bagels, lox and cream cheese were the real star of the meal, but I did make a coffee cake that I found on the King Arthur's Flour website (recipe here).  It's texture was a little on the dry side, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Things are slowly returning to normal around here.  We bought a great bookshelf from Target and I'm hoping today to get some of my cookbooks put away and the dining area squared away.  As soon as I feel up to "visitors" I'll make sure to take some pictures of how it's coming along.

Baked Donuts

WooHoo!  A new post.  :-)

Every time we move it always amazes me just what we find that we forgot we had.  Either things stuck in the back of a cabinet or in the bottom of a box.  While putting things away in the kitchen this morning I came across our electric donut baker.  I bought this thing years ago on clearance for about $5 and really have gotten about that much use out of it.  The kids saw it on the counter, though, and decided we needed to use it today before I found a place to put it.  Okay, okay, that in itself wasn't a bad idea, but I really have no clue where the instruction manual is or have any recipes that would be suitable. 

That's what's great about the Internet (or as Don says the world's biggest help file).  A little searching and BAM! the instructions with recipes.  We opted for the traditional donuts with an addition of unsweetened cocoa.  They had a great time mixing things up and then frosting them once they were cool.  Doesn't look too bad, does it?

I've got more photos and the recipe after the jump...

Who Wants Cheesecake?

I think cheesecake is one of those things that either you like or you don't.  I used to really like it but now I'm almost indifferent about it.  When we go to Cheesecake Factory, I'd much rather order their Blackout Cake than any of the cheesecakes.  Don used to claim he dislikes cheesecake but I've never seen him turn one down (including tonight).

Yesterday the kids told me they wanted me to make something for dessert and this is what I chose.  I don't even remember where the recipe originally came from (except it was from the rec.food.recipes newsgroup about 12 years ago).  It always reminds me of my friend Margaret in Florida, though, because it was one of her favorite recipes when we lived there. 

I hadn't made it in so long I forgot that you really need to cook it longer than specified in the recipe -- more like 60 or 70 minutes.  I also didn't put on the sour cream topping.  I felt it had enough going for it without it.  (BTW, do you like your cheesecake with a topping?  or plain?)  One of the great things is the Oreos seem to melt into the filling leaving a gooey chocolate middle.  Yum.

As you can see in the photo the filling is a little too creamy, but it tasted great anyway.  Now I need to find someone to come eat all the leftovers ...

Happy Birthday, Adrienne!

Although her birthday isn't really until Monday, this weekend Adrienne is having 3 friends over for a sleepover party.  Right now they're in the pool getting out some of their girl-power and soon they'll be inside to enjoy some cupcake bugs.

Aren't these the cutest?  I was disappointed to find that when I don't use my cake decorating skills for a long while I can't seem to get back into the groove.  Yes, these turned out alright, but I wish they were a little less shaky in the lines.  The girls won't mind, though, and I'm sure they'll be gone in a blink.

I thought I'd share with you the frosting recipe I use.  This recipe is great ... quick, easy, and tastes pretty good too.  It's not real stiff so it pipes well and if you refrigerate it for about an hour it stands up to some of the more intricate tips.

Special Buttercream Frosting
(modified slightly from All Recipes)

• 1 cup butter flavored shortening
• 4 cups confectioners sugar
• dash salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ounces heavy cream

1. Cream shortening until fluffy.  Add confectioner's sugar and continue creaming until well blended.
2. Add salt, vanilla, and heavy cream and blend on low speed until moistened.  Add additional heavy cream if necessary.  Beat at high speed until frosting is fluffy.