A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

I'm on Va-CAAA-tion!

Going on a little Vegas jaunt for a gals' weekend getaway...will be back with pics and more recipes next week.

Sandra Lee Does Paula Deen Banana Cake Recipe (Pictures and Recipe Re-post)

 

I couldn't wait for Easter. I made the cake again last night and we all loved it. Jordan took a plateful back home to her mom and sisters and it was a big hit there too.  Yum!  It's a very rich, moist, what I call snack-type cake, that's a cross between a cake and a bar-type dessert. 

Sandra Lee Does Paula Deen Banana Cake

recipe by Paula Deen, perverted by Glenna Anderson Muse

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix with a hand mixer and pat into the bottom of a oiled 9"x13" baking pan:

1 box yellow cake mix (I use Betty Crocker mixes when I use mixes)

1 Martha White Banana Nut muffin mix

2 egg (if using medium eggs instead of extra large, add 1/3 cup water)

1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)

(Mix will be very thick)

On top of cake layer, mix filling with a hand mixer and spread on top:

1 8oz pkg cream cheese

1 overripe banana

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

16 oz box powdered sugar

1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick--hey, it's Paula Deen!)

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until top is lightly browned and internal temp of filling is 140 degrees (eggs set at 140 degrees) with a meat thermometer.  Top will still be jiggly but not runny.  The cream cheese/ egg layer will thicken as the cake cools. 

 

I Must Confess to Cleanse My Soul (Banana Cake Recipe)

I, Glenna Muse, confess that I baked a cake and it wasn't from scratch.  OH NO! I can hear the screams now...but before you run off to crazytown and vow to never read me again, at least listen to my excuse: I was siiiiiiiiiiiiick.  I'm always sick these days. It's been a rough winter.  But that's not the point. The point is the cake was gooooooooood.  Very good according to the folks at Prime--a big howdy to the parts and shop folks!  My favorite quote Kenneth sent back to me was the person who said about the cake "Not big enough.  Need more."  Now THAT'S a review I'll listen to.

There are two punchlines. I forgot to take pictures and Gene and I didn't get to taste it so all I know is Kenneth was happy with his cake and he was asked by a few people for the recipe. (I'm making it again for the family Easter party so I'll have pics in a few weeks.)

Let me back up and tell the tale.  My little brother (who's now 36 but will forever be 12 in my mind) had a friend named Mark who passed away recently in a motorcycle accident. Mark was a great guy and everyone has a friend like him.  He's that daring fool stuffed full of fun that everyone adores and doesn't want to live without  but you wanted to smack him sometimes and say "Dude, what were you thinking?!" That's Mark, and he will be greatly missed.

When Mark died, Kenneth took some days off work to help Mark's family with the arrangements and he asked me to bake a cake as a way to say thank you to his co-workers for their support. I liked both Mark and Kenneth's friends at work so I wanted to do something special but I wasn't physically up to a big cake decorating marathon or a long day in the kitchen. 

Hmmmmm....I needed something that would be very yummy without being super labor-intensive.  I thought of Paula Deen and her Ooey Gooey Butter Cakes, always a hit at my house and the chocolate version is my favorite brownie recipe.  And hey, I don't even like chocolate that much so you know it's good!

I went to the internet and found Paula's basic recipe and a few hints on how to dress it up in different flavors.  Taking that base, and what I rummaged through my pantry and the fresh fruit I had on hand, I created my own version which I'm calling: Sandra Lee Does Paula Deen Banana Cake.  (Wonder if either one of them will come after me for that one? hehehe)

Sandra Lee Does Paula Deen Banana Cake

recipe by Paula Deen, perverted by Glenna Anderson Muse

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix with a hand mixer and pat into the bottom of a oiled 9"x13" baking pan:

1 box yellow cake mix (I use Betty Crocker mixes when I use mixes)

1 Martha White Banana Nut muffin mix

2 egg

1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)

(Mix will be very thick)

On top of cake layer, mix filling with a hand mixer and spread on top:

1 8oz pkg cream cheese

1 overripe banana

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

16 oz box powdered sugar

1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick--hey, it's Paula Deen!)

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until top is lightly browned and internal temp of filling is 140 degrees (eggs set at 140 degrees) with a meat thermometer.  Top will still be jiggly but not runny.  The cream cheese/ egg layer will thicken as the cake cools. 

St. Pat's Day (comes a couple of days early at the Muse home)

 

I have to work tonight and will sleep tomorrow so our St. Pat's feast was last night, Sunday night, so that I could really enjoy it. I'll confess for Gene that corned beef is not his all time favorite so I only make it once a year even though I love it.  You know how it is.  When you're the only one in the house that like something, it just usually isn't on the hit parade often.  My brother Kenneth come over and shared dinner with us before he went to work last night so I did have a fellow cb fan with me and he and I fought over split the leftovers for work lunches so it worked out well in the end.  I'll still get to take corned beef and colcannon to work to lunch tonight where it will turn into St. Pat's day in the middle of my shift. I could wonder if our crapeteria will be hip enough to serve corned beef tonight but the thought makes me shudder so I'll take my own.

Myyyyyyyyyyyyyy but I'm a little bit bitchy today. Maybe I need to go back to bed for a nap before work!  Or not. Hehehehe

Back to the good stuff...

Baking Bread

BAKING BREAD    

By Carol Lynn Pearson  in "Women I Have Known and Been"

There seemed more accusation

Than admiration

In Vivian's voice

When she said,

"Well, I wish I had time

to bake bread!"

And so sometimes when

The loaves were in the oven

And Vivian was at the door

Louise mumbled something about

Another bake sale again

And never even tried to explain

Her near-religious ritual:

How the flour on her fingers

Was the sun and the rain

And the earth

How the thump of her palms

On the dough

Was the dance of women

On the ancient threshing floor

How the smell of the baking

Leavened her

And left her believing that

We rise, we rise

And

How the cutting 

Of the first warm slice

For the first child home

Made her a bounterous goddess

With life in her hand. 

Halushki

 

Gene and I were watching Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives a few days ago on Food Network and we were both struck by this dish served at a diner owned by a Polish family.  We both kept trying to get the name of it so I could Google it but the best we could come up with was that it rhymed with "push-key".  So instead I Googled "egg noodle and cabbage recipe" and Halushki popped up. Damn, I love the internet!

I ran to the store to get the ingredients, popped out an email to Auntie Miranda inviting her over for an "experiment" supper on her way from work, and it's now become a regular addition to our dinner repertoire.

I researched several versions of the recipe and found that the four common ingredients in all of the recipes are:  butter, onion, cabbage, and egg noodles.  You can make it from that simple vegetarian one pot meal (vegan if you sub out the butter), or you can add a few simple things to jazz it up a bit, like potatoes and/or bacon, thin-sliced cooked pork loin, chop, or ham.  I happened to have some proscuitto that needed to be used so that's what I picked and it was lovely.  Gene's comment was "Wow! I can't even taste the cabbage! I was a little worried about that!"  Okay, that made me laugh but he was right. It doesn't have an overwhelmingly cabbage-y taste.  The cabbage mixed nicely with the onions to create a simple sweetness to the noodles. Very comforting and homey.

It's also the perfect dish for my new quest for simplicity:  it's easy, quick, yummy, healthy, and cheap.  It doesn't get much cheaper than a $ .59 in cabbage, $ .25 egg noodles, $ .10 onion, and a few strips of bacon or in my case, some leftover proscuitto and the entire cooking time was maybe a half hour and most of that was cooking down the onion and cabbage.  The finished one pot meal fed the three of us and Gene and I had leftovers for lunch the next day.

Organize! Simplify! Unify!

You know, I think I'm having a crisis of faith: in me.  I've been feeling unsettled for a while but I woke up this morning and literally had a huge epiphany hanging inside my head. I need to simplify my life.  I feel like I spend 90% of my time spinning my wheels about nearly everything in my life from relationships to work to my home to cooking to writing to dieting....everything. Simply everything.

I've decided that over the next few weeks I'm going to really overhaul my life starting with my environment and my attitude.  I need less so I can be more.  I look around my home and it's making me crazy right now how the closets are busting with stuff I don't need and my head is constantly filled with so many things I want/need to do that it's like a perfect storm inside my head all the time. I have trouble sleeping most of the time because I can't shut my brain down.  My "To-Do" list is FOUR PAGES---TYPED!!!!! 

That's IN-SANE!!!!  It's all nuts.

I'm going to take a little journey for myself here and in it I'm going to try to throw overboard all the things that I don't need, don't use, never get around to, don't enjoy...and I'm going to blog it all just for the fun and craziness and to see where I am and what I've changed by next year.

You know what started this all, I think? Christmas. No, it was before that.  The NICU. Knitting for the NICU is something I am passionate about.  I do it because it's good and true and the best of me and because I like that the only thing I get from it is the joy of seeing those little cute noggins, warm and cute in something I made with my own hands and a dollar's worth of yarn. 

Then Christmas came and all of my gifts were hand-made this year. Just an experiment but one of my favorite Christmas's ever as far as gifts.  I had no anxiety over sales or "the perfect gift" or spending too much money like I always do.  To buy a gift requires so much less thought than to pick a pattern and yarn or supplies and invest yourself and your time in making for someone else. I found that the three months I spent knitting afghans for my sister and Aunti I thought of them constantly, tons of great feelings and memories were always in the front of my mind. With each little pair old-fashioned slippers I made I imagined my cousins and nieces with warm little toesies this winter.  With each camouflage hat I knitted for my brothers and Dad I thought of our mother and all the hats, scarves, and sweaters she made for us growing up and I remembered so many things I loved about her. 

I liked those good feelings and I want more of them.

I want more simplicity, more purity, more time for what I love and what I truly need. And I'm going to start today.  I'm making more time this year for a wonderful friend whom I used to see almost every day for 10 years and then we changed jobs, moved on with our lives, and we rarely saw each other a couple of times a year for the next 10 years. 

I think, starting today, I'm going to rededicate myself to focusing on the best in my life and making time for the really important and spending less time spinning my wheels on the trivia.

Futureman