Jar Cakes My Oh My

I had all my baking done on the 21st. Or so I thought. Then an email with a link to these popped into my inbox from my friend. GASP. JAR CAKES. Pretty, little jar cakes!
I still had shopping, wrapping and packing for my trip to Chicago, but I had to fit these in. MY OH MY OH MY. They are cute!

Hawaiian Angel Cake

Happy Boxing Day! I think today deserves a lighter dish.

Fred's new LOVE.

One box of Angel Food cake mix.
One can crushed pineapple (approx 2 cups)

Mix together and put in 9 x 13 glass pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes
DO NOT GREASE PAN. Don't worry, it won't stick.

Serve with LOADS of fresh whipped cream. (I add 1/4 cup powdered sugar to each 1/2 pint of whipping cream, plus 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, Beat on high until stiff.)

WARNING: Do not decide that the batter looks so minimal you could really bake it in a 9 x 9 pan. Your oven will never be the same.

7 Layer Cookie Bars

Cookies can be so nostalgic. We hand down recipes to new generations and hope like heck they will still make them after we've long since checked in to the Golden Oldies Rest Home. Will someone remember to make Grandma's Double Chocolate Drops or Mom's Pecan Tassies? Will they even know what the heck a Pizzelle is? Will Grandma Berquist's Swedish Christmas Bread be forgotten? I hope not.

Italian Pizzelles

It's that time of year. Time to drive myself crazy looking for the perfect neighbor gift for 12 or so families. It's a Utah tradition, Neighbor Gifts. Most everyone does it. And there is stiff competition afoot. One family dropped off warm bread wrapped in a dish towel and a jar of Lingonberry Jam. Yum! Another brought Hot Cocoa and another Roasted Tomato Soup.

The fun part is trying to think up a cute saying for the tag. Since my gift includes a small bar of artisan soap, our tag reads "We 'Soap' your Christmas is Clean and Bright!" Not too shabby for an amateur.


Okay, on to the cookies.

Snowy Meltaways

This recipe was in my recipe box labeled "Corn Starch Cookies". Not very appetizing, huh? I've renamed them in honor of the TWO FEET of snow that dumped on the east coast this weekend. Stay warm y'all.

Snowy Meltaways

1 Cup Butter (two sticks) don't use margerine
3/4 Cup unsifted Corn Starch
1/3 Cup unsifted Powdered Sugar
1 Cup unsifted unbleached Flour

Using beaters, cream butter until light and fluffy. Add corn starch and powdered sugar. Stir in flour. Chill 4 hours. Roll into 24 balls and press thumb very lightly in top to make small indentation. Bake 12-14 minutes at 350 degrees. Might be less depending on your oven. Make sure they are not browned.

Frosting

3 oz Cream Cheese softened
1 Cup Powdered Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
Food coloring as desired (I split mine in half after mixing, then 1 drop of green in half and 1 drop red in the other)

Cream and together then frost cooled cookies. Just spread a small dollop on each then refrigerate to set.

Southern Corn Pudding

Corn Pudding is likely on every Thanksgiving and Christmas table throughout the Southern US. Midwesterners hardly ever heard of it but everyone seems to love it. Its a great side dish, very moist and buttery with just a touch of sweet.

You make the whole thing in one pan, pop it in the oven for an hour and yum.

Corn Pudding

1 (8.5 oz) Box Jiffy Corn Bread Mix (you know, those little blue boxes?) or any corn bread mix that size
1 Can Creamed Corn (14 oz)
1 Can Whole Kernel Corn (14 oz) - DRAINED
1 Stick melted butter
2 Eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 Tblsp sugar (can be omitted)

Melt butter in 9 x 9 pan (microwave 10 seconds at a time). Add corn ingredients first to make sure butter isn't hot after melting that will curdle eggs. Then the add the rest, straight into pan. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees until brown (at high altitude 375.) Serves 4 to 6 (use 9 x 13 pan if you double this recipe)

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I am also including a recipe to make it from scratch (this is a bit larger so use 9 x 13 pan), still 350 degrees for 1 hour.

2 Cup Flour
1 Cup Cornmeal
1/4 Cup Sugar
1 Tsp Salt
3 Tsp Baking Powder

Mix dry ingredients then add to:

2 stick melted butter
1 cup milk
2 eggs
2 cans cream corn
2 cans whole corn drained

Note: I will be posting a recipe each day this week. Y'all come back now, ya hear!!

Spooky Spiders

How to UNINTENTIONALLY Scare the

Heck Out of Your 25 Year-old Son

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From: Mom

Subject: package

To: Doug

Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 11:33 PM

Doug, I forgot to tell you today that there is a small package coming tomorrow for you. Be careful of the spider and the toothpicks - that's all I'm gonna say about that. LOL.

Enjoy.

From: Doug
Subject: Re: package

To: Mom

Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 1:30 AM

MOM, I'm just gonna throw out the box. I don't want a spider to jump in my face. You better not have mailed me a spider. I will freak! - Doug

From: Doug
Subject: Re: package
To: Mom
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 3:14 PM

Hi Mom. I got the package. Thank you for the krispie eyeballs and spider. They will be delicious. You should've seen me try to open the box. I was scared you actually put a real spider in the box. I slowly opened each flap of the box and I had a can of Raid next to me. Good job on creeping me out Mom.

- dougie

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok, you know your kid is watching too many late-night scary movies when he assumes his own mother is sending him spiders via UPS.

Was he imagining I had impaled them alive on toothpicks and mounted them to foam boards? Then wrung my hands in glee just before I sealed the box and handed it off to the hunky driver wearing brown? Arachnophobia anyone? (In all fairness, he did have a scary encounter with a pretty good sized spider in my family room.)

I was telling my co-worker about Doug's assumption of what I sent him as a Halloween treat. She owns two Tarantulas and thought it was a MARVELOUS idea to send Doug the shell from her little baby the next time it molts.

That's awful. I could NEVER do that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Doug,

Don't watch this movie after 9pm.

Signed,

Your Mother

Apples, Grapes and Paint

What do 3 gallons of paint, 80 pounds of apples, and 4 bushels of grapes have in common? They are just the latest in a long list of projects that stem from an obsessive/compulsive personality disorder I've been living with since buying my first issue of Martha Stewart.

WHY do I feel a need to start horrendous projects that cover every surface in my kitchen and cause Fred to hide in the garage playing with ropes? Seriously, isn't one gallon of applesauce enough? Five gallons of grape juice? OF COURSE NOT. There are apples and grapes rotting on trees and vines within a 10 mile radius of my kitchen. They must not be wasted. Save me.

This is how sick I am. Even though I couldn't stand bottling one more half gallon of grape juice, those blasted grapes hanging on the vine over in 'lil old Margaret Beecher's yard were only going to be good for another week. And then they'd be gone. Until next year. And OH MY HECK I may not have canned enough. So I picked 'em. Then I de-stemmed 'em. And I FROZE them, cause you never know if maybe we'll need another SEVENTY gallons of grape juice during the long, hard, Utah winter.

Speaking of winter. It's been a long, LONG, disputed goal of Fred's to put in new windows. Disputed, my friends, because my very illogical, female, reasoning says that the $5000 spent on new windows (that will save, oh, maybe $200 per winter) translates into 25 YEARS before we break even. But, hey, whatever stills the waters.

Turns out, that in order to put in new windows, we had to rip off all the exterior window trim. This turned into weeks and weeks of trying to find someone who was creative enough to put it back. To save a little money, I volunteered to paint all the new wood trim. I JUST LOVE to paint. No, really. And I have nothing else to do.

Uhh, but it turns out you can't paint when the temperature is below 50. Well that's a problem since all our delaying to find the right carpenter put us into early November. We lucked out, though, with TWO, count 'em, TWO days to get 200 feet of window trim painted. No problem. I'm the queen of bite off more than I can chew.

But I did it! It's beautiful and the best part? I got to paint the front door orange!! (You can send your condolences to Fred Schubert, Sandy, Utah.)

Oh, and in an effort not to be idle for a spare minute, I ALSO decided that I needed to make these adorable Rice Krispie spiders for my niece and nephew for Halloween. There's a great story that goes with this particular project. I'll save that for my next post. In the meantime, if you are ever plagued with 80 pounds of apples, here's how you can turn it into 10 gallons of applesauce:

Gatorgirl's Southern Applesauce

(thanks to Lynne W., my personal librarian)

Use enough apples to fill a large non-stick pot.

Jonathon, Gala, Red Delicious, Yellow Delicious or a combo of any sweet apples.

Wash, core and quarter. Leave skins on for flavor.

As you cut them, drop them in 2 quarts of water with 2 Tblsp of lemon juice.

This will keep them from turning brown.

Once all are cored and cut, drain off water.

Put them in pot, with 1/4 cup of sugar on top plus two or three cinnamon sticks (if you like cinnamon)

Turn heat on med-high and cover. Leave the sugar on top of apples so it doesn't scorch on bottom. Once the lid is too hot to touch (about 15 min) turn heat down to med-low, stir apples, and let cook for 45 min. Stir occasionally.

Turn pot off, leaving lid on. Let cool. Mash the apples down and hand pick out the peels. Makes great chunky applesauce!