Birthday cakes and Aprons

This weekend was my birthday, and I like red velvet cake. 

But I'm also terribly picky about cakes and frostings, so I'm making my own cake, using a fairly old recipe that my grandmother gave me. This is the kind of thing that bugs my in-laws, because you're not supposed to cook for yourself, but I find I'm more satisfied if I do, so it's just better this way.

Besides....I mean, really, what kind of cake has vinegar in it? But this is tasty.

This is, however, the kind of recipe that makes me wish I'd taken an apron when I moved out of my parents' house. Or that I'd gotten around to buying myself one in the 18 years since I left...

I assume she got this recipe from somewhere, but the card in her recipe box yielded no clues.

Red Velvet Cake
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 oz red food coloring
2 tsp cocoa powder (not hot chocolate powder)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/4 cup flour

Heat oven to 350. Traditionally, this is made as a layer cake, so grease and flour 2 round cake pans, or one 9x13 pan.

Mix vinegar and baking soda in a small cup and set aside.

Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs.

Make a paste of cocoa and 1 oz of food coloring (this is a really messy step; I never do it). Add to creamed mixture. Add remaining food coloring to mixture and mix.

Add vanilla and salt.

Add buttermilk and flour a little at a time, alternating. Mix well.

Pour into pan(s) and bake 30 minutes.  Be really watchful - this dries out quickly if you over bake.


The traditional frosting for this cake is listed below - usually, you split each of those round cakes into 2 layers, so you get 4 layers. The frosting recipe is designed for that number of layers, so I'm including alternate measurements to make a smaller amount more appropriate for 2 layers if you're so inclined.

For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of this and usually use decorator icing or a can of plain vanilla frosting.

1 1/2 cup milk (1 cup)
1/2 cup flour (1/3 cup)
1 1/2 cup sugar (1 cup)
1 1/2 cup margarine (or shortening or butter) (1 cup)
1 tablespoon vanilla (1 1/2 teaspoons)

Mix milk and flour in saucepan. cook and stir over medium heat until thick. Cool completely (this is important).

Cream sugar, margarine, and vanilla. When fluffy add room temperature cooked milk mix slowly, beating as you go. Beat until fully incorporated and fluffy.

And there you have it. Bright red, not too sweet, and just the right texture.

First Dinner Post!

Welcome to my new blog. I'm planning on talking a lot about how real people eat, because that's how it is here - this blog is not my main source of income, I don't have hours to spend in the kitchen each day, and yet we still manage to do ok on the food front. I have no desire to keep chickens, and all attempts at gardening here have been dismal failures. We have our challenges in this house, and I'm sure you have you own at your house...and yet my kids get fed. Expect some reviews and some recipes and some lunches (and my stupidly large stash of lunchbox stuff) and some dinners and anything else food related that comes to mind.

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Lovely post title, right?  I'm doing most of this post by phone in the middle of bedtime. I figure creativity can come later. Or not - I'm months behind on sleep as it is.

Tonight's dinner was a tossed salad (leaf lettuce, spinach, tomato, cheese,  croutons,  pecans,  plus a few cucumber slices for the husband - I think cukes are just gross) and quiche.

It started out as quiche lorraine, but QL doesn't have garlic. Or cheddar. Or parmesan. Or nearly as much bacon as I added, because this was a, "huh. I have leftover bacon. That's unheard of..." kind of a meal. And really, cooking didn't go too badly, once my spouse realized that keeping an eye on the kids was a full contact sport.

I've gotten good at handling grandma's pie crust recipe, and had quite a bit of dough left over, so I made this turnover type thing, stuffed with cherry preserves. Of course, the cherries bubbled out all over the pan, which will be a huge pain to clean....but that's why I have a housekeeper, because we can't keep up with the dishes as it is. (Elaine, if you're reading this, we love you, and we love having you back!)

It turns out that I forgot that I don't really like quiche. Every time I make it I think, "with that list of ingredients it has to be tasty" and then I'm disappointed. Oh well. The husband can have it for his lunch this week.

Meanwhile, I took the other half of the onion that went into the quiche (it was a *big* onion), and put that and some chicken breasts and about 4 heads of garlic (3 fresh that needed to be used up, peeled and sliced, and some pre-chopped-ina-jar) in the crock pot for tomorrow. Tonight I'll chop some root veggies, and tomorrow during my 40 minutes for lunch between appointments I'll throw them in the crockpot with the garlic chicken so that dinner will be ready when we get back from speech therapy. Multi-tasking is a wonderful thing.