Slap Yo Grandma Cake

That's right...this cake is so good, it'll make you want to "Slap Yo Grandma!" Now Derrick doesn't like that name, so if you hear him refer to it as "Tropical Sunrise," it's the same thing. To be fair, Tropical Sunrise was the first name I came up with as I was making it...but after baking it and tasting it, Slap You Grandma is much more appropriate.

Derrick says that must be strictly be a Southern colloquialism, but if that's the case and none of my Northern friends understand it, just make the cake. You'll get it.

The cake is very tropical in nature, with a lot of citrus flavors. It's a real winner, and in these bleak days of ice storms and snow drifts, everybody could use a burst of the tropics. Just make sure Grandma is out of harms way!!

Slap Yo Grandma Cake - Oven preheated to 350.

1 20 oz can of crushed pineapple; well drained, juice reserved

For Cake:

1 Box Lemon Cake Mix
1 small box Orange Jello
2 eggs
1/2 Cup oil
1 1/2 Cup liquid ( 1 Cup reserved pineapple juice + 1/2 Cup water)

In a large bowl, mix Cake Mix, orange jello, eggs, oil, and liquid on medium speed until smooth. Pour into prepared 9 x 13 pan and bake 30 - 35 minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE!! Cool completely.

Spread crushed pineapple over baked and cooled cake.

For Icing:

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 C orange juice
8 oz Cool Whip
1 large box Vanilla Pudding
1/2 C powdered sugar


Blend cream cheese and OJ together. Add powdered sugar and mix well. Continue mixing, and add Vanilla Pudding, blending until incorporated. Fold in Cool Whip until smooth. Spread over pineapple layer on cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

A Cake With Only Two Ingredients??? AYKM???

The pumpkin farms are open. It's that time of year again, and really, is anything better than fall cooking? Pumpkins, apples, peaches, turnips...all of these good things come into season and give us plenty of opportunity to play in the kitchen.

One of my favorite cakes for this time of year, believe it or not, is a recipe that makes its way around the Weight Watcher circuit, and yes, it really is only two ingredients in the bowl. Now, given, one of those ingredients is a boxed cake mix, but for our purposes, you can count them...One, Two.

Are you ready? Wait for it.

Wait for it.

No Guilt Super Moist Pumpkin Cake

1 Box Spice Cake Mix
1 15 oz can of 100% Pure Pumpkin

That's it! Pour your dry cake mix in a bowl, open the can of pumpkin and plop it in the mix, then stir both ingredients together. DON'T put any eggs in it (Mom). DON'T put any oil in it (Mom). DON'T put any additional water in it (Mom). It's just Cake Mix and Pumpkin.

Grease and flour your 13 x 9 cake pan, and spread the batter. Bake at 350* for 30-35 minutes. It's fantastic unadorned, but you can fancy it up with Cool Whip. In the picture, I drizzled the plate with caramel which is a natural compliment to the flavors.

**Note, if chocolate cake is your thing, there's good news for you. You can substitute a chocolate cake mix and get a wonderful "No Guilt Super Moist Chocolate Cake".

Italian Pork Chops

Well, we just returned from another dream vacation in Mexico. It's always hard to get up on that last day and wheel your luggage down, but somehow, it's always nice to be home. Much can be said for sleeping in your own bed.

We went to Puerto Morales and stayed at Iberostar Paraiso Lindo Resort. Beautiful white sand beaches, breathtaking sunrises, Wave pool, lazy river...Tropical Storm Karl!! I can't say I was disappointed in anything, and the food was OK, but honestly, I can probably say I like my own cooking just as well.

I'm sharing with you today one of my oldest and most trusted recipes. It's actually not a "Quitsch Kitch" recipe, as I created this one way back in my college days. Back then, my ititials were PAN, and my big dream was to own my own shop and call it either "PANcakes" or "Out of the PAN". Cheesy, I know.

Anyway, I don't even know where I came up with the idea for this recipe...Food Network wasn't around. I just remember being in my apartment and piddling in the kitchen all the time. Sometimes things turned out right, and sometimes things were a disaster. This is one of those recipes that just came together. Hope you enjoy it!

Italian Pork Chops

2 Butterfly Pork Chops
2 Cups Italian Dressing (I use the "lite")
1/2 onion, sliced into rings
1 C fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 C Mozzarella Cheese

Marinate chops in 1 Cup of the Italian Dressing for 1 hour. Drain.

In small baking dish, place chops, onion and mushrooms. Pour remaining 1 cup of Italian Dressing on top and bake at 350 for 40 - 45 minutes (or until done). Remove from oven, sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and put them back in the oven for about 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Really easy, and soooo good.

Cowboys and Caviar....and you thought they didn't mix!

OK, so it's been a few weeks, and I'm a little behind. Maybe I'll try to make up for it, and maybe I'll be just as lazy in the next couple of weeks. With me, who knows for sure!

A lot has transpired since my last post. My mama's baby turned 40 years old (how can my mama have a child that old?), and celebrated with her (much) older sister in Nashville, TN. No, we did not go down there to see any country music stars, we didn't go down to shop (well, not much anyway), and though it may have looked like it to the casual observer, we didn't even go down to make fun of the scantily clad girls whos mama should have NEVER let them leave the house looking the way they did....I can't even describe the things we saw.

What we did go down for was the Professional Bull Riders Built Ford Tough Series event...that's right...we went for the Cowboys. And we love the entire show...from the autograph and photo sessions some of them do before the event, to the pyrotechnics as the show begins, to the big, bad, rank bucking bulls, to Flint Rasmussen as Captain Enterprise; we immerse ourselves in the entire experience. When Ben Jones broke into his crazy Aussie dance after each ride and eventual win, we went crazy with him, and we are not embarrassed. Every 8 second ride represents a heart pounding adrenalin rush like no other, and every buck off is a heart stopping agony, until the cowboy gets up and addresses the crowd with a wave or a tip of his Stetson, and we are all assured he is OK.

Now what's this about caviar? I found a delicious recipe that combines one of my all time favorite things (cowboys) and something that most people that I run with haven't tried (caviar). I for one have actually had caviar, and it's not bad if you like a very strong "pickled-fishy-salty-tapioca" taste and consistency. Now don't worry, this recipe contains no fish eggs, sturgeon or otherwise. I try to always keep a big bowl in the frige and eat on it all week. I can eat it as my main course with maybe a salad on the side, or I eat it as a snack with pita chips or Doritos. Either way, give it a try. There is no cooking involved, so you can't mess it up!!

COWBOY CAVIAR

In a very large bowl, combine:

1 Can Black beans - drained and rinsed
1 Can Black Eyed peas - drained and rinsed
1 Can Chick peas (also called Garbanzo beans) - drained and rinsed
1 Can Whole kernel corn - drained and rinsed
2 Medium tomatoes, chopped
1/4 -1/2 Cup Bell pepper
1 avocado, chopped
1 jalapeño pepper - seeded and chopped fine
1 Sweet onion, chopped
2 - 3 cloves garlic - pressed (or minced fine if you don't have a garlic press)

DRESSING (I don't usually measure anything out, so you can adjust this to suit your taste!!)

1/3 - 1/2 Cup Fat Free Italian Dressing
about 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
3 - 4 TBSP Red Wine Vinegar
A couple of shakes of Balsamic Vinegar
Juice of 1 lime
Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine Dressing Ingredients and mix well. Pour dressing over bean mixture, and gently toss all together. (Tossing with your hands is the best, most gentle way.) You can transfer to a smaller 2 quart bowl for storage in the refrigerator. It will keep for 5 or 6 days, although the tomato and avocado will become soft. This is a pretty healthy recipe. It's full of fiber, and you wash a lot of the salt away with the rinsing of the beans and corn. Hope you enjoy it!

Oh My Gosh - It's Lahvosh

A few weeks ago, Derrick and I traveled to Lincoln, NE for the National Special Olympic USA Games. Neither of us had ever been to Lincoln, and looked forward to getting away for a few days.

We stayed at The Cornhusker Marriott, which is right downtown. We were only 3 or 4 blocks away from the Capitol building - a huge skyscraper of a building that dominates the skyline. We were also only about 6 blocks from the University of Nebraska campus, easy walking distance.

One of my favorite things to do when I'm in a new city is, of course, catching a bite to eat at places I've never been. While we were there, we ate at Chipolte, The Noodle Company, and we also had the pleasure of walking down to the Haymarket and eating at a local establishment called Lazlo's Brewery and Grill.

I suppose the big draw to Lazlo's is the home-brewed beer. Man, they had a bunch of them: Wheat Beer, Honey Beer, Scottish Style Ale, Vanilla Porter, Brown Beers, and a whole host of Seasonal Beers. Now, I am not a beer drinker, but I can see how with so many selections, this would be a haven for beer connoisseurs.

What did catch my eye on the menu was an appetizer called "Lahvosh". Their description was a sweet and thin cracker bread topped with melted Havarti cheese, baked with your choice of any three of the following ingredients: tomatoes, green peppers, bacon bits, turkey ham, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, or grilled chicken. It was big enough for two or more, and with a little "encouragement", it sounded good to Derrick, too. We ordered it with tomato, artichoke hearts and mushrooms. Mmmmmm...it was delish. Sort of a extra-thin crust white pizza. There were different variations of it on Lazlo's menu, so it can be pretty versatile.

Now that I'm home and have some weekend time to play in my kitchen, I decided to do some research and find out the story behind this "Lahvosh." What I found is Lahvosh (also spelled Lavosh and Lavash) is a flat bread with roots in the Middle East, specifically Armenia and ancient Persia. It is tradionally made from flour, water, and salt, and was cooked by rolling out the dough into a disc and sticking the dough to the side of a wood fired oven. When it was done, it would fall from the wall of the oven. When it is fresh, it is soft and flexible, but as it ages, it becomes crisp more like a cracker. Lahvosh is also called Cracker Bread.

Modern day Lahvosh (like that you may find in your supermarket) can sometimes include yeast, and may be a thicker than days of old; this makes it a good selection for sandwich wraps which are all the rage right now.

There are hundreds of recipes for Lahvosh on the web. Now there will be at least one more. The first recipe I tried was the Alton Brown - Good Eats recipe. It called for a whole egg (whole as in yolk and white) and butter. It was OK, but I found I didn't really care for the taste of the "whole" egg; specifically, since there are very few ingredients in the bread, the yolk was almost overpowering, and the butter was very bland. So I adjusted the recipe slightly and tried again, using two egg whites and olive oil instead of butter. Much better flavor!!

After the bread is baked, try making the white pizza (You don't have to use Harvarti cheese, regular old Mozzarella will do). You'll feel rustic and slightly primeval...then you'll feel satisfied as this flat bread rests in your belly. Truly, this is not hard. You can do it!

LAHVOSH

2 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
3 TBSP sugar
1 tsp salt
2/3 Cup water
2 egg whites
2 TBSP olive oil

Whisk together the flour, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the water, egg whites and olive oil. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until completely incorporated. (If the dough is really dry, add water ONE TBSP at a time). Knead the dough by hand about 10 times in the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and separate into thirds. Cover with a damp tea towel and let rest for 30 minutes. Now pre-heat your oven to 375*.

After resting, place dough on a lightly greased pizza stone (or just a plain old pizza pan if you don't have a stone) and roll out very thin. Each 1/3 of dough will roll out to about a 13-14 inch circle.

Bake 12 - 15 minutes.

If you like your crust a little softer, go with 12; I happen to be a crispy crust person, so I go 15. Let your crust cool sightly, then layer on your toppings.

Hello everyone. Well, I've been wanting to do this for a long time....and since going on a little trip this past week to the 2010 Special Olympic National USA Games and seeing my Mother-in-law has a blog, I thought there's no better time than now!

Basically, I love to eat. And basically, I just want to share some of my favorite recipes with you, and you can share with me. My goal (D'ja catch that....my GOAL....) is to post once a week, and occasionally some pictures will accompany the recipe.

If you're reading this, you might be (probably are) a friend of mine on facebook. One thing you may know of me is how much I love the game Bejeweled Blitz. It is the only "video game" I've ever been good at...and I mean EVER!

Now you're probably saying to yourself, what in the world does Bejeweled Blitz and a food/recipe blog have in common? Well, it's the middle of summer, and to me, summer means sweet juicy fruit. Lots of it. Fresh fruit. Fruit stand fruit. I came up with this fruit salad last year - nothing fancy, just a fruit salad - but it totally reminds me of my favorite game: you got it Bejeweled Blitz. So here is my recipe for my "Bejeweled Fruit Salad".

Bejeweled Fruit Salad

1 pint fresh strawberries, halved (or quartered if they are really big)

1 Cup fresh Bing cherries, pitted and cut in half

1 Cup fresh blueberries

1 Cup fresh pineapple, cut into 1" chunks

2 Kiwi, peeled and cut into 1/2" chunks

1/4 of a honeydew melon (only if you can find a good one!)

1/2 Cup Mandarin Oranges, juice reserved**

1 lemon, zested and juiced

Splenda - to taste if you think it needs sweetening up a little

Mix all of the above together. The reserved Mandarin Orange juice to helps to add sweetness, and it also helps the flavors to mix together. This recipe makes almost two quarts of fruit salad, and it keeps for a couple of days in covered in the fridge (if it lasts that long!!)

**The Mandarin Oranges are the only "non-fresh" fruit I use, and I really like the burst of orange color. There is a girl at work who hates Mandarin Oranges, so when I make it for work, I leave them out and it's still delicious!

See?? Nothing fancy, just good eating! I hope you enjoy!