I know, this probably isn’t news that will hit FB or Twitter, but less than an hour ago, I casually waddled in Ralphs Grocery near our home. I quickly found my way to the frozen food section to get a couple of items for a luncheon tomorrow. Gazing ever nonchalantly to my left at the frozen bread section, my eyes saw something that made my heart skip a beat. Did I see what I thought I saw? I quickly pulled on the handle to open the door and couldn’t believe what I was holding in my little Southern Hand. The most beautiful site; a bag of Sister Schubert rolls. Not the pretzel rolls, which I have seen a few times out here, but real dinner rolls. California, you have now won my heart. Was this really the same little neighborhood grocery store that never had my southern foods that I was craving when we first moved here three years ago?</p And this miracle happened on a Sunday! Is this going to be a great week or what? If I stumble into the same store next week and see frozen breaded okra, I am going to think that Paula Deen must have more influence in California than Dr. Oz. So, in less than 48 hours, we have had Blue Bell mailed to us from Texas and now, Sister Schubert Rolls from Alabama. When I actually see Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr Pepper here, I will be content to live here forever. I have found a Sonic within 30 minutes of our house, a Chick-Fila an hour away, Hobby Lobby by the Chick Fila and now Sister Schubert. I never dreamed life in California could be this great. You can have your beautiful blue water and beaches, your gorgeous Napa Valley and Golden Gate Bridge, I have found my dream destination, Ralphs Frozen Food Aisle.
Category: Daily Thoughts
Cauliflower VS Chocolate
I learned something yesterday. I learned that when I posted the recipe for oven-fried cauliflower, it got the 2nd highest views my blog has ever received. It was shocking to see that a veggie would out shine some fabulous dessert, like pumpkin bread pudding, or chocolate truffle cake, but who knew that on a blog called Chocolate Castles, a vegetable would win. So I am thinking that when I post a dessert such as “Chocolate Upside Down Cake” I think I will title it “Chocomato Upea Dosquash Cakeabean” That should get a lot of hits. With the many health conscience blogs out there just waiting for us to click on their tofu recipes and wheat germ pancakes recipe, it just never occurred to me that I should be posting more veggies. There is a diet dr. (you know who you are) that follows my blog and seems to always “like” some of the most fattening desserts that I post. That makes me wonder, is he a closet junk food junkie or does he just read and dream about eating all the desserts that we know we shouldn’t be eating? Maybe he is just waiting for me to get to 500 lbs then I would be yelling to him for help. This reminds me of the grocery store story that my daughter told me to tell you about. The incident made me feel like I weighed 500 lbs.
I was at Kroger in Dallas and was hurridly getting what I needed to head home and cook. Almost finished, I headed to the frozen food aisle. I opened the door to get frozen rolls, but before I knew it, I dropped the packages of frozen rolls down in the frozen case. Bending over to retrieve them, the door of the frozen food section, closed, hitting me on my rear end. Trying not to fall over, I quickly put my right food over the bottom bar of the grocery cart, trying to regain my balance, when the grocery cart began to roll away from me. The next moment, I found myself with one foot stuck between the two bottom bars of the cart and the other leg, straddling, trying to stand up. I ended up spread eagle on my stomach, with one leg still in the grocery cart and the frozen food laying in front of my face. Knowing I wasn’t hurt, I hurriedly looked around to see if anyone saw my little acrobatic stunt. Thank goodness, I was the only one on the aisle, but when I was finally able to pick myself up from the floor, my daughter called. I began to tell her my story and she was laughing so hard she started crying. She put her phone on speaker and told me I had to repeat the whole story so my son-in-law could hear. As fast as I could, I checked out, thinking that it was all probably caught on camera and all the Kroger employees would be spending their 15 min breaks watching the blonde trying to shop the frozen food section. To this day,Jodi breaks up laughing when we talk about how all these things always seem to happen to me.
Tonight, I will be in search of a new healthier veggie dish to post tomorrow. It was exciting to see so many visitors that apparently are in love with veggies. Yesterday…cauliflower, tomorrow…something squash. But, if I have to go get any frozen veggies for the recipe, I am going to be sure I’m alone on the frozen food aisle;just in case, history really does repeat itself.
I have now added Kroger to my list of “never going back there” stores!
Gas Station Blues
The windows are open today and Fall is in the air. I came home before finishing errands, as I was just to embarrassed to even be seen on the street. I was afraid someone would recognize me from the gas station. Now, before you laugh or think, “how in the world could she be that (I prefer the word scatterbrained instead of stupid) well, scatterbrained, you need to know that my mind was already on going to eat Italian food tonight with friends and on hurrying home to cut a big chunk of the Tunnel of Fudge Cake that was just waiting for me to walk in the door. So I pull into the station, but there are about 12 cars there waiting to pull up to a pump. I decide that I am going to do what I see other people do; not concern myself with which side of the car the gas tank is on. I will just make it work. People stretch that gas arm all the time. After 15 minutes, it is finally my turn. Well, the gas tank was on the other side, but no problem, I can do this. I try to insert the credit card in the island pay machine, but there is something blocking it and the card won’t go in. Luckily an attendant was out emptying the trash so I tell him that the machine won’t take my credit card. He comes over, takes my card and puts it in the machine. I am already embarrassed. I select #8 pump and go back to select the grade of gas and swing the gas hose over the back of my car. It won’t go. The attendant comes over and tells me that it is not going to reach; to just pull out and back into this side. I put the gas hose back and proceed to try and back up, but another car has already pulled in behind me, making it impossible for me to back up. Well, as luck would have it, the car in front of me is pulling out, so I tell the young man, let’s cancel this pump (why did I tell him that, like he is responsible for cancelling my card) and I will just pull up to the front one. He stares at me and shakes his head, like, “I don’t care what you do and why are you telling me all this? Why does he keep looking at me? Driving the car to the front gas tank, I quickly get out of the car, look up to find the number of the pump, ‘ah, #6, insert the credit card (all by myself this time) into the slot and the machine rejects my card. There are two people waiting behind me to pay, watching all this, when I realize I never cancelled the first pump station. All of a sudden, it dawns on me that I am still on the wrong side of the pump, the hose is still not going to reach my car. I quickly jump in my car, pull around to the side of the station and park. I now have to go in to be sure Pump #8 (the first pump is cancelled and there is a man in front of me that is giving the attendant his money for pump #8. The attendant says, “no sir, it shows that there is already someone at that one.” The customer says, ‘no, I am at pump #8″ So that was why my card didn’t work, it was still on the first pump I tried. This is when I move ahead of the 4 people in line, all the time trying to explain what happened. Why did I just make my hair red, why didn’t I leave it blond so I would have an excuse for all this? I go back to my car and wait in a different line, the line with the pumps on the right side of my car this time. After another 15 minutes, I finally fill up with gas. It was all worth it, I saved 3 cents a gallon. I ate 2 pieces of the chocolate cake the minute I walked in the door. I deserved it today. It will be awhile before I return to that station. Or that part of town.
Recipe Correction
In Tunnel of Fudge cake, I inadvertently posted 3/4 cup and it should have read, 3/4 pound (3 sticks) Sorry for any confusion…regular recipe has been corrected. Thanks, Trudy
Paula Deen’s Tunnel Of Love Fudge Cake
During the dinosaur age, known as the 70’s and 80’s, there was a cake that became so popular that you couldn’t go to any social gathering without being served a piece of Tunnel of Fudge cake. It was all the rave and people just couldn’t get enough of this gooey and yummy cake. I like to think that it was this cake’s fault that contributed to my “baby fat” look, that I still am so proud to sport even today, in my “golden years”. When Duncan Hines did away with the frosting mix that you added to one of their cake mixes, that made this cake possible, America cried. What would we do without our Tunnel of Fudge cake? What would we serve for company, holidays and birthday’s? What was happening to the world? Why would Duncan Hines do this to us when we were just getting over having to wear tie dyed shirts, clogs and bell bottom jeans?
In came Paula Deen with her version of our most beloved cake. Once again, we can get those pretty cake plates out and proudly serve America’s Cake. Thanks to Paula, we can go back to the kitchen and whip up this miracle of a cake. Who knew that Paula would be our cake hero? Not only do we love her for her southern fried everything, her southern drawl, her recipe for bread pudding made with Krispy Kreme donuts, but now, the Tunnel of Fudge Cake. Gather your friends, family, your Bible study group, your bridge and bunco groups and present them with this wonderful treasure from days gone by….
Tunnel of Fudge Cake
Serves 16
3/4 pound (3 sticks) butter
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 (12 1/2 oz) can creamy double Dutch frosting
2 cups all -purpose flour
2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts (the nuts really are necessary in this recipe to give it the right texture)
Preheat oven to 350. Cream room temperature butter in a large bowl on high speed. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well. Add sugar gradually, creaming at high speed until light and fluffy (goodbye light and fluffy rear end, hello saggy and droopy butt)
Gradually add flour. By hand, stir in frosting mix and nuts until well blended. Pour batter in well-greased and floured Bundt pan. Bake for 60-65 minutes. Cool 2 hours before removing from pan. Cake will have a dry brownie-type crust and a most center with a tunnel of fudge running through it.
Styrofoam Plates Lead to Marriage Counseling
It really is all my fault. I should never have ask poor Randy to take out the garbage. Really. Everything was going along splendidly all weekend until last night. We had worked together bringing home all our fall pumpkins and enjoyed a hamburger for lunch on Saturday. We drove down to the coast for a wonderful seafood dinner and attended church, having lunch with some friends yesterday. But then….after emptying out several plastic containers of old books and making a huge stash to be thrown out, our romantic work weekend came to a halt.
As the sun began to set and we both decided it was time to eat, I told him that if he would take the garbage out, I would get dinner ready. That’s just what us wonderful wives do, we feed our men. We both had worked feverlshly all day carrying the huge containers up the stairs and I was now exhausted. So I quickly got out two Styrofoam plates out of the cabinet and nuked our left over Mexican food we had not finished at lunch. Grabbing forks from the drawer, I set the foam plates down on the table as he was walking back in from playing garbage guy. I was so proud that I had managed to nuke two plates of food, filled two plastic glasses with tea and had them sitting on the table by the time he walked in the door. Yes, I did all that in 5 minutes and thought to myself, “what a gal”. We sat down, said the blessing and he began our table talk. “well, I noticed that our neighbors downstairs are having dinner by candlelight on their china AGAIN tonight. Isn’t that nice? Oh, look, here is our leftovers from lunch, combined with the half melted Styrofoam plates blended with the cheese enchiladas. But, it’s ok, at least we aren’t eating with plastic forks, AND…we have brewed tea. What more can a guy ask for.” OK, Mr. Wonderful, what is your point? Does he not know that the couple downstairs are still in the honeymoon stage? She is still trying to get him to put a ring on her finger. If that were still my goal, I would be using my fine china also. But we have passed through the fine china stage and am on to Styrofoam already. After all, I am so busy writing a cooking and hospitality blog that I just don’t have time to do all that fancy stuff. Does he remember that? I guess not. But, being the great little wife that I am, tonight, we will be eating our frozen TV dinners with a candle on the table. I might even get out the nice pottery, but I’m not going to go to storage to get the china. After all, the rings are already on my fingers and I don”t want our china broken if he makes any more remarks like the one last night. Besides the heavy pottery plates would make better impressions.
Prelude to Fall
It is so easy for me to tell when fall has arrived, even though the temps are still in the 90’s. The minute I begin to diligently sit all evening trying to find new recipes for the holidays is the first clue. The second clue is when I simply cannot stay out of my kitchen. Even when I know a new Hobby Lobby is opening about 45 minutes away, I just cannot keep my head out of the oven, oops, I mean the kitchen. While I am waiting for the carrot cake to cool before frosting, I will post a new recipe that I know my sister-in-law will rave about. It has two of her favorite ingredients, cranberries and pork roast. Perfect for the Thanksgiving and Christmas family dinners. While writing this, I was just thinking about how different foods define different parts of the year and specific holidays.
January is black-eyed pea month
February is chocolate month (actually every month is chocolate month in this household)
March is when we start thinking about coconut cakes and Irish coffee
April is ham and deviled eggs (making use of the Easter eggs)
May is picnic baskets, filled with your favorite Memorial Day fried chicken
June is, well, I couldn’t think of what food is associated with June, so I went to Google and it just told me that June is Natl Candy Month. Who knew? So June is right up there at the top of my favorite months. I was getting ready to say that, since nothing came to mind when I thought of June, that would be my month to loose weight before the picnic month and the ice cream month, but never mind, now that I know it is candy month. Diet will have to wait till some other time.
July 4th, hot dogs, potato salad and flag cakes
August is National Ice Cream month (my hubby’s fav month)
September is Labor Day patio barbeques
October is pumpkin breads, pumpkin cookies, peanut-chocolate cakes decorated with candy corn
When you see the word November anywhere, your mind immediately sees a stuffed turkey
December is visions of sugar plums, every type of cookie known to man, pork roast or standing rib roast, all dancing around in our heads.
Why did I get carried away with this? All I know is that from this day forward my focus will be food. Cobbles and cinnamon, pies and popovers, cakes and cookies, stews and soups. What an adventure lies ahead this fall as we begin to “gather around the table” giving thanks for the scents and smells of this fabulous season. While you’re at it, give thanks for the gift of smell. It is one of those gifts that we take for granted. Wouldn’t we miss being able to just walk through the door with wonderful aromas to welcome us out of sometimes a very hectic and hurried world.
Since this ended up being a rather drawn out “daily thought” I will post the pork roast recipe separately.
Apple-Spice Cake
My precious little hubby came home from the Nutritionist yesterday upset because he hadn’t lost the weight he had hoped. We finished dinner and found our way to our matching recliners (they are disguised as wing backs so people just walking in the living room won’t know we are old), when he proceeded to ask me what we were having for dessert. I looked at him and reminded him that he was just complaining an hour ago about not losing weight. He reminded me that that was an hour ago and he was wanting dessert. I hated to tell him that the dessert that I had made was long gone. It had been delivered to some friends and it was too late to make anything last night. He rummaged around our pantry until he found cookies. This morning I promised him I would have dessert awaiting his arrival today. I found this recipe on the back of the Duncan Hines Spice Cake Mix box and have it in the oven as we speak (actually as I post). Am adding my own frosting as I still just cannot do canned frosting. It has a can of apple pie filling in it and I did add a half teaspoon of ground ginger to the batter. The house smells divine right now and cannot wait to try it.
1 Duncan Hines Spice Cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1/2 teas ground ginger
1 (18 oz) can apple pie filling (not just the canned apples, but the “pie filling” apples
Frosting of your choice (but please don’t tell me if you use the canned, I don’t want to know that)! ha
Combine eggs, cake mix, oil and mix for 2 minutes. Add can of apples.
1 cup chopped nuts (opt) can be added if you like
Pour into a greased 9×13 baking pan and bake until knife inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool and Frost
Browned Butter Frosting
1 cup butter
1 box (16 oz) powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk (might need a little more, but add by tables as needed)
1 teas vanilla
Cook butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, 6-8 min or until butter begins to turn a golden brown. Remove pan from heat immediately and pour butter into a small bowl. Cover and chill 1 hour and butter begins to solidify. Beat butter at medium speed with mixer until fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar, alternately with milk, beginning and ending with sugar. Beat mixture at low speed until well blended. Add vanilla. Spread over cooled cake. Sprinkle with chopped pecans if desired.
Pumpkins and Frappe
Fall is in the air, fa la la la la! The white shoes are put away and the matches are sitting upon the mantel, just waiting for the weather to drop below 100 so we can lite the fireplace. In the meantime, I will perk myself up by stopping by Starbucks and guzzling down a pumpkin spice frappe. September is that month when we really don’t know what to wear or what table decorations to use. It’s still hot to where we are needing to still wear our shorts and sandals, but because we know it is September, our minds automatically just think pumpkins and pies, fireplaces and lattes. It just seems weird to walk into Hobby Lobby to see if there is any new fall decorations that I just can’t live without in shorts and sandals. If it is like the past 60 years, I’m sure that there will be some that I just cannot walk away from. So to truly get in the spirit of Fall, I turn down the air conditioning in the house and car and get out a new fall outfit, stop and buy a Pumpkin Spice Frappe (since I cannot make myself drink anything hot until it is below 50) and head to see just what new shapes and colors of pumpkins they are selling this year. Peter Pumpkin, (Randy’s name from Sept 1 through Thanksgiving), doesn’t know it yet, but I am thinking about having a pumpkin carved to look like him. I think he will be excited to see himself sitting right outside the front door, with “welcome ya’ll” carved at the top of his face. Things like this just get him so excited about the holidays. He will be thrilled to know that this is the weekend we go to storage to find all our fall treasures.
Last year, if you remember reading (Labor Day in Big Bear) it took us 3 trips to bring home all the treasures that are stored. We have since bought a little bigger car than the two seater, so hopefully we can make it in one trip.
This time last year, we were recovering from hiking down a mountain on Labor Day. Since that time, we have learned to go to Big Bear with “imaginary illness” that would not allow us such hideous activity and also “forgetting” the required shoes it takes to hike. Because of this new wisdom of ours, we actually did a little resting yesterday, instead of participating in something that would require knee surgery or a hip replacement, we sat and watched golf or read. We are learning. We are slow, and it takes us awhile, but we now know how to get out of things we don’t like to do. Lie and fake illnesses. Works every time.
In case you are wanting to drive your adult kids crazy (more than normal), do what we do. We record a really stupid message on our answering machine. It will keep them from calling so much, because they are afraid if we aren’t home, they will have to listen once again to…
“Hello, you have reached Peter and Penelope Pumpkin. Peter is hunting pumpkins and gourds and I’m shopping for s’mores, we’ll give you a call when we walk through the door”. Trust me on this, it will drive them crazy.
Face Lifts & Labs
This morning I fasted. I would like to say that I did it to spend more time in prayer, but the fact is that I had to have some lab work done. I put on enough make-up so as not to scare anyone and headed out the door at 7:05 a.m. Now, I am the first to admit that I truly am one of those that need all the layers of makeup so that I hopefully hide several years of wrinkles. I had just had my roots watered and fed and so no gray was showing. When I walked into the waiting room, I thought to myself, “hum…I shouldn’t have really worried about how my hair or makeup looks, most of the people there looked like they barely had rolled out of bed, much less brushed their hair and maybe not their teeth. But I sat down to wait my turn. Giving me a chance to play Candy Crush, I was so proud that I had gotten up and was getting this behind me. When my name was called, I walked quickly into room #4 and gave my best smile to the little girl that probably just graduated last week from high school. She began to enter my info into the computer without taking her eyes off the screen, she ask me my birthday. I quickly responded, “7-11-50” She repeated after me, “7-11-15”. What???? Should I have added that second layer of foundation this morning? I quickly corrected her and said, “that is 50, not 15”. She looked at me and said, “50 not 15?”. Well, I know that I have been looking a little haggard and maybe a new wrinkle or two is forming over my mouth, but 15? Really? Is it that bad? Did she really think that I was born in 1915? That would make me 98? My goodness, surely either she isn’t good at math or has the worst eyesight ever. I am now not feeling very confident in the young whipper snapper that is going to be sticking a needle in my arm. But I stepped out in faith and allowed her to proceed. Maybe I should have been praying, during the morning fast, instead of playing Candy Crush. I survived the ordeal and quickly put in a call to a plastic surgeon to get an estimate for a face lift, while walking to the garage to retrieve my car. Oh, this story gets better.
Pulling up to the exit in the parking garage, I inform the nice gentleman that, because I had entered the garage at 7:15, the machine wasn’t on yet to spit out tickets. He said that is alright, and asked me what time I entered. I told him 7:15 and he told me I owed $1.60. As I was trying to look for the $1.60 in the very dark underground garage, he proceeded to get his phone out and show me his new bride that looked at least 20 yrs younger than he.(I found out she was 20 years younger) All I said was, “oh my, she is very pretty.” Well, I guess he either gets very lonely sitting there underground all day or doesn’t ever get to talk at home, because I sat there in my car, in the dark, hearing about how his first wife of 13 years died in his arms and how a friend of his deceased wife found him this new wife. I also heard about a man who had come to stay at their house for a few months and every thing he fixed in this man’s house and what all he learned as he watched him fix what was broken. Where were all the cars that usually are honking to get out of the garage, when you need them. He then proceeded to tell me that when he is not working there, he has a car detail business that has afforded him to be able to have 2 houses and new cars. OK…now I am dying to get out of that garage and call Randy and tell him that he needs to quit the title business and get into the garage attendant business with a car detail side business. I want 2 houses and a new car too. But Randy informed me that he is too old and to tired to start over. That reminded me to follow up with the plastic surgeon and be sure that our insurance covers a very much needed facelift, according to the little high school lab tech. Am spending the Labor Day weekend buying all new makeup and going to get my hair cut. Hopefully by Monday I will at least pass for 80.
Have a wonderful and safe Labor day and will be back to you on Tuesday. TKbakesalot
Chocolate Castles 