Cass Cooks, Too!

Recently, I had an opportunity to throw a small party. I had a couple of birthdays I wanted to celebrate along with a wee divorce and a little un-family thing and I wanted a special dessert to go along with the meal. I called my aunt to get her recipe for a cake that everyone raves about, because I knew it would be just the ticket. Here’s how you make it:

1 Pillsbury yellow cake mix
2 pints fresh strawberries
16 oz strawberry glaze
8 oz softened cream cheese
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
12 ounces thawed whipped topping

Make your cake. You can cook it in four layers, which is what I did, or you can cook it in 2 layers and cut them, but you need to end up with 4 slabs of cake. It takes about 15 minutes for the layers to cook, if you do foour. That information is not on the box, so I am just letting you know. Cool the cake completely. Completely, do you hear?

Cut the strawberries and mix with the glaze, reserving 4 pretty ones to slice for the top of the cake. Also set aside 3 tablespoons of the strawberry/glaze mixture.

Beat the softened cream cheese well with the granulated sugar. Test it, and don’t stop beating until the sugar crystals are completely dissolved in the cream cheese, otherwise, it will be gritty, and that’s just nasty feeling in your mouth. Add in the powdered sugar and the whipped topping and beat it all until mixed very well.

Now then, put down a layer of cake, frost it with 1/4 of the frosting and top with 1/3 of the strawberry/glaze mixture. Do this 2 more times and then top with the last cake. Frost with remaining frosting, and top with the reserved strawberry/glaze mix in the center. Slice the four reserved berries and place in a circle around that little bit of glaze stuff.

This cake is so good, and it is even better the next day, so make it ahead if you can. Now, I am going to give you the piece of advice my aunt didn’t give me. If your frosting is too stiff to spread easily, go ahead and thin it with just a wee bit of milk. You will know when you get ready to frost the second layer if you need to do this, because if the frosting is too stiff, the layers will move, and you will end up with a very good tasting cake that looks a little funny. And people might laugh until they take a bit and then they will try to make up for it with their mouth full and that is just gross. Wanna know how I know all this?

I’m sure you could also use little wooden dowels to keep the cake straight, but really, thinning the icing a bit seems a lot easier and more efficient.

No, I didn’t mispell that. I’m not talking about the pots and pans you cook in, but about what you wear while you are doing the cooking! Truth to tell, I used to wear grubbies to cook, but these days, what with the new schedule and the silly job, I’m finding that I am cooking bigger meals, more involved, but also that each meal is an occasion of sorts. I want to be looking good in the kitchen since I have guests. It’s major incentive, iykwim!

In fact, these days, I am much more likely to be caught cooking in one of these evening blouses than in my sweatpants. Although I do still wear pants in the kitchen, mind you, I’ve just kicked it up a notch, you see. I’d really love to win one of the weekly competitions from this store, cause I could really put £250 to good use in a clothing store. Couldn’t we all? That brings discount online shopping to a whole new level, right? And the sizing guide makes shopping a breeze, even for those of us on this side of the pond. Too bad they only deliver to the UK! Perhaps I need to find a friend over there who is interested in some re-shipping.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to wear my nicer clothes when I want to, and I’ll wear an apron. In fact, I bought a new full size one just the other day.

Well, spring has sprung here, and suddenly all my earthy friends are talking about gardens. You know, tomatoes and zucchini and watermelon and all those other easy to grow foods that I love…. it’s enough to make me think about doing some gardening of my own. As if I didn’t have enough to do, LOL. But fresh tomatoes to go in my awesome guacamole? Yummmmm! And, you know, if there had been batteries in my camera when I made that guacamole Saturday, I so would have written all about it. It was that good, people. Really.

Anyway, back to the gardening thing. Are you doing it? What are you planting? And how are you going to keep your garden pest free? Back in the day, when my grandparents gardened, they used something called Sevin Dust to keep the bugs out of the plants, and then, they washed the vegetables and we ate them, and no one thought much about it. Nowadays, though, I’m concerned about what my kids eat. Not that my folks weren’t, just that we are generally better educated about the dangers of traditional pesticides than they were, yk? So, I’m looking into using organic pest control if I plant a garden.

The claims for the organic pesticides look pretty good. For instance this
organic bug patrol kills over 40 insects. That’s pretty broad spectrum, if you ask me, not that I know a whole lot about bugs, but what I want to know is what it does to people. Specifically, what does it do to little people who follow along after me and will nibble stuff when my back is turned, despite warnings to the contrary? So, if you’ve used it, did it live up to it’s claims? And do you feel comfortable from a safety standpoint?

And while I am asking questions, here, I saw an upside down tomato growing thing in Walgreens the other day. Have you used one? Known someone who used one? Laughed at the very idea of one? I can’t decide which is appropriate on my own, so help me figure out what to do, wouldja? And could I use one for the zucchini? Cause if I plant anything, I will plant those two things. And watermelon. And now, I think I am about to start repeating myself, so it must be time to hush up and go cook!

Okay, remember that lovely soup I told you about last time? It was even better over tater tots.

Put the tater tots on the plate, pour the soup over, and then smoosh them up a couple at a time to let them soak up the soup. It’s like…potato cheese broccoli soup.

So at lunch time today, we had extra kids from the neighborhood here. I’d planned on packaged broccoli cheddar soup, but I was afraid it would not make enough for everyone to have enough, so I set about figuring out how to extend it. Here’s what we started with:

We made the soup according to the package directions, then added the Normandy Blend veggies, the Cream of Mushroom soup, an extra soup can of water and half a hunk of not-Velveeta. We heated it through and served it with saltines, and it was so. stinkin’. good!

The best news is that the neighborhood kids bailed, so we have plenty of leftovers

Hi there! I’m just popping in tonight to let you know about a foodie giveaway on my craft blog. I’m giving away a Progresso Perfect Recipe basket or three, and you can find out how to enter here. Enjoy!

Yeah, I know I didn’t list this in the upcoming recipe list. However, it really is the best roast ever, so I felt like I just had to share! So I am.

I used about a ten pound Boston Butt to make this. And actually, it was so easy that I just called out the directions to my 15 year old as I walked out the door.

Start a bit of oil heating in a large skillet. Combine some lemon pepper seasoning with some flour. Use a proportion like you were breading something to fry it. Roll the roast in that mixture until it is coated well. Then sear it in your hot oil. Put the roast in a covered pan and cook it in the oven at 250 degrees for several hours. Like 3 or 4. But if you have to go a bit longer you can. Or you can put it in the crock pot. See, I’m easy.

Serve the roast with a starch and a veggie the first night. For the lunch the next day, serve the chopped leftovers on hamburger or hot dog buns with a slice of cheese. Yummilicious.

If you were lucky enough to find the pork on sale for 89 cents a pound like I did, then you have 2 meals there for around $10. Less, if you aren’t feeding an army of 9.

So, one of the things we ended up with was turkey ham. Now, I like turkey ham, but I do not like the rind on it, so I always peel mine. Just sayin’. YMMV. Here’s what I did with mine:

oh, wait, no picture. Sorry, let’s move on.

You will need:

• turkey ham
• pasta, such as rigatoni, radiatore, shells or macaroni
• pasteurized processed cheese, like the kind that is bright orangey yellow, and comes in logs, you know the one
• butter
• flour
• milk
• pepper

Peel and dice your turkey ham. Set is aside. Start your pasta water. When it comes to a boil, add the pasta, cover it, and turn off the burner. It will be done at the time indicated on the box to boil it, but it won’t ruin if you have to leave it sit a few minutes longer. Yes, seriously. Just trust me, ok? It’s a buck’s worth of pasta to run an experiment that will save you a bunch of money over the lifetime of pasta cooking ahead of you

Now then, while you are waiting on the pasta, slice up a third of a large block of that cheese, melt a half stick of butter in a large pan, and then add a quarter cup of flour to it and stir it. You are about to make cheese sauce. Once the flour and butter are mixed together, add some milk and the cheese to the pan. Stir it constantly, and do NOT let it come to a full rolling boil. If you do, it will stick and burn and be nasty. No need to ask me for specifics on that, it was a long time ago, and details are fuzzy.

So, heat your milk, cheese and butter/flour, and stir until it becomes sauce. You can control the thickness by adjusting the amount of milk you add. I can’t help more than that, because I just use “some”. And then, if it is too thick, I add “more”. Gotta love cooking with Cass, right?

When the pasta is done, and the sauce is as thick as you like it, mix it all together. I also like to add broccoli to mine, but sometimes the people I live with revolt, and they wish to not eat broccoli in everything. Peasants.

And that brings us to the December Angel Food menu. I do hope you are taking advantage of this woneerful resource. This month, $30 will buy.

1.5 lb. Choice Cut Beef Roast
2 lb. Breaded Chicken Tenders
2 lb. IQF Chicken Breast
1.5 lb. Pork Chops (4 x 6 oz.)
1 lb. 80/20 Lean Beef Patties (4 x 4 oz.)
28 oz. Salisbury Steak Entreé
1 lb. All Meat Hot Dogs
1 lb. Carrots
1 lb. Green Beans
1 lb. Rice
24 oz. Steak-Cut Fries
32 oz. 2% Reduced Fat Shelf Stable Milk
7.5 oz. Mac and Cheese
14 oz. Chicken Broth
7 oz. Corn Muffin Mix
Dozen Eggs
Dessert Item

We will be getting four boxes, and I am pleased to say that I mostly just but staples and breakfast foods at the grocery store any more, along with sale meats which included ribs, ground chuck and boston butt this week.

So, you can expect recipes for:

tacos
homemade bbq
beef roast
fried chicken
hamburger casserole

and who knows what else in the coming days.

So, I set out to have BBQ ribs the other night. Angel Food had some delightful baby back ribs in their boxes this month, and I thought they would be real tasty. We put the ribs in the pan, and opened the pantry to get the BBQ sauce out, and there wasn’t any. Oops. Then we opened the fridge. I always have a couple bottles in there! And so I did. Two bottles with 1/2 inch of sauce each in them. Double oops. I threw those away, frowned and turned back to the fridge. I pulled out a bottle of sun dried tomato vinaigrette and mixed about 3/4 cup of that with 1/3 cup of honey, and poured that over the ribs. I simmered them in my large electric skillet at 250 for about 4 hours, and they were so good and tender! I pulled the bones out with tongs and piled the meat on a platter. We served them with diced sweet potatoes and field peas. Yum-i-licious.

Now that picture above, it’s not of my ribs. That would mean I remembered to take a picture, which I did not. Bad food blogger, bad food blogger.

You know, …….. just imagine me sitting here astounded, because I am. I’ve been watching the price of grocery store food go up a few pennies per item for several months now, and wondering and worrying about how I am going to stretch provisions to make sure we don’t have leftover month at the end of the food.

Do you know that there are people who live in gated communities in my area, who are relying on food from charity organizations to eat? This morning, my husband went to pick up commodity foods. The doors opened at 9, he was there at 9:30, and they had already run out of three of the 4 promised meat items. How can this be in the richest country on earth?

I’m listening to news about how Washington is bailing out banks, and getting ready to hand over money to car makers, and the banks are still foreclosing on homes, and the auto makers are still paying their CEOs annual fortunes, and I am beginning to get angry. No, that’s wrong, I am not beginning to get angry, I am angry. Who is going to bail out the American family? My husband and I are both looking for work, I’m scraping every cent I can together to try to get my phone turned back on, and yet……. the government is giving more money to the very people whose piss-poor decisions and greed got us into this fix in the first place. And I am wondering what I can possibly do about it. How can I help you, my reader, make your food dollar go a little further?

I’m left rembering what I said I was going to do a couple of weeks ago: focus on recipes that use items from Angel Food and now, commodity food. And whatever I can find cheap or on a real good sale.

Now, I am begging and borrowing internet right now, and don’t even have my computer. I’ve asked a friend to try to repair the display on it so I can use it away from home. But I am going to figure out a way to cook, take pictures and upload them so you can “see what I am talking about” when I post a recipe.

In the meantime, I am at the library and the machine here doesn’t take sd cards. In fact, it still takes the little floppies. I haven’t seen a floppy drive in a very long time. There isn’t even a usb port. Really. Which brings me to another question– can we get the government to supply updated computers to local libraries?

Ok, back to the food! Next time I post, I’ll tell you how to make something that involves turkey ham.

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