Mary Todd Lincoln's Cake

For Cool's birthday and President's Day the picklets and I made Mary Todd Lincoln's Cake. Good enough for a President and good enough for us! It was delish! The almonds make all the difference.

The author of the article said it took her 4 hours beginning to end to make the cake but I found it took about half an hour to prepare then half an hour to bake. Of course I used a hand mixer and a stand mixer. But I still don't think it would take 4 hours.

Here is the recipe:

MARY TODD LINCOLN CAKE
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter (Smart Balance)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 c. cake flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat and 1 1/4 cup white flour)
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 1/3 cups milk
1 cup finely chopped almonds
6 egg whites - stiffly beaten

Cream sugar, butter and vanilla. Sift together cake flour and baking powder three times.
Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Stir in almonds. Gently fold in the egg whites.
Pour into two greased and floured 9 x 11/2-inch round baking pans.
Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan.

WHITE FROSTING
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
dash salt
2 egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla

Bring to boiling, sugar, water, cream of tartar and salt.
Boil until sugar dissolves. Put egg whites in mixing bowl.
Start beater and while egg whites are beating, very slowly add hot syrup.
Beat until stiff peaks form, about 7 minutes.
Beat in vanilla for one more minute.

Peanut Butter and Banana Egg Rolls

This idea came from The Simple Cajun Life blog. These are really yummy!

What I did was this:

Mashed two bananas in a bowl. Added a couple of glops of peanut butter and mixed. Put the mixture into eggroll wrappers, roll like an eggroll (instructions on wrapper package) and fry up in butter. I kept warm in low oven until we were ready to eat them. Before serving I sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Bacon and Egg Fried Rice

Simple and yummy!

Bacon and Egg Fried Rice

basmati rice, cooked (I made 4-6 servings which was 1 1/2 cups rice to 3 cups water)
1/4 cup Bac-Uns
6 eggs
3 TBS onion, diced
3 TBS soy sauce, plus extra for the table
sesame oil
butter

Saute onion in a little butter until a little soft. Add eggs and Bac-Uns and scramble until soft set. Move eggs off to one side of the pan, add a little oil and cooked rice. Mix eggs with rice and serve with extra soy sauce if wanted.

Guacamole

For lunch today we had taco salads. For the dressing I made homemade guacamole with some avocados I had in the fridge. Yum! I know, if I would look, I could probably find a "real" recipe but we have made guacamole this way since we started making it and I guess we must live by the old adage...if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Guacamole ala Gerky (today's recipe)

5 avocados diced
1/2 carton grape tomatoes diced
1/2 red onion diced
1 capful of lemon juice
1/4 tsp Nature's Seasoning
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Mix all together and eat. YUM!
To keep it green, place a couple of avocado pits in it.

Chinese Noodle Soup

2 boxes chicken broth
1 boxrice noodles(the clear kind)
1 lb snow peas
2 shredded carrots
1 large onion chopped
1/2 red pepper, diced
1 TBs soy sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (more or less to taste)
1 tsp sesame oil

Boil broth. Add veggies. Reduce heat, cover and let cook 5-8 minutes. Add nooodles and cook according to package directions. Stir in sesame oil. Serve with toasted sesame seeds if desired.