Food Friday

We are in the midst of birthday season over here.  Three birthday's and three parties in 11 days!!  Today are two parties and tomorrow is the last birthday for a few months.  Here are the cakes...

This is Anneke's who requested a flower cake:

Here's Lukas' pylon cake.  Yep...he's odd :)  What kid requests a pylon?  Nothing to do with construction but sports.  He uses them to make nets for soccer and hockey.

And these are for Tessa who's party is today and we'll save some for tomorrow for her real birthday.  These were the easiest and most fun to make!

And for the older two kids parties we opted for icecream "sundaes".  They love piling up there bowls with all kinds of candies, fruit and syrup!  Me...I go for the icecream, strawberries and bananas with some chocolate syrup...mmmm...

For the cakes I used a recipe from a friend and it worked out great! Cuts really nicely because it's a bit more dense but is still really moist and chocolatey.  I'll pass it on to you here:

Classic Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 eggs
2/3 cups cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
1 cup mayonnaise
¼ tsp baking powder
1 1/3 cups water
1 2/3 cup white sugar

Grease and flour bottoms of two 9” round cake pans. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder; set aside.  Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla in large bowl at high speed of electric mixer for 3 min or until smooth and creamy. Reduce speed to low, beat in mayonnaise until blended. Add flour mixture in 4 equal

additions, alternating with water, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Pour into prepared pans. Bake at 350°F for 30 – 35 min or until toothpick comes out clean. Fill and frost as desired.

Food Friday

There are many chocolate chip recipes out there so this is for those who are still searching for the best one. In all honesty, I'm not super picky about chocolate chip cookies. Cookie + Chocolate = Yummy!

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter or margarine

1 egg

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375 F. Mix sugars, butter/margarine and egg. I like to mix mine for a long time. Stir in flour, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. I flatten mine just a bit. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until light brown. Cool on wire rack. Makes about 4 dozen cookies. Unless you have 'helpers'. Then it's about 3 dozen.

Eat and enjoy!

Did you bake this week?

Food Friday

This week we wanted to share with you a few of our favorite food blogs...

Tammy's Recipes has lots of good, healthy, cheap meals and a few not so healthy but yummy desserts and snacks :)  Our family loves her Taco Grande Pizza recipe!

Cooking During Stolen Moments is also a great resource with recipes geared to family eating. Alisa's family loves the chicken ranch quesadillas, ground beef strogonoff and many other meals.

I also really like Smitten Kitchen for something a little more out of the ordinary or decadent.  Great photos too!

Mennonite Girls Can Cook is a blog with many fun but basic recipes.

Our Best Bites is a one that Alisa just recently discovered. Not just recipes but also tips and tricks. Amazing food photography!

So...what are your favorite food blogs? We want to know.

Food Friday

Of course after Suzanne and I decide to dedicate Fridays to all things food, we start Spring Break and I am either a)serving freezer meals or b)serving leftovers or c)going out for fast food (gasp!) Baking has been pretty non-existent this week too. So I'll start my turn at Food Friday with some not-so-great photos of Gord's birthday cake. To be eaten tonight.

It can hardly be called 'homemade' as it's a box cake mix.

The icing is made with whipping cream, chocolate pudding mix, icing sugar and instant coffee powder. I just wing it with the amounts.

I admit that I don't like making cakes or desserts that much. I'd much rather just eat them!

What about you... making cakes, eating cakes or both? :-)

Have a good weekend!

Food Friday

In trying to feed our families healthy and wholesome meals and snacks, both Alisa's and my lives revolve very much around food.  We definitely spend more time in the kitchen than our sewing rooms!  So we thought it might be fun to have one day a week where we share something food related. 

This week I made a big batch of granola again.  It had been a while since I had done this but I'm trying to avoid boxed cereals and all the processing and sugar that comes in them.  I just looked up on allrecipes.com for the best rated recipe and found Megan's granola.  It is very yummy and my whole family loves it.  I serve it with plain yogurt sweetened with a bit of honey, and sometimes add in some fresh fruit although we seem to like that on the side better.

I made a few small changes to the recipe. I cut out the brown sugar and added 1/2 - 3/4 cup of ground flax (I put a bit less of the wheat germ and bran in to balance out the wet/dry ratio).  I also used melted butter instead of oil and added a cup or so of unsweetened coconut to it for the last 10 minutes of baking.