Bunny Rabbit Delight

Yesterday was the birthday of my favorite American-born eastern Euro friend, Sinziana. Since I didn't have the perfect present picked out, I thought I'd fall back on an old tradition--birthday cake. The pickiest of eaters, she won't eat most things with chocolate, anything with coconut besides Ranger cookies (see recipe), or, odd as it is, cooked ham or anything too "eggy". No German Chocolate, Italian Cream, or really, half the desserts that are among MY favorites. Just before I started to make a plain white cake dyed bright green and blue, I realized there was one flavor I had failed to consider: carrot! What eastern Euro isn't down with carrots?... or cabbage and sausage.

Now everybody's had a bad carrot cake in their life -- most definitely if you've bought the box. So I scoured the internet looking for a recipe that was similar to the best carrot cake I'd ever tried, which, FYI, is from Thunder Cloud Subs in Austin. This is what I came up with, and it was grrrreat!

The cake:

ADD IN ORDER GIVEN ---------
1/3 c Dk. Karo
1 c Sugar
1 c Dk. Brown sugar
4 x Eggs
1 1/2 c Veg. oil
1 ts Cinnamon
1/4 ts Cloves
1/4 ts Ginger
1/4 ts Nutmeg
3 c Raw carrots, grated fine
1 ts Vanilla
2 1/4 c Sifted flour
2 ts Baking soda
3/4 ts Salt
1 c Walnuts or Pecans, chopped


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of three 8-inch cake pans with parchment, wax, or brown-bag paper: grease and flour.


Beat sugar, eggs, karo, and oil until light and fluffy: about 15 minutes on medium speed-- I grated the carrots during this. Add rest of ingredients in order given, sifting the soda and salt with the flour and mixing gently after sifted mixture is added. Pour into cake pans and bake for about 25-30 minutes or until cake is done in the middle via toothpick test or poking the top to see if the cake bounces back a little.


Immediately remove and place upside down on wire racks to let cool.


Super Fatty Cream Cheese Icing:

1 box powdered sugar
1 bar cream cheese (at room temp)
1 stick butter (at room temp)
1 TB. vanilla


Beat cream cheese until smooth and add slowly the box of powdered sugar. Add vanilla, then butter. Taste-test as much as desired.

Whew! Not so bad. No just stack the cakes on a serving plate with icing in between layers. Ice the rest and serve or decorate.

Easy Cobbler

Well, I've been a little bit lazy lately. And since I sought a homemade, warm, and sweet something that didn't involve too much effort or finance--and that juxtaposed well with the 3/4-eaten, gallon (yes, gallon) bucket of vanilla ice cream icing over in my freezer--I fell back on this old and uncomplicated classic. Peaches*, apples, pears, or whatever fruit you have that doesn't have too many flies coming from it, this is guaranteed to please.

*Soft fruits like peaches don't need to be cooked on the stove before adding with cobbler batter.

Preheat oven to 350. Peel and slice into wedges 8 small or 6 large apples of your choice (or convenience). Heat at medium a medium-sized but heavy saucepan with a half stick of butter and the peeled/wedged apples and 1 cup chopped walnuts. Sprinkle with cinnamon and almost a cup sugar. Cook until slightly softened--ten minutes probably.


In a separate mixing bowl, stir the following ingredients until smooth:
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 tsp. baking powder


Rub butter along sides and bottom of a large glass dish and dump in the slightly cooked apples (or fresh peaches). Pour batter over all the apples and shake a little more cinnamon and sugar on top of it. Bake in oven for about 35 minutes or until top is turning golden brown. Serve with ice cream.

Stuffed Loin

This dish tastes a lot more appealing than it looks in prep. As long as you can get passed the growing expense of a prime red--or find a bargain--you'll be glad you took the 4 minutes to make it and more so when you devour it.

1 (12 oz.) beef tenderloin or beef loin roast
4 oz. goat cheese
3/4 c. packed fresh spinach
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 Tbsp. crushed black pepper


Cut a slit along the tenderloin to form a pocket. In a separate bowl, combine goat cheese, spinach, garlic, salt and pepper and mix well. Spoon the goat cheese mixture into the pocket. Use kitchen twine (or toothpicks) to close the fold, and place in a glass baking dish with a little bit of olive oil. Pat crushed pepper on meat.


Roast at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 325 and roast for 45 minutes longer. Cut into thick slices and serve.

Carni Grub

Yesterday at a thrift store, I found a brand new Fry Daddy for $7--they retail for about $40. Since last night I had dinner plans with some health nuts, I thought I'd ruin their light meal with a dessert that you often only consume just after you weeze the juice of a glowing green slushy and right before you ride the Tilt-A-Whirl and puke it all up. You don't really need a special frying machine to accomplish this task (nor a funnel as you will see), but it helps prevent the grease-splooge mess all over your counter top.

Dry mixture:
1 2/3 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
2 Tbsp. sugar

Since I was taking this meal on the road--like it's accustomed to--I stored the dry mixture in a gallon-size ziploc bag, then used the bag as the funnel for the batter by cutting a whole in the corner.

Combine the following with dry mixture and pour in funnel or bag with centimeter hole.

1 c. milk
1 egg (beaten with milk)

Now for the fryin'! In a Fry Daddy, iron skillet, or other thick sauce pan, heat about 1 or 1-1/2 canola oil to 375 degrees. If you're just using a skillet, test to see if the oil is ready by flicking some water drops in it to see if it sizzles.


Hold ziploc like a pastry bag and evenly drop about a half a cup of the mixture in a spiral-like pattern into sizzling oil. Shortly thereafter, use a pair of tongs or spatula to flip the cake and cook the other side--it doesn't take long to cook. Remove from oil and set on plate with paper towl.




Serve with fresh fruit (or fruit-flavored ice cream) or chocolate or whatever you want, with some sifted powdered sugar atop it. Even though you didn't just dismount from the Gravitron, you may still feel like the room is spinning. Grow a beard, grab a flask and a crack pipe; disown your deodorant and swim in the port-a-potty. Join the carnies and eat a funnel cake.

East Meets East LA

Now that my apartment is completely sans-Asian, I finally have the gall to attempt a dinner of that persuasion. My new Romanian roommate, Sinziana, donated a bag of rice noodles to the cabinet--so we made a vermicelli bowl. I definitely don't have all those weird oils and pastes that are typically added into Asian food, so I cut some corners. No jokes about this one: it's great.

Begin dish with bringing a large pot of water to boil on stove; prepare a large bowl of iced water next to it, and a colander not far from there. To blanch the vegetables, drop them in the boiling water; remove them when water begins to boil again; drop in iced water bowl, then drain. On a flat or iron skillet at a medium/low heat, cook about a half pound of medium shrimp and about a half pound of steak meat--I bought mine cut-up already--season with salt and lemon pepper.





Then blanch the following:
1 bunch asparagus (cut into 2-3-inch pieces)
3 small carrots (cut or grated into strips)
1 pkg or bunch bean sprouts.
1 large package rice vermicelli noodles

Drain well, then pile into a large bowl--add cooked shrimp and steak once cooled slightly. Add fish sauce.


Bring to boil 1 cup water, 4 Tbsp. rice vinegar, 4 Tbsp. sugar. Let cool, then add: 1 Tbsp. chopped garlic, 1 squirt hot sauce or 1 small chili pepper (chopped), and 5 Tbsp. fish sauce.

Garnish bowls with fresh cilantro, crunched peanuts, and peanut sauce: mix the following in small bowl or 2-cup measuring cup.


1/2 c. peanut butter (your choice on texture)
1 tsp. sugar
4 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. chopped garlic
Juice from a lemon
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 c. water

Mix with a fork and serve over vermicelli bowls--add water if sauce is too thin. Great with egg rolls, too!

Hey Hey, Boo-Boo!!

Don't ask me why these cookies are called Ranger cookies, but it always makes me think of watching, as a child, either Yogi Bear or this cartoon movie called The Ranger of Brownstone that was dubbed onto a family vhs along with some other 80's kids movies--my favorite genre. Oatmeal, cornflakes, AND coconut??-- what a deal. Best damn cookie out there.

Mix together:
1 stick butter, softened (or Crisco)
1 c. sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

Sift together and stir into wet mix:
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Finally, add:
2 c. oatmeal
2 c. corn flakes
1 c. coconut


Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown. Best if a little undercooked--they'll be softer.

Whoa---time warp! Do not feed the bears.


Jellystoned?