CAKE!

One of the several things that happened early this summer was a very special wedding.  That's right, my mom got hitched!  It was very laid back and small with only immediate family.  During the planning stages,  I was talking to my mom on the phone and asked if there was anything that I could help her with.  ANYTHING???  She finally asked if I would make an Italian Cream Cake.  It's Gary's favorite.  My sister-in-law was making cupcakes and this would be the other dessert for the celebration.  I quickly said that I would, of course, do it.  I didn't even have to think about it.

When I got off the phone, however, I thought about it.  I thought about the fact that I had never made a cake before in my life,  non-the-less an Italian Cream Cake.  I thought about the fact that I didn't even own 3 cake pans to make a layered cake... How I had gotten through almost three decades without making a cake, I have no idea.  It's in my blood even.  My dad, uncle, and aunt owned and ran a bakery for years and years and years.  I used to sit on a stool and watch my dear aunt decorate cake after cake on Saturday mornings.  So this was my final test?  Did I get the cake baking gene?  No pressure, it's just MY MOM'S WEDDING CAKE! ha!

So I quickly emailed my friend Beck, the baker.  I told her my scenario and that I needed a good Italian Cream Cake recipe.  I knew that if anybody knew of one it would be her.  And as I predicted, she delivered!  She quickly emailed me Southern Living's Italian Cream Cake recipe.  The week before the wedding I did a trial run.  It was awesome.  I brought most of it to work and was told by people who don't like cake that it was the best cake they had ever had.  Thank God, because the wedding was in a week!  The real cake... I baked the layers 3 days before the wedding, wrapped them individually in foil and put them in the freezer.  I made the icing the night before we drove down to Louisiana, put it in a container with lid and refrigerated.  We transported the cakes and icing in an ice chest.  I finished decorating the cake before we left for the church.  To make it fancy I used crumbled pecans and 1/2 pecans to create "piping" along the edges.  I was told that this was the best Italian Cream Cake that anybody had ever had.  And I finally had a purpose for that cake stand I got as a wedding gift!
It's so good that you just can't keep this recipe a secret.

Here are the ingredients:

1 c. butter, softened                        2 c. sugar
5 large eggs, separated                   2.5c. AP flour, sifted
1 tsp. baking soda                          1 c. buttermilk
2/3c. pecans, finely chopped
1 can flaked coconut, 3.5oz (I couldn't find it in the can, so used the stuff in the bag in the baking aisle)
1tsp. vanilla extract                        1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
3 T. light rum (I didn't even use this)

So what do you do?
1.  Grease and flour the sides of three 9-inch round cake pans (I also lined the bottom with wax paper, the cake pans I had to run to the store to get! ha).
2.  Beat butter until creamy; add sugar, beating well.  Add egg yolks, one at a time beating after each addition.
3.  Combine flour and baking soda; add to butter mixture alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry.  Mix at low speed after each addition.  Stir in pecans, coconut and vanilla.

And it will look like this.  Yum Yum!!
4.  Beat egg whites at high speed until foamy.  Add cream of tartar, beating until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold egg whites into batter.  Pour batter into prepared pans.

This is the creamiest substance I have ever dealt with.  So good.  Oh wait, I almost forgot, you really need to bake it for the best results...

5.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, use the toothpick test!  Then cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes, then remove from pans.  Cool completely on wire racks.

6.  Before frosting, level the cakes with a big bread cutting knife.  You want to make sure that both the top and bottom of the cakes are flat.

The step that I skipped was brushing the rum over the top of each layer to seal the crumb coat.  I didn't feel it was necessary :)  That's all.
7.  Frost and stack the layers.

Because this was my first cake, I had to borrow the frosting knife.  I feel that if I owned one I would make more cakes though.  I wonder how credible that feeling is...

I think the clenture to this cake is the frosting.  It's soooooo healthy.  NOT.  Per the advice of Beck the baker, I doubled this icing recipe to make sure there was plenty of butter, I mean frosting, for the cake.

Deluxe Pecan-Cream Cheese Frosting: (I doubled all of these ingredients for the wedding version)
11oz. cream cheese, softened (8oz. + 3oz. pkg)      
3/4c. butter, softened
16oz. powdered sugar, sifted                    
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. pecans, chopped

1.  beat butter and cream cheese until smooth.  Gradually add powdered sugar, beating at low speed until light and fluffy.
2.  Stir in vanilla and pecans.

This Photo by Shane Bevel .
This is probably the only cake you'll see me blog about for a while.  I just don't have many reasons to make a big cake for two people at the house.  My co-workers might beg to differ...

More. Motivation.

As I was making this life changing spur of the moment decision the other night with Beck, Shane asks me who I'm talking to.  And by "talking to" he meant texting through blackberry with the annoying chiming going off every 10 seconds.  I tell him I'm talking to Beck.  I tell him that we are going to run a half marathon together.

He laughs.
He laughs  more.
He says, "Where are you doing this and when?"
He says, "I bet you're not going to do it."

And with that last sentence I bring up the White Rock Marathon website to pre-register.  Jerk.

I say, "Oh yeah?  How much do you wanna bet?  $50?"
He says, "No, that's not enough.  It's gotta be better than that."

Awesome.  And these thoughts went through my head:  A car?  No, no... Could I get thousands of dollars out of this?  Oooh.  What could I buy with all the cash?   No dummy, thousands is too much.

I say, "Okay, how about 300 bucks?"
He asks why 300 and what was I going to buy with it.

With that the lovely Beck chimes in that I should bet that if i finish he buys me the Le Creuset dishes I've been dreaming about.

"Okay, if I finish, you buy me the Le Creuset dishes.  The red ones."
"How much are they a set?"
"$59.50 for a 4 piece set or 200 for 4 sets."

Silence.

"If I win I get to buy a new shotgun!"  Oh my love, the hunter.
"If you win I will buy you 8 sets of the dishes."

"DEAL."

*Hand Shake*

"Hold on mister, I need to get this in writing.  What did you say again?"

Okay so he threw that last part about Christmas in at the last minute.  But whatever.  Either way I'm not spending any money.  WIN.  haha  I'll be eating Christmas dinner off those dishes!

Now where do I begin with this "training" business???? Gulp.

My Motivation... I'm scared.

Picture this.  Three years ago you were at your peak fitness level of your life.  You were lean and strong and most importantly you felt great about yourself.  Over the next three years you quit everything.  You eat what you want.  You know what has happened.  So you join a gym as a New Years resolution.  Yes, it's lame, everybody does it... but why not give it a try.  So you join a gym near your house in hopes that the shear vicinity will encourage you to be more active.   You download the Couch to 5K podcast and play it when you're on the treadmill.  4 weeks into it you get bored.  You take a break.  You start your own couch to whatever program when your ipod stops working.  You get bored.  You take a break... a long break.  You join an online fitness magazine program for encouragement.  You get motivated and start working out again.  You start a little weight lifting.  You run some but never very far and never for longer than 30 minutes but you feel like you could work yourself up to a longer run.  You take a 2 week break after getting one of those dang summer allergy/ colds...

Okay, let's bring it to semi-present time.  I'm wanting to get motivated to work out again but lack the.... well, motivation.  It's a Monday evening.  I've worked all day.  I'm tired.  I get home and grab the newly found game boy for a quick game of Tetris.  That's right.  Retro style.  I get a blackberry message from Beck the baker.  :)  I love getting bbm's from Beck.  They usually lighten my day.  And who doesn't love hearing from their awesome friends?  Her message simply says, "Hey-- do you want to run a half with me on Dec 5?"

I get butterflies in my tummy instantly and I respond, "Where? And I would LOVE to!"

WHAT THE HELL.  Did I just say I'd "love" to run 13 miles?  When on earth have I ever run that far?  I'll tell you where.  NOWHERE.  ummmm....

Fran, "Define 'half' please."

Beck,"Half marathon...13.1"

Fran, "Oh my...How do you train for that business?  Because I've sat on my ass for the last three weeks. Is that a good start?"

And with that we started planning our overtake of the Dallas White Rock Marathon.  What's that?  Did you ask what our goal is?  Oh, okay... it's to run the entire thing.  Truthfully, just thinking about it makes me go half numb, half serious butterflies in the tummy.

Fran, what were  you thinking????!  Well here are the thoughts that quickly went through my head when she asked me that simple question.

•  "Half marathon?"
• "Run with Beck?"
• "MOTIVATION!!!"
• "Awesome.  Okay!"

And that's it really.  I was looking for a lil' old motivation and it presented itself right in front of me.  

I'm scared.

"They are like shoes!"

It's Sunday afternoon.  A lazy summer day.  Me and my love are lounging in the living room, listening to the radio.  The dogs are... well... they don't call these the "dog days of summer" for nothing!  Shane says, "look, they're like shoes!"  I look over to where the dogs are.  They are laying like a pair of shoes in a shoe box.

I slowly get up out of the chair and tippy toe to the dining room to grab the G7.  I'm well aware that Belle is deathly afraid of cameras.  I'm not sure why, I just know that I have to be super sneaky if I want her in the pic.  So I grab the camera, hide it behind my back, tippy toe back to the living room and ... SNAP!

I get the shot.  And not a split second later, Belle jumps up and runs to her bed.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.  WEIRDO.  She's pretty though.  :)

Well hello, Mr. Sandwich!

Today I asked Shane what he was going to have for lunch.  He said he didn't know but that he wanted something light because it's so hot outside and he didn't want to crash mid-afternoon.  Made sense to me.  So I left the office and thought I'd head to our go-to sandwich shop to get two 3-cheese and avocado subs, one 6 inch and one 12 inch.  I thought it would be a nice lunch for such a hot day.  There was a problem though.  When I turned into the sandwich shop's parking lot it was completely packed.  I had left for lunch late and arrived after 12:20.  My mistake.  My bad.  I just rolled through the parking lot and exited immediately, heading to the house, thinking there HAD to be 'something' in the fridge.  Don't we still have some turkey meat and cheese?

Why yes, yes we did.  It was only enough meat for the boy, but I didn't mind.  I put together this scrumptious sandwich of sliced avocados, roma tomatoes, muenster cheese, a lil' mayo and honey oat bread.  Slice it in half (the only way to eat a sandwich), add a side of the sweetest watermelon....

I was kinda glad the sandwich shop was too packed for my business.

I'll Take Two Satisfaction Tacos Please

We live in a place that offers an amazing choice of authentic (really) mexican food restaurants.  Needless to say I've grown a healthy appetite for some Mexican food.  If I'm not careful I might find myself eating cheese and onion enchiladas and fish tacos every day of my LIFE.  I love them so much.  So.  Much.  When we're bored with cooking and I'm craving some fish tacos... okay this happens quite regularly... I find myself at El Rio Verde.

It may be a little hole in the wall, but by golly if it's not completely packed if you go at key eating times.  You know, the lunch and the dinner.  This is why I eat dinner at 5:30 at El Rio Verde.  To beat the crowd.

I've had the wet burrito that made them famous.  Do people still say "it's the bomb!"??  Well if they did, I might say that about the wet burrito.  Pretty amazing stuff.  And given the fact that it's bigger than my face, I'm not ashamed to say I've managed to put a whole one down all by myself.  It's THAT GOOD.  It wasn't soon after that occurrence that I realized it wasn't necessary to eat burritos that are larger than my forearm.

I've had friends who used to order fish tacos when I lived in Louisiana.  I thought they were crazy.  Why order a taco if it doesn't have meat?  Well I know why.  Because it can be the most amazing thing you've ever put in your mouth.  And they are not all the same.

These are El Rio Verde's fish tacos.  They are the simplest fish tacos I've come across that don't incorporate seasoning that catches my mouth on fire.  They are rather pleasant fish tacos.  Can food be pleasant?  They are $2.50 each.  I don't even look at the menu anymore.  They are simply breaded white fish, fried to perfection and covered with cabbage and guacamole sauce, served with green salsa.  That green salsa may be my favorite part.  I dip every single bite into that green salsa.  And the cabbage?  Well it adds just enough sweet to the guacamole sauce and salsa combo.

I took this picture when I was on my blogging hiatus.  But I did just eat this meal not 2 and a half hours ago.  I think they ran out of the guacamole sauce, but the  substituted real guac tasted just as good and the green salsa....  ahhhhhhhh.  Satisfaction.

no drive-thru daiquiri's in sight...

Oh, dear, dear blog... I know I have neglected you.  Since April.  I haven't been as serious with you as I promised I would.  Life got a hold of me.  Let me correct that, the job got a hold of me.  In April.  And I haven't been able to shake it.  It got a hold of me in April.  I was so busy.  It's my busiest time of the year.  I've taken lots of pictures with the intent on putting up a new post.  I have.  Then... (this is where you rethink ever knowing me because of my infinite "wisdom")

Then I sit at my 'puter and can't remember which buttons to push to open photoshop.  I forget how to upload pictures from my card.  I've received lessons on how to work the mac from the man, but when I come home from working on a pc, my brain.  It is dead.

So today, I come home after having the life sucked out of me.  I let the dogs outside.  I sit down on the nearest chair in the kitchen.  Lean my head against the wall.  This is what I see:

Apparently that picture had the same kind of day I did.