webcowgirl

I decided about a year ago that my way to fame and fortune was going to be becoming a YouTube celebrity. But what, really, do I have to offer? I thought about it and realized I have sharable cooking expertise: in particular, I know how to cook Tex Mex. Care to learn how to fry a taco shell? Watch this video.



Next in the series: rolling enchiladas, making taco meat and making country-style gravy.

First, a recipe for pumpkin drop cookies, which I made on Christmas Eve:

(This recipe is credited to Dorothy P Risker, whom I presume is a Kansan of my grandmother's acquaintance.)

1 cup pumpkin, 1 cup shortening (notes say "I use oleo")
1 C sugar (notes say "I use sucaryl + granulated)
1/2 C dates or raisins 1/2 C nuts
2 cups flour, 1 egg, 1 t soda
1 t vanilla, 1/2 t salt (if you use shortening - 1/4 t with oleo)
1 t baking powder
"Bake at 375 for 12 min on lightly greased pan."

(Hint from me: mix shortening and sugar, add eggs, then pumpkin, then vanilla. Mix dry ingredients, then add to wet, then add fruit and nuts.)

Second, the New Year's tradition, Hopping John, from the 1975 Joy of Cooking:

Bring to a boil in a large covered saucepan:
1 1/4 cups dry black eyed peas
4 C water
After boiling two minutes, remove pan from heat and let stand 1 hour. Add:
1 1/2 C chopped onions
1/2 t pepper
1/4 t crushed dried red pepper
1 minced clove garlic
1 bay leaf

After bringing to a boil, cover and simmer 1 hour,
stirring occasionally. Stir in :
8 oz coarsely chopped salt pork (I used a pack of pre-cut pancetta, and it was delicious.)

Simmer another hour, uncovered, stirring frequently. Remove the salt (don't bother if you use pancetta, leave it in!) and the bay leaf. Slightly mash the pea mixture.

Season to taste, serve with rice.

So it turns out I really do still know how to bake a cake. I'd consider it a bit of a miracle, all things considered - by which I mean the fact that it was broiled for part of its life, that the butter separated from the rest of the ingredients, that one of the layers was cooked in a frying pan.

Broiled cake It tasted really good, too, nice and moist. Maybe the coconut makes it like that. The icing was so indulgent, butter blended with cream cheese AND some cream added into the whole mixture. If you look below the cut, you can see me icing it before I cut the final inch out of the bottom layer - I figured it would be better to frost the raw edge of the cake than have it have the big uneven lump coming out of the bottom.

(Click the cut link to see a picture of me frosting the cake. Doesn't it look better in the other picture?)

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I was also frustrated by the fact that somehow my cake carrier was left behind in the move. Where it is shadowdaddy has no idea. It's a fantastic piece of deco aluminery, layered shiny silver sides with a curved black top, sitting perfectly on the edged circular bottom (where the cake would rest) and of course a HANDLE on top of it al to make it easy to tote yer cake to a picnic or Quarterly Feed or what have you. We searched the apartment high and low and it was nowhere to be found. While there are still two boxes of Mysterious Stuff in which it might be hiding, my gut instinct is that it's probably hiding in the basement at my brother/sister-in-laws house, to which I say Foo, because I've had that thing for about 15 years and I think this is the first time I actually needed it to carry a cake to an away event rather than just cover it and keep it from collecting dust!

At any rate, I am certainly good at improv, and one pie pan, three Tupperware shot glasses, one large swatch of aluminum foil, and a glass pie plate later, and the cake was ready to rock, or at least to go to wechsler's birthday party. spikeylady and ciphergoth were very kind to fill in as hosts during this rain-filled day, and we had scores (or sixes, at least) of other guests: bathtubgingirl; the entire booklectic contingent, including the very small and fun one and asrana for a total of five; werenerd and some_fox with their houseguests, one of which was weegoddess, for a total of about 6 (they moved fast, I'm not 100% sure how many people came with them, though there was an [Bad username or site: aster13); the brillian <lj user=thekumquat @ livejournal.com], whom I very much missed last night; and a late arriving babysimon, who missed the singing of the happy birthday but most assuredly got some cake.

Wow, it's 60 outside and raining sideways. Brr! I've actualy fished out some sweats and an Expedia baseball jersey. I'm cold!

The cake was a big hit; 3/4 of it was gone. I covered it back up as best as I could, yet somehow with not as much success as the first time, as all the angles were off and the pie plate seemed to be sliding sideways. wechsler then turned to me and said, "It appears that your cake will not be foiled a second time." Oy. Clearly the boy is suffering the ill effects of SOMETHING. And he liked the book of Goon Show (a Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers radio show) scripts I bought him; I can hear him in the back room reading it and giggling as I type. We headed back to our place at around 4:30 or so, as nearly everyone seemed to be struggling heavily with last night's indulgences and naps were called for all around.

Time for a Pimms or something for me, and finally for some sitting down and relaxing, the first time all weekend when I can really relax and do nothing for a while. I love that the sun will be shining for another three hours, even though it makes for difficult DVD watching. Perhaps a round of Boggle is called for.