Stress = New Baking Experiments

The funny thing is that when I do "stress - relief baking" I never eat the finished product. Weird.

Anyways, yes, I've been stressed out. So that means I search for new recipes (not from existing books or magazines or print outs already on hand).

Why do I do this to myself? I'm already in a pissy mood then I go off and try a new recipe which may increase my stress levels due to difficulty or just the darn oven I have who happens to have a mind of its own and doesn't adjust the temperature correctly. However, this time, things turned out OK.

Here's the recipe - I've actually made cakes made with olive oil (turns out that's how my nonna makes her cakes and it's how I make sponge cakes as it is her recipe) but never with vegetable oil. The recipe comes from AllRecipes.com and it is called Chocolate Oil Cake (Sorry, I stink in posting links!!!).

I loved the cake!!! It's so gooey and chocolatey - kind of like a brownie actually. The best part: no need to pull out the electric mixer! Just used my whisk. My friend came over just when it had finished cooling, got excited when he saw that there was cake, took out the milk (yes, he is that comfortable in my home) and took a slice. He was not thrilled. I, of course, was insulted. Turns out he prefers dense cakes and hard cookies. Get out of my kitchen! Haha.

So this new recipe made me happy.....

Onto the next experiments!

Delicious!!

So last evening, it was a good ol'Bookspan get together ;)
Roe, myself and Kathy (the bride to be!!) met up at our little nook, Cabana!

I'm just going to go right into in - Tropicana Salad!!!
Fresh green salad topped (and I mean TOPPED) with FRESH mango, pineapple, canetelope, strawberries, oranges, honeydew (am I missing anything??) topped with grilled chicken marinated in a smokey yet citrus sweet glaze.

Simply put - wonderful.

I'm keeping this simple because the dish speaks for itself. And I know Roe will share her thoughts! ;)

I HATE MY OVEN!!!

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

I hate my oven.  Absolutely hate it!  
So I go ahead this past weekend to try a new - old recipe from the vintage cookbook and my oven stinks!

The oven is supposed to set to 350 and bake for about 40 minutes - it was still mush!  I looked at our oven thermometer and it read 300!!!

And we just got it fixed about three months ago.  Grrrrrr.
I was not happy.

Anyway, here's the recipe - doesn't state where it's from just that it's from 1940
1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking poweder
1/4 c. melted unsalted butter
1 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
4 tbsp. water

Preheat oven to 350
Beat eggs until they are pale yellow and slightly thickened.
Add the sugar and mix well.
Mix the flour and the baking powder in a separate bowl and slowly fold into mixture.
Add the butter and vanilla and water.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Now here's my question:  Did everyone have electric mixers then?  Because certain recipes that my grandmother had do not work if I use a mixer - we had to alter it in order to do this.   In order to follow her recipe directly, we have to use a hand wisk or a wooden spoon.  

Maybe - in addition to the oven not working properly - that I ruined the consistency by using an electric mixer?  Hmmm....something to ponder.

New Cook Book!

Hey everybody.
Got a new cookbook - it's actually vintage!
Found it at Argosy Books which has some great great finds.
I will be baking this weekend and let everyone in on whatever good ol' classic recipe I decide on.  They're all from 1930s-1950s!!!  

AUGH

First the Jester Hat, now the Cabled Scarf. It was a busy weekend at the frog pond.

I noticed that my cabled scarf had two large holes - apparently, some stitches had added themselves along the way; and when I tried to just decrease the stitches and get things back to the status quo, it created some openings where they shouldn't be. So I tried to rip back just a couple of rows, to just a row or two beneath where the abomination showed itself.

Things were going well... until I dropped three stitches. They slowly began to ravel downward, and since this scarf is chock full o'cabley goodness, I didn't know where to begin to pick them back up. Sighing, I just ripped the whole bugger down and cast on again. I've already got the beginning ribbing done, and worked through almost half of the first pattern repeat. Maybe I'll have this scarf ready for next winter?

ChoreWars

So right after I finish whining about how much I hate housework, I come across the link to ChoreWars. I love this. I need to do this. It's housecleaning role-playing. How freaking cool is this???

Roe, my Chore Wars character

Feel like joining our little cleaning and raiding party? Come on by: http://www.chorewars.com/invite.php?id=a6b2a6e5536f

Just a KAL update... and what I hate to clean...

I'm knitting along, got another full pattern repeat on the cabled scarf done last night. And I am almost ready to divide the Jester Hat into the halves needed to make the little Jester points; got some actual train knitting done today. No pictures, sadly, because my remote blogging capability on my cell phone is off - apparently, it's sending my pictures to someone else's blog. WTF? Freaking Verizon.

So I answered one of my thousand MySpace surveys yesterday and was asked what household chore I hate the most. While Stacey said cleaning the toilet - and yes, that is a godawful task - I have to tell you, I hate sweeping/mopping. GOD, do I hate it. I guess it's because I've got so much clutter between the four of us that I have to move so much crap out of the way in order to effectively do so - and since we also have two cats, the fur and the dust just destroys my allergies.

Having said that, I really need to dust, sweep and mop. It looks like a furry monster is living under my bed. Sigh...

I AM Knitting!

I finished another chart repeat (16 rows) on the Cabled Scarf from Vogue Knitting last night. It's shaping up nicely, and even though I am taking a lot of time to get through it, it's a pretty intricate pattern so I'd rather not rush through it.

Having said that, I need train knitting. BIG time. So I cast on for a Jester Hat from Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits. Will it be for Baby Boyd? Will it go into the knitting pile for Baby Benevides? I haven't the foggiest, to be honest; I do know that it's darn cute, it knits up fairly easily, and it's portable for train knitting. So there we have it.

I finished a Christening blanket for Ella, who's the daughter of Mike's best friend (and Will's godfather). I blogged about that over at RoeSpot, so you can go here to read about it if you haven't already. It's a cautionary tale about buying consistent dye lots and being wary of stash diving for large projects.