The Icecream on the Cake

When Makenna turned four, I offered to make her a special birthday cake.  We went online (dial-up at the time - I nearly pulled my hair out!!) in search of the perfect birthday cake image (images take even longer to load!!).  We signed out birthday cake books from the local public library.  We discussed her ideas at length.  She finally decided on a Raggedy Ann cake.  I read up on cake decorating, learned all about different kinds of icings, bought special ingredients (spent far too much!), borrowed special sized and shaped pans, stressed about the decorating aspect of the cake (I can't even make decent icing, much less arrange it properly), worried that it wouldn't turn out, and on.  When I was done, I resolved, through tears and sweat pouring down my face, that I would never do that again.  Kind of like how I resolved never to have another baby the day Mason was born (yeah, that didn't work out so well, either).

All my resolve melted at Makenna's birthday party, when the cake was revealed to her and she loved it so much. All my blood, sweat, and tears were forgotten.  Any moms out there who can relate to that?

Since then, it has become a tradition that I make whatever birthday cake the kids want.  Anything goes.  You want a castle?  No problem!  A pirate ship?  I'd love to!  A candyland boardgame?  Comin' right up!  Butterflies?  Farmyards?  Carebears?  Mommy is AT YOUR SERVICE, and AIMING TO PLEASE!

But, truth be told, I'm really not very good at cake decorating.  It doesn't come naturally to me, and two years ago, a sweet friend came over to help me mix buttercream icing.  That's how far I've come in all these years.

So you can imagine my (inner) delight when my nearly decade-old daughter asked me to make an icecream cake for her birthday, and then showed me a picture of the simplest icecream cake on the planet.  The recipe claims it takes less than 15 minutes to make.  Now, to those of you who stop by the bakery and pick up a cake may think 15 minutes is a lot of time, but to someone who potentially spends multiple days crafting a cake, this feels like a "get out of jail" card.

Enough rambling.  Here's a really easy cake to make for any occasion calling for icecream cake..... 

WARNING:  This is super unhealthy and full of all kinds of stuff that a mommy does not want her kids eating.

Ingredients
1 box of 24 icecream sandwiches (you'll have some left over)
1 bottle chocolate sauce (you'll have some of that left over, too, unless you REALLY like it)
1 tub frozen dessert whip
1 or two chocolate bars (whatever kind you want)

 Cover the bottom of a 9" x 13" pan with icecream sandwiches.

Squirt a bunch of chocolate sauce over the icecream sandwich layer.  Spread whipped cream evenly over that.  Repeat with another layer of icecream sandwiches, chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Crush chocolate bar (s).  I do it with an end of my rolling pin, leaving the bar in its package.  No dishes that way. :)

Sprinkle over cake. I also added a bit more chocolate sauce, because I'm from the school of thought that one can never have too much chocolate. 

Tada!  Simple.  And I had to wash one spoon and one knife when I was done. 



I dug up an old picture of the very first cake I made on that fateful fourth birthday. Don't you wanna just put that eyelash back where it belongs?

Clean Eating - Heard Of It?

About a year ago, while waiting in the classic Superstore checkout line-up, this magazine caught my attention: 

Hello, beautiful magazine.  I know I love you and we haven't even met. 

This is what the Clean Eating Magazine website has to say for itself.....

"Clean Eating takes you beyond the food you eat, exploring the multitude of health and nutritional benefits that can be yours when you subscribe to a clean lifestyle. In every way, clean eating is all about consuming whole food in its most natural state, or as close to it as possible. Taking a creative yet doable approach to cooking, you’ll find it easy to enhance the natural flavors of any meal without compromising the integrity of your food. When it comes right down to it, Clean Eating is not a diet; it’s way of improving your life – one meal at a time."

Ah, isn't that beautiful?  It resonates with me soooo much.

So much, that when I saw the magazine sitting in the rack, I grabbed it, and immediately began memorizing a recipe that looked good (my daughter was already perusing the Archie comics, so what else was there to do?  If I don't busy myself with a magazine, I usually tend to clue into the fact that I've picked the slowest checkout line....again.  In this case, ignorance is bliss). 

A few days later, I told my sister-in-law about the fantastic magazine I had discovered. Over the next several months, she bought me several issues, at random times.  Just for kicks.  Because she's nice like that.  And I accepted them with a grin, one after another.  Because I'm a mooch like that.

For Christmas, she gave me a subscription to Clean Eating!  And my first issue arrived on my birthday.  How cool is that?! I guess she figured that it'd be a better deal for her to get me a subscription than to buy me each magazine on the stand.  Smart girl.

A few days ago, I whipped up the Country-Style Beef and Green Pepper Soup, found in the February issue.  I doubled the recipe, because there is no point making six servings of soup in my house.  I chose this soup because I've been having a love affair with Balsamic Vinegar lately, and am making anything that lists Balsamic as an ingredient.  Yes, a crazed woman lives within the walls of our home.

2.5 tbsp olive oil, divided
12 oz extra lean ground beef
2 medium green bell peppers, diced
1 cup chopped yellow onion
1 lb fresh tomatoes, chopped (I cheated and used canned)
4 oz fresh green beans, trimmed and broken into 1 inch pieces
1 cup frozen whole-kernel corn, thawed and patted dry
2 cup coarsely chopped green cabbage
3 cup low sodium beef broth
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper (or a few twists of the 'ol pepper mill)

Heat 1 tsp oil in a dutch oven on medium-high coating bottom evenly. Add beef and cook for 3 minutes or until browned, stirring frequently. Drain beef on paper towels; set aside. Heat 1 tsp oil in dutch oven on med-high heat. Add bell peppers and onion and cook for 6 minutes or until edges begin to brown, stirring occasionally. Add beef back to Dutch oven along with tomatoes, beans, corn, cabbage, broth and oregano. Bring mixture to boil over same heat, then reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 15 minutes or until beans are tender crisp. Remove Dutch oven form heat, stir in remaining ingredients, including remaining oil, and let stand for 10 minutes before serving to allow flavors to meld.

Number of Servings: 6

I added shaved, fresh romano cheese, before serving.  Oh, and we also crushed Nacho Cheese Doritos on top. Because life is short, and a healthy lifestyle is all about balance, right?  Just don't tell the publishers of Clean Eating. I could be wrong, but I don't think the cheese on the Nachos is freshly made, locally produced and additive-free.





How To Make A Meal For 5 For Under $1

As an incurable cheapskate prudent spender, I'm always looking for meal and household ideas that reduce our cost of living, without sacrificing quality.  Homemade chicken noodle soup fits the bill.  It contains mostly local foods (many ingredients not further away than our backyard), minimal processing, contains protein, carbs, and veggies, and cost under $1 for a 6-quart pot. 

Chicken - leftover chicken from yesterday's roast.  The grain used to feed this chicken was factored into our food budget last summer, so I'm not including a price in today's recipe.  "Aw, that's cheating," you say, "Not everyone has a free chicken to work with".  True, and I sympathize deeply with your situation, but don't you think I should score some points for all the work I did last summer? After all, I was the Poultry Feeding, Watering and Strawing Manager.  No matter that my children did most of the actual work.  I was the one responsible for asking, ordering, cajoling, and bribing my younguns with popsicles to get the chicken chores done.  Yep, it's a tough job.  Sometimes they didn't hear me when I called to them from the lounger I was suntanning on, and I had to go looking for them to remind them about chores. I even lost my page in the book I was reading a few times.

Chicken broth - compliments of aforementioned chicken and a bit of tap water.

Noodles - homemade with the help of my 4-year-old.  3 cups flour (I buy big bags of flour when they're on sale, so I'm guessing I didn't use more than 30 cents worth - I can just picture some of you figuring this out in your head - I'll say right off the bat that I may be off on my numbers:)), 2 eggs (free due to an unfair deal we have going with my parents - we offer them eggs in the summer when we have chickens, and they give us eggs the other 9 months of the year.  We end up giving them about 4 dozen eggs per year, and they give us about 1446 dozen, in return.  If you do the math, and even if you don't, it's clear to see this is a very unfair deal, and I should feel very ashamed!), 1/2 cup milk (15 cents) and  a bit of salt (5 cents?).  So the noodles cost me a whopping 50 cents.

Peas, carrots, and parsley - compliments of 2010 garden.  Cost: $0.00 (excluding the cost of freezies that were used to bribe my kiddos to weed "just one more" row of produce).

Corn - I regret to record that I have no garden corn on hand, and I used about 1/4 cup frozen corn.  Cost:  about 10 cents.

Bay leaf - I'll estimate this cost at around 8 cents.

Ground Peppercorn - 8 cents.  I wouldn't want the bay leaf to get a complex, thinking it was worth less than the peppercorn.  I want to keep jealousy at bay.  Sorry, I'll stop peppering you with corny jokes.  I'll leaf you alone now.

GRAND TOTAL:  $ 0.76
Yields:  About  24 cups of soup

Not bad, eh?  What el cheapo, healthy meals do you make for your family? Am I the only one who figures out how much meals cost?

Way to go, No Name (not to mention any names)!

This is my third can like this.....nothing beats whipping up an unexpected batch of pumpkin muffins when corn chowder was on the agenda.  This can must have been packed on a Friday afternoon.