In the Kitchen -- Apple Cake

Mother Nature was such a tease last week, with her cooler temps and pleasant days. I was longing for fall recipes and found one online for an apple cake. The pictures didn't look very appealing but the recipe promised that it was only 100-something calories per serving so I figured I'd give it a try. It's baking in the oven right now and I hope it turns out super delicious. Would it be wrong to have apple cake and apple cider for lunch? Ha!

Apple Cake

2 cups of apples, chopped up

.5 cup raw sugar (or, in my case, light brown sugar since I didn't have raw)

1 cup of whole wheat flour

.75 teaspoon baking soda

.5 teaspoon salt

1.5 teaspoon cinnamon

1 egg (or 3 tbsp egg whites)

.5 cups applesauce

1 teaspoon vanilla

Raisins and walnuts (optional)

Gather all your ingredients - Preheat your oven to 375.

Chop up your apples. I had 4 small apples but only needed 2. In hindsight, I should have chopped these smaller.

Put apples in bowl, add sugar. Step back and admire how fantabulous your vintage Pyrex Butterprint bowls are.

In separate bowl, put in the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and mix together. Forget to take a picture of that step so make up for it by taking a picture of your apple themed apron. Coincidence?

Then, in yet another bowl, mix up your egg whites with the vanilla and apple sauce. Once that is combined, mix the dry ingredients into the wet. Your batter will probably look a little dry. 

Add in the apple/sugar mixture. Realize that this cake would be a lot better with a handful of raisins and chopped walnuts. Throw those in too. 

Spray your 9" square pan with nonstick spray and scoop in the batter. Smooth out the top. 

  

Pop the pan in the 375 degree oven for 30-35 minutes. My oven cooks both hot and quick so I am going to test it at 30 minutes.

 

Admire your caaaa-ute plastic canisters you bought at the thrift store for a song.

 Thirty minutes later, check your cake. Mine was cooked perfectly. Decide that the cake is mostly healthy and suitable for lunch. Slice into that bad boy, put cake on vintage melmac pink plate, pour apple cider into cute pink cup from Ikea and enjoy the tastes of autumn. 

Let's Play a Game!!

I like to call this little game "What's in the Pot??"

   

Any guesses? Hmm? 

(BTW - Don't you looove my vintage Club pot? I swear I use this pot more than any of the others I own. I'm so glad I found it at the thrift store last year. I found a smaller pot a few months ago & hope I can find more soon)

Okay, here's another clue. Let's peek inside the pot, shall we?

Hmmm. Melting butter. Yum! Well, browning butter, actually! 

Another clue, this time it's more Butterprint Pyrex!

 

 Surely by now you've guessed that I was making Rice Krispy Treats, right?!? Oh, but let me assure you that these weren't just any ol rice krispy treats. Nah. These were the most scrumptious Rice Krispy Treats that I've ever shoved in my pie hole. And, in case there was any doubt, I've shoved a lot of rice krispy treats in my mouth!! 

I found the most delicioso recipe over at this blog - Seddyblog and had bookmarked these to try "someday". Well, that day just happened to be today! It's hot as a mother outside, it's 80° in my house, it's been raining all day and I've still been in a semi-bitchy, poor pity me mood. So, I cheered myself up by making these amazing treats. 

I'm glad I had the willpower to take a picture before I dove in. Yeah, I'll admit -- I didn't even wait for them to cool before I started scarfing them down! And I totally licked the pot clean and the spatula too. It's just been one of those days! 

Here's the recipe:

1 stick of butter (original recipe called for unsalted but I used salted & they turned out perfect!)

10 oz of marshmallows 

6 cups of Rice Krispies

1/4 tsp salt (I omitted this since my butter was salted!)

1) Melt butter in a thick bottomed pan over medium heat. Let the butter continue to melt until it's a nice golden color and smells nutty. The original recipe said that the butter would have brown flakes but my pot is dark & I didn't see flakes. I didn't want to take a chance of it burning though! 

2) Remove pot from heat & stir in marshmallows until melted. Mine didn't melt all the way before the pot/butter started to cool so I put it back on low heat for a few seconds.

3) Stir in cereal until thoroughly mixed. Sneak a few tastes "just to make sure". Forget that there are pieces of cereal & marshmallow on your oven mitt, take mitt off, place under arm whilst opening the backdoor to let yapping dog inside. 

4) Realize your stupid mistake when you go to get oven mitt and realize it's now glued to your arm pit. Scrape off already dried marshmallows and rice krispies from arm.

5) Pour what's left in the pot into a greased 13 x 9 dish. Smooth it out with a greased piece of parchment paper. Or, do what I did and use the leftover greasy wrapper from the stick of butter! 

6) Attempt to wait until treats have cooled before you start to devour. Go ahead. I bet you $10000 you can't resist eating them all warm & gooey! 

 

 

Cookies, Colds and Crazy Ass Ex's!

Hey guys. After another two month hiatus, I'm going to try to get back to blogging on a regular basis. I shall start this post with a picture of some of my favorite things on the planet:

Vintage Pyrex!! Is there anything better?? I think not. Well, that's not entirely true. One thing that is better than vintage pyrex is thick, chewy oatmeal raisin walnut cookies, which is exactly why I had 5 pieces of vintage pyrex on the counter to begin with.

I decided last week that I really needed some of these cookies so I went in search of a new recipe online and found one here: SmittenKitchen. I added more walnuts than the recipe called for and also didn't chill the dough and I think they turned out AMAZING!! This recipe made 30ish tablespoon sized balls of dough.

 See the finished product? Don't they look yummo? Yeah, they were. I just polished off the last 3 a few minutes ago. Now, before yall go thinking I chowed down on all of those, I have to let it be known that I bagged up 18 of them and took them to a friend. So, in reality, I only ate 12 cookies. Since Saturday. Which in my opinion isn't too bad. Plus, they were semi-healthy with the nuts and oats and fruit. LOL Like the way I justify that, don't you??

And you know it's a labor of love to use Pyrex since it can't be washed in the dishwasher. It's worth it though because look how pretty it is when it's all clean and sitting there drying on the counter. I may or may not have let it sit out for a few days just so I could stare at it every time I went in the kitchen!

                                                        So.......

 

The last 8 weeks have been insanely busy!! I went to SC back on 15 September for 14 days. It was the first time I'd gone anywhere all summer long so it was definitely a much needed break. Unfortunately, the day before I left for SC I started getting a cold and by the time I made it to SC I was terribly sick with bronchitis. So, instead of spending my time down there having fun & visiting everyone, I spent the majority of the days and nights curled up in bed, hacking my lungs up. That was miserable. In fact, I'm still hacking a few times a day and it's been FIVE freaking weeks. And my sinuses are still all congested too thanks to seasonal allergies.

And in other news....

Things here at home have been so stressful. I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown at the beginning of September, which prompted my visit down to SC. I'm *still* looking for a damn job. You know, one that will afford me to move out without having to eat at the soup kitchen or live under a bridge. It's impossible to find a job! And I'm stressing out about everything. Living here at this house is becoming increasingly hard, despite my best efforts to keep the peace and keep my distance. I'm routinely called horrible names, made to feel like crap, having to deal with his emotional abuse. Most of the time I'm able to ignore it but I won't lie -- sometimes it gets to me and I find myself just crying uncontrollably. I just really need some good thoughts and/or prayers that I'll find gainful employment very very soon. My only other option is to move back to South Carolina and I desperately want to stay in Maryland. 

And with that.....

I'm gonna go. I need to do laundry, clean the house, do the dishes, edit pictures and try to list some stuff on Etsy. Oh, and stop by and catch up on blogs!! I can't wait to see what you all have been up to the last 2 months!