Gourmet Food on a Budget - Recipes, Methods, and Meal Planning - Ever Forward, Ever Flavorful
Do you have a birthday to plan, or do you need to plan an event or reception? We've got recipes to help!
Pirate Party Music sets the mood before a single treasure map gets unrolled. The right playlist turns a few paper hats and an eye patch into a full pirate adventure, whether the guest list is packed with kids chasing cannonballs or adults sipping grog at the end of the table. This list mixes sea shanties, movie themes, and family-friendly favorites, so you can build a soundtrack that fits your crew, no matter their age.
Rose Bliss Bundt cake is our take on King Arthur Baking's 2017 Recipe of the Year. Roses are edible, delicious, and nutritious. The flavor is subtle and tastes like roses smell. Taking a bite of this cake truly makes you feel blissful.
These sandwiches with cream cheese, bacon, tomato, basil, and avocado are wonderful for a picnic lunch or to feed a crowd. They are tasty and easy to make. You can even prep them the night before.
This cake is called a Million Dollar pound cake for a reason. It is amazingly rich, moist and buttery tasting. It's also simple to make with an electric mixer and with very few ingredients, you probably have everything you need to make it right now.
This German Chocolate Velvet Cake really is the ultimate chocolate cake. It has the velvety texture of Red Velvet cake, deep dark chocolate flavor, mocha frosting, and coconut-pecan filling and topping. Even people who don't like chocolate cake, or who don't like coconut love this cake.
Fresh Strawberry Sheet Cake will never, ever get old. It's a very simple cake to make and my goto white cake. Topping it with strawberries and whipped cream makes it a great summer cake that can feed a crowd.
Bacon Crusted Mini Quiches are so simple to make, look fantastic, and taste great. Make them plain with only eggs, or make them fancy with what you like in your scrambled eggs. These are not quiches in the true sense of the word because they don't have a real crust.
1-2-3-4 sheet cake is a traditional American cake and is simple and elegant. It can be used as a sheet cake, or as seen here, 3-layered with strawberries.
Tuesday, November 21, 2012, was Spane's 9th birthday. He originally asked for a Red Velvet Cake, but then said he wanted Chocolate Cake with Mocha Frosting that I made for his 7th birthday, and was the base for the Jolly Roger Cake of the Pirate Rack Rachham that I made for his 8th birthday. At the last minute, I decided to give him his original request.
Yes, I know that Red Velvet is all over the place, and mostly nasty, truly horrific. When Red Velvet became popular all over the country, short cuts were made, and what resulted was a dense, flavorless cake, with a greasy shortening "cream cheese" frosting, that I am sure was made with cream cheese flavoring, and nary a bit of real cream cheese. The first time I heard about the cake was in Steel Magnolias when the armadillo groom's cake was brought out. The real cake is delicious. I make a real Red Velvet Cake, that uses real cream cheese, cake flour, and vinegar/baking soda leavener.
Anyone who reads this blog knows that I just can't make an ordinary anything, I always have to umph it up a bit, and this cake was no exception. Instead of using white vinegar, I used Balsamic vinegar. I also used a Mocha frosting instead of the traditional cream cheese frosting. It was a real hit.
The PTA at John Muir Elementary School puts on a staff luncheon every year. Parents are asked to bring in their best dish. Our teachers and staff are very lucky, as a lot of our parents are very good cooks. This year, in fact, the recipes are going to be collected and the PTA is publishing a cookbook. The luncheon was going to take place in the newly planted Teachers' Garden. I decided to make a cake and decorate it as a garden.
The cake looked lovely tilted up at the dessert station. In fact, it looked so lovely, and so real, that no one ate it. Some guests thought it was too pretty to cut, a few thought it was art, and a few didn't think it was really edible. I wound up taking it home and will share it with family and friends.