Decadent Dark Chocolate Cake

This is the moistest, richest and most amazing chocolate cake I have ever eaten. I have made it time and again and it always turns out perfectly. It is very popular amongst my co-workers, especially the men (go figure). I will never buy a chocolate boxed cake ever again because the simplicity and the unbeatable flavor of this cake.

 

The most important step is to gather all your ingredients before beginning any of the other steps. Having all your ingredients gathered together insures ease and accuracy. Also, it helps with bringing all ingredients to room temperature since that is how you get an evenly baked and moist cake.

 

 

 

 

Due to the amount and type of liquids used, the batter is very thin.

 

The tops of the cake always seem to have an odd wrinkled center. It never seems to fall or cause any trouble otherwise. It just looks rather odd.

 

Let the cake cool completely so that the frosting will not melt off.

 

 

This is all that is ever left of this cake. Enjoy it while it lasts.

 

 

Oreo Cookie Pudding Cake

So, I found two different versions of this cake on Pinterest. The problem is, once I picked one and started buying the ingredients and making it I got WAY confused. What happened is that I kept glancing at the directions for the one but was mostly just bee-bopping around buying stuff and putting it together from what I remembered in my head. However, what I was remembering was the ingredients and the directions from the one I chose not to make. In the end I kind of created my own version of this dessert, which is perfectly fine because it was AH-MAZ-ING!!!

Chocolate, Chocolate and some more Chocolate... with Oreo's. How could this not be anything but totally amazing?

First... the list of ingredients:

 Oreo Cookie Pudding Cake

1 Package Chocolate Cream Oreo's

1 Stick Butter - Melted

1 Lg Box Instant Chocolate Pudding

3 C Whole Milk to make Pudding

2 - 8oz Bowls Cool Whip

8 oz Cream Cheese, softened

1 1/2 C Powdered Sugar

Step #1 - Crush Oreo's either in a food processor or put in a zip-lock bag and beat with rolling pin. Set aside 1/2 C for topping. Dump remaining crumbs into a 9x13 pan. Pour melted butter over crumbs, stir, then press down onto bottom of pan, creating crust.

Step #2 - Make chocolate pudding according to package directions and allow to set up in refrigerator. Once pudding is set, fold in one 8oz bowl of Cool Whip, set to the side.

Step #3 - In a mixing bowl blend softened cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth. Fold in one 8 oz bowl of Cool Whip until combined then spread over cookie crust layer.

Sep #4 - Spread chocolate pudding layer over cream cheese layer. Top with remaining 1/2 C crushed Oreo's. Cover and refrigerate till ready to serve.

The butter mixed with the Oreo's for the crust keeps the cookies from getting mushy, it did however make them hard enough to need a knife to cut through them. It is possible to not mix the chocolate pudding with the Cool Whip and do a layer of pudding and then a third layer of Cool Whip for a triple layer dessert. I blended the two, however, because the people I made it for do not like Cool Whip on it's own, so it was better whipped into the pudding mix.

As I said before, there are several variations of this cake, this one is of my own making/screw-ups, but it was so yummy that I would make it this way again... and again... and again....

Stolen Identity

I am an idea stealer.

It's True.

See, I've been doing it all my life. Truth is, I'm good at many different things, but coming up with neat, original or cool ideas is not one of them.

The first time I remember being an idea stealer was back in the ninth grade when I was forced to sit and write an essay, along with everyone else in my class, to be judged and evaluated for a state competition. I sat there and thought, and thought, and thought and simply could not come up with a single thing, until... a song that I had heard recently kept running through my head and I used it as inspiration and it was game on. The result: my essay was not only chosen to go to the state championship, I won first place in the high school division. No mean feat for a lowly ninth grader.

My next vivid memory of idea stealing was while I was attending college, majoring in both History and English. The only thing I remember doing in college was reading a ton and writing even more. This was fine because writing research papers and critiques is obviously something I would be very good at, seeing as both are just my version of other peoples works. However, as an English major, I was required to take a Creative Writing class. Ugh.

I am NOT a story teller. No, no, no, no, NO! Luckily the first few assignments were fairly simple and, even luckier, some really funny things had happened to me that summer, so I had plenty of support material. Until... we had to write an original story which was to be the major weighing grade for the class. Fail this assignment and you failed the class.



So I went in search of an original story. I asked just about every single person I knew, which in college was a significant number of people, what they would write about if it was up to them. I picked their brains and toyed with their varied ideas until I came up with something I that was familiar and very me. The story from rough draft #1 to final copy is so extremely different, my teacher questioned my organizational skills. It's true, the story changed, it adapted, it was written and re-written until it was unrecognizable to anyone but me. I got an A+ on the paper and passed the class with flying colors.

Now don't take me wrong, I am by no means plagiarizing anyone's work. It just takes other people and their ideas to inspire any type of originality in me. And that is in everything that I do.

A few years later I attended culinary school. I absolutely love to cook. But if you were to ask me to come up with my own original recipe, I don't believe I could do it. I have many, many recipes that are "original" to me, but only because I do with food what I would often do with my writing. I take the idea of someone else and I tweak it to make it my own. I never follow a recipe to the "t", unless I'm baking, and even then it's rare I don't add something. Just as with my writing, when it comes to recipes I am always adding, removing, tweaking and modifying.

This concept also carries over into my love of photography. Taking pictures is something that I'm good at, something I love doing, and something that makes me happy. However, posing people or coming up with a unique idea or concept, not so much. I spend hours perusing the internet looking at the pictures that other photographers have taken and "pinning" them so that I can come back to them later for inspiration. If it is true that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, then I am the worlds best flatterer.

I look at the pictures and works of other photographers and I concoct ways to do the same thing, if not something similar, but in my own way. Of course, it's imitation of someone else's genius, but the end result has my own original spin permanently imprinted upon it.

So, do I wish I could come up with the next genius organizational idea to sweep Pinterest? Or the next great award winning recipe? Or even take the next original newborn pose to rock the photography industry? Of course I do. But am I merely content to be the unoriginal copycat me who does great things with other people's ideas?

Yeah. I'm okay with that too.

Ewey Gooey Ummy Yummy Goodness

So, I found this recipe on Pinterest. Ha, like you've never heard that one before, right? The twist: the recipe I pinned is not this one. The original recipe that I was looking at took me to a link that took me to another link and somehow along the way I ran across this recipe called Mom's Baked Chicken & Spinach Pasta by Bitchin Camero. The writer started off talking about how she had been training for a marathon for months and that this recipe was the perfect meal to carb load on the night before she was to race. Yippee skipee for her! Here's my reality. I do NOT run anywhere if I can help it, ever. In fact, I didn't even read most of the blog once I read the word marathon, I just skipped down to the bottom where there were more friendly words like Chicken, Pasta and Cheese. Comfort food. Need I say more? 

If you know me, you know that this bloggity blogging food stuff is going to be very difficult for me for several reasons. First of all, I do not follow directions well. That's not entirely true, let me rephrase. I follow the directions, I just make up some of my own as I go along. This makes it very difficult to ever share my recipes because I don't exactly know what all I threw into the pot and since I tend to "eyeball" all my ingredients measurements are especially tricky for me. Secondly, whenever I'm in the kitchen I'm in cooking mode (blame culinary school for that one) and I tend to be a very one track-minded person, so stopping periodically to take random pictures of the food is totally against my OCD self. All that in mind, the fact this is now a blog, with pictures, is nothing shy of a miracle.

First things first, the ingredients. You will need one pound of pasta shells. The original recipe calls for whole wheat shells, however, in my house we do not like chewy whole wheat pasta, and the gluten in regular pasta seems to be easier for my family to digest than the whole wheat version (mild wheat allergies and such). Also, at this time I'm more interested in yummy comfort food and less interested in health. Bad me.

You will also need about 2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breast and 8-10 cloves of garlic. This will make your house smell ah-maz-ing. Don't worry, you will soon also smell strongly of garlic so you will not notice its prenounced presence in your house after awhile. Next comes salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, spinach, white wine and mozzarella cheese.

This is where I get to add a little side note about cooking with wine. Wine is not something that is consumed in my parents house, nor is it consumed by most of the people that I know. However, here's a tip. If you don't drink wine and don't want to purchase an entire bottle for one recipe, simply buy the 4 pack of mini bottles. Since most recipes only call for 1/4 to 1/2 cup wine then these little bottles are perfect and you can store the remaining bottles for, well, just about forever.  I once asked a very prominent chef what to substitute for wine and he asked why I would want to do that. Majority of the alcohol cooks out (not all, but what is left is about the equivalent of what you would absorb from gargling with Listerine) and it adds an amazing pungency and depth of flavor that you can't really accomplish any other way. Still not convinced, simply substitute the wine for chicken stock.

Please, please, PLEASE salt your pasta water before adding the pasta. Pasta is very bland on its own and this is the only chance that you will have to give it any kind of flavor. So please, do not skip this step. Also, the original recipe calls for salt as its only seasoning. Being the person I am, that just simply would not do, so I added fresh ground black pepper for more seasoning and some red pepper flakes for a bit of a kick. Taste your pasta before you put it into the baking dish and adjust the seasonings as needed, because once in the dish and baked, it is too late.

When I make this again, I will modify one other thing, the amount of spinach. I used the 5 cups called for, but I really like my spinach to have a presence in the dish, and it was pretty scarce in this one. I would add 2-3 more cups. But that's my preference. Also, the original recipe called for the spinach to be chopped, but I added it whole because it wilts down to nothing as is, and like I said, I like my spinach to have a presence.

Oh, and I added a whole cup extra of cheese, because, well, I could.

The result: a big pan full of ewey gooey ummy yummy goodness that is still somewhat good for you. Seriously, this dish had amazing flavor and totally fills that need for a big bowl of cheesy pasta comfort food without being too creamy or heavy.

But, if you're carb loading for a big run and would prefer the original version, here's the link:

http://www.bitchincamero.com/2010/02/moms-baked-chicken-spinach-pasta/

Baked Chicken & Spinach Pasta

1 lb pasta shells

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

1/4 C olive oil

8-10 cloves of garlic

1 tsp salt (more or less to taste), extra for pasta water

1 tsp black pepper (more or less to taste)

1/4 - 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (if desired)

5-7 C fresh spinach

1/4 C dry white wine (I just used my whole mini-bottle)

3 C mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Bring large pot of water to boil, salt it and add pasta. Cook pasta to al dente. Drain.

While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken. Brown chicken on all sides - about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook till softened - about 3 minutes.

Add wine, spinach, salt, pepper and pepper flakes to skillet and cook until spinach is wilted - 3-5 minutes. Add cooked pasta and toss together. Pour contents of skillet into ungreased 3qt casserole dish. Cover with cheese. Bake for 25 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly brown.

Makes about 8 servings

Here I Go Again On My Own

So, it's me again. It has been more than a year since I started this blog to write about the randomness of my life, but in the mean time, life has thrown some serious curve balls and I'm a million miles away from where I was the day I started this project.

But here I am again, armed with new material and ready to pick up where I left off. I hope.

You see, the problem is that, even though I have some great ideas, with all the "mom" blogs and other personal type blogs out there I'm not really sure where this one fits in exactly. Also, even with all my great ideas comes an enormous lack of motivation. I have the ability to write, just not necessarily the drive to do so.

But like I said, here I am again, determined to make a go of this and see where the path leads me. I do hope it's somewhere fun.

How To Deal

Today I stopped in at a bookstore to pick up a book about personal finances.  To be perfectly honest, as a 30 year old woman, I've never once in my life sat down and budgeted my income.  Not once... ever!  Now, to be even more honest, this has gotten me into a bit of trouble along the way.  Being young, single, working two jobs, making a lot of money and having a perfect credit score made me feel invincible.  I took advantage of it and...

Back to the reality of today.  I'm now married.  Am currently un-employed.  Am back in school.  Am buried under a monster school loan and a pile of other debt.  Am trying to get my personal finances and my life under control.  To be honest, I have no idea how to do this.  So today I scowered the seemingly endless supply of "get rich quick" books, investing schemes and the "do what I did" advice from every jerk whose ever made a buck and finally found one book that I think will help.  At least, it seems reputable enough.

So now I'm sitting here with a book of action, a pile of coupons, a grocery list and some sort of plan.  Let's see where it goes from here.