Contactless Birthday Celebration

My husband’s  birthday is Tuesday and unlike most years, we will be celebrating it at home.  Of course, I should bake a cake, or maybe two.   The new Food Network Magazine for May arrived last week and it features a section on Fun with Sheet Cakes. Every month there is a mini pull-out cookbook that showcases variations on a central theme and this one was a genius idea.  There are two base recipes for vanilla and chocolate cake and recipes with variations for 15 different cake and icing combinations.   The recipes can be baked in a 13 x 9” pan or a 13 x 18” sheet pan.  He chose the Apple Cinnamon and S’mores flavors and I set to baking yesterday.  We didn’t have the Hershey chocolate bars to layer on top of the chocolate cake, so we made do without and it is very good even minus the rich milk chocolate layer.  I made the sheet cake size and decorated the S’more’s cake using the back of a grapefruit spoon to make swirled scallops and used a mini butane torch to lightly brown the marshmallows meringue frosting. Today we took a road trip to deliver cake to the family. I had some rectangular aluminum pans with paper lids and they were perfect for a nice slice of each flavor.  Eleven stops, 4 hours and 100 miles later, we had accomplished the contactless deliveries to porches and doorsteps  and kept a safe social distance.  

It felt like a celebration to us!

Food Network Fun with Sheet Cakes!

 

Let the Rain Come Down

Day check – it’s Saturday.   I know these days it may be hard to know the day of the week when you first wake up.    I still go in to work, but now have to take one mandatory paid-time-off day a week at home as a revenue-saving measure.  I am actually looking forward to a day off each week.  Last year there was a vacation freeze due to a major project and I was working 50+ hours every week.  Ironically, I now must take time off, but can’t travel.  We had a 24-day cruise booked in June sailing to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Gibraltar, France, Belgium and Denmark, but it has been cancelled.  We rebooked for a similar cruise next year and time will tell if we get to go.  For now, it’s Stay at Home extended through May and be patient.  We are making the most of being at home and it has certainly given us plenty of time to plan and prepare meals.   We do carry out about once a week and I only go out for groceries and prescriptions and contact-free food delivery to neighbors and family.

Saturdays are usually big breakfast mornings and that has not changed.  Today Kevin chose a recipe from a cookbook my Mom gave me years ago.  It’s the Brunch Basket published by the Junior League of Rockford and it is loaded with tons of breakfast/brunch recipes.   With bacon and eggs on the side, it is wonderful and so pretty!  It is also so easy to make.

 

German Pancake Pie

4 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

2 cups milk

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 tablespoons butter, cut in small dice

juice of 2 lemons (optional)

1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.   Mix the 1/3 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon together and set aside.  Next, combine eggs, the other 1/3 cup sugar, milk flour, salt and vanilla in a stand mixer or blend with electric mixer.  Pour into a greased 10-inch glass pie dish. Do NOT try to use a smaller pan or you will have a huge mess in your oven.   If you don’t  have the large pie plate, use a 13 x 9” cake pan, but the pie will not be as tall.  Carefully place the filled dish in the center of the oven – it will be quite full.  Bake for 40 minutes.  It will puff up  then drop.  Remove from the oven, dot with the diced butter, and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar mixture.  Sprinkle with the lemon juice, if desired.   Let rest for 3-5 minutes before cutting into wedges and serve hot.   Serves 6, they say.  It’s not a pancake like you usually think of, but it is delicious!

 

Quaranturkey – Thanksgiving Thursday

I had been working on blogging daily, but a turn of events over the weekend derailed my good intentions. My husband got the call on Saturday morning that his mother had passed away at the Nursing Home. She was 90 years old and battling Alzheimer’s Disease for years. She had been declining over the past few weeks and had been placed in hospice care last Wednesday. The Governor had issued visiting restrictions for all nursing homes even before the Shelter at Home orders and Kevin had not seen his Mom since March 3. There are allowances to visit a loved one if the end of life appears near, and the nurses had promised to call. A nurse who knew her well and had cared for her a long while had checked on her at breakfast and her condition was unchanged. She had been refusing to eat or drink, had stopped communicating, and bedfast. They had moved her to a private room and were doing everything they could to make her comfortable. The nurse went to the desk to do some charting and a short while later, an aide came and asked her to check on Mom. When she got to the room, she was already gone. The nurse was surprised that she had slipped away so fast. She apologized and asked if Kevin wanted to come in to see her. He said he didn’t want to remember her that way and arrangements were made to transport her to the funeral home where he and his Mom had pre-planned her funeral according to her wishes. She had told us the clothes she wanted to wear, her favorite hymns and we had instructions to pack her dancing shoes for her “going away day”, just in case she needed them. Needless to say, my focus had changed entirely. Because of COVID, there can be no gatherings of groups of more than 10 people. Our family is not large and many of Mom’s friends have passed away before her, but 10 is a small number even so. One of her surviving brothers is a minister, so Kevin asked if he would perform the only service we could have – a brief graveside committal service observing social distancing. He was reluctant at first because of the close relationship, but later agreed and said it would be his honor to do it. Sadly, if he had declined he might not have been able to attend at all. Our son is in the military and is on stay-at-home orders with no travel or leave approved except in instances of extreme hardship. The death of a grandparent does not count. He was not able to come home. Kevin and I, his uncle and his wife, our daughter and her boyfriend added up to six. Kevin’s sister, her husband, their daughter and one of their two sons completed the group of 10. Their other son lives out of state and did not come home. We did get to privately view her one last time at the funeral home. She had chosen the dress she had worn to our wedding. My Mom had sewn it for her and it was one of her favorite outfits. It was very flattering on her petite frame then. She had lost so much weight recently that it fit her diminished figure as well as it did 37 years ago. Her hair and makeup were perfect and her fingernails were manicured and polished. She looked years younger and very much like her old self before Alzheimer’s subdued her personality. We drove to the nearby cemetery for the service and the sun was shining and the skies were clear when the final blessing was given. She is at rest now and we take comfort in that.

This week I’ve not been motivated to do much cooking. Tonight Kevin requested a Thanksgiving meal – turkey and the usual sides. We actually had everything in the house. In a family group text it was dubbed Thanksgiving Thursday by our son and our daughter said the Jennie O Turkey loaf we roasted was Quaranturkey. Nothing was scratch made, but it didn’t matter. There was Turkey and gravy, seasoned green beans, jellied cranberry sauce and Stovetop stuffing.

I had made some delicious brownies Tuesday evening and that completed the meal as our dessert. This recipe combines salty, sweet, and tart flavors very well with a crunchy crust and soft chewy brownie topping. This may be one of my all-time favorite brownie recipes!

Pretzel-Crust Cherry Chocolate Brownies

https://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/pretzel-crust-cherry-chocolate-brownies/