Monthly Archives: January 2020

Bites of Life, Sweet Tooth

Texas Sheet Cake

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Simple joys of chocolate cake

Fudgy icing on chocolate cake – just yum

Texas Sheet Cake – see video below to see how to make it, even you mess up a few times!

2 cups sugar
4 Tbs cocoa powder
2 sticks butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk (make it with a 1/2 Tbs lemon juice and fill to 1/2 cup mark with regular milk)
1 cups water
Jelly roll pan, or pizza pan or cookie sheet or regular cake pan, or cupcake pan – if ya wanna get fancy

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix sugar and cocoa powder together. This will keep the cocoa powder from flying all over your kitchen.
Add your butter and cream those ingredients together.
Add your eggs and vanilla and mix.
Add in flour, baking soda and salt and mix well.
Add buttermilk and water and mix until it looks like chocolate ice cream.
(NOTE: You can add the ingredients in any order, as we did in our video. And you will make a mess, as we did in our video.)

Spray pan with cooking spray and spread cake into pan.
Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. (If using a 9×13 pan, adjust the time to 40 minutes. If using cupcakes, adjust to 20 minutes)

Icing:
1 1/2 sticks butter (3/4 cup)
6 Tbs. milk (whole preferred)
1 tsp vanilla
4 Tbs cocoa powder
4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup pecans, chopped (toast them for extra flavor, if you like)

Over medium-high heat in heavy bottom sauce pan, melt your butter.
Add in milk, vanilla, and cocoa and whisk smooth.
Bring to boil and cook for 1 minute after it begins to boil.
Remove from heat.
Add in powdered sugar and stir well to incorporate.
Add in pecans.

Spread on cake that you’ve removed from the oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes.

The story

My dad appreciates simple things, souped up ‘57 Chevys; and his 56” TV with Dish, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix. But mostly … simple things.
His parents, MC and Lorene, taught him to work for the things he had and would have. Pa Maxwell, as we called him, worked in the log woods. And my dad, Charles, did too. From the time he was 10, he was expected to help with pretty heavy manual labor. His main job was to use a draw knife to peel poles. This was a pretty dangerous undertaking for anybody as the method was to grab the “knife” which was a very sharp blade in between two handles, stand on one side of the pole or at the end of one and forcefully pull the potentially lethal instrument toward your body skinning the bark off in ribbons. It was sharp enough to cut into wood. Let that sink in. So If your blade slipped, you could create a gaping hole where there should not be one in your chest, arm, stomach, or hips.
This is something I can’t imagine my 10-year-old son doing. We’ve been to the ER 3 times and a burn unit once and he was standing still with no hazardous implements in use.
Anyway, dad’s grandparents (MC’s mom and dad) did have a farm; and he loved going to visit them just about every week. They lived in Jones Creek, what would be called a suburb in today’s fancy lingo. The better term would be the outskirts of Waldron, where he lived with his parents and younger brother Jack. The trip to go see his grandparents, Eb and Florence was special, not because he was given gifts each time he went. And not because he was given constant attention or constant stimuli in the form of games or toys, but because he was raised to appreciate his grandparents and the time he got to spend with them. It was an event to go visit anyone and not be working in the woods, in the cotton fields, or at home. That visit was special because he viewed them as special and they him. Florence was a good cook. This was unlike his mom’s mom who was best known for cornbread so flat and tasteless, it could be used as a Frisbee; and not lost as even the animals didn’t try to run off with it. A story for another time.
Florence would make my dad a chocolate cake because she knew it was his favorite. She would make it without icing most of the time, partly because icing ingredients could get expensive and such frivolity was unneeded; and partly because my dad liked it that way. He’d get a huge piece of that chocolate goodness with a big glass of milk fresh from the dairy cow that resided on their farm. And if she made ice cream, he would take that cake and ice cream and mash it all up together – sort of like a super thick milkshake with cake bits in it. It was delicious that way. It is delicious that way as this is how he still prefers it. In an age full of crazy thick heaping mounds of icing, candy toppings, and herb or flower infused flavors, he prefers a simple piece of chocolate cake. No glaze, no icing, no crystallized sugar standing in spires on top – because it’s delicious without all that mess. It is simplicity and happiness and good memories. And there’s something to be said for that. Appreciate the delicious simple things. Appreciate the people we love and who love us. Be happy with less. We’d all be better off with just the cake and making a memory with, and for, those we love. Appreciate that and realize anything else we’re given is just icing on the cake.

When I figure out her simple recipe, I will post it. In the meantime, I gave you my mother-in-law’s Texas sheet cake recipe, complete with fudgy icing. This is because sometimes a cake IS just a vessel for the icing. 🙂

Delicious Dishes, Get Saucy

Chicken with Mushroom Gravy

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Preparing chicken for a meal isn’t easy when it stares back at you.

Recipe:

2 tsp cornstarch

1/2 cup milk

4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves

1 tbs olive oil

1 tbs butter

1/2 lb sliced fresh mushrooms

1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced

1/4 cup red wine or chicken broth

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

Mix cornstarch and milk until smooth. 

Pound chicken flat or slice in half lengthwise.

In large skillet, heat oil over medium heat.

Cook chicken until no longer pink, 5-6 min per side.

Remove from pan.

In same pan, heat buttter over medium-high heat. 

Sauté mushrooms and onion until tender.

Stir in wine, salt and pepper.

Bring to boil.

Stir cornstarch mixture and add to pan.

Return to boil.

Cook and stir until thickened, 1-2 min.

Return chicken to pan and heat through.

Serve over mashed potatoes, rice, cheese grits, whatever you want!

The story

My mom was raised on a farm. Her family grew most of the food they ate – including the meat. They ate true grass fed, non-GMO, humanely raised, cage-free, free range, heritage breed, and any other now-fancy adjective, meat. Bacon, ham, sausage, and on occasion, chicken graced their table alongside a selection of scratch made sides including cathead biscuits and gravy, cornbread on top of the stove cooked in bacon grease, fried potatoes, mashed potatoes, purple hull peas, boiled cabbage, or fried cut-off corn with freshly sliced garden tomatoes, just to name a few.

Now chicken was reserved for special occasions because chickens also provided eggs and so more chickens meant more fried eggs cooked in bacon grease for breakfast or ingredients for pies, cakes, or cookies. It was also even more labor intensive to make that meal. There was no running to the store to grab pre-packaged chicken breast, thighs, or drumsticks. There was, however, running into the yard and chasing down a living, breathing package of those items.

My grandmother, Josie, would kill, pluck, clean (I won’t explain this here – but if you want to know the graphic details, google it), and chop the chicken into pieces and proceed to fry it up. This skill most people used to have, was learned by watching others handle the task with few instructions verbalized.

My grandma apparently thought my mom should be well educated in this by the time she was 12. So she told my mom, Juanita, to go into the yard and wring the chicken’s neck. Being obedient, having watched the process numerous times, and receiving her mom’s vote of confidence, she proceeded to the yard where chickens roamed free.

She successfully caught a hen, which boosted her confidence, and placed one hand firmly around the chicken’s neck. Being squeamish about this task, she determined to make it quick, so she gave a few mighty circles of her arm, as she’d seen her mama do; and saw the dazed chicken staring back at her with a very unbroken, though slightly wobbly neck. She panicked, then gave a few more mighty circles and snaps of her arm. Flapping wings, kicking legs, and a writhing body ensured her she had again been unsuccessful. This did not happen to her mother who got the neck wrung with as few as 3 circles of the arm. She was approaching hysteria and so was the chicken, she assumed, as neither of them had ever seen this fiasco occur. So she quickly slung the bird in an arc again and when the chicken, still alive, stared back at her with its body now uncontrollably swinging from its pendulum-like neck, she had all she could take. She dropped that chicken and took off running to the house. The chicken wobbled off in the other direction, stumbling sideways like a drunk man due to its elongated sidewinding neck. 

My grandma heard her hit the door squealing and upon seeing no chicken in her hands, took off outside to find the poor bird. It was relatively easy to find – and catch – for obvious reasons. She grabbed it and ended the bird’s life with a couple quick snapping whips of the hand. 

I asked my mom if Granny scolded her or was mad. She said no. She just handled that issue as she did everything else that happened in her life – with understanding, patience and grace. And know-how born of need-to.

My mom has those same qualities. She handles everything that has been thrown at her. Except chicken killing. That is one thing she cannot, and will not do. Nor was she ever asked to again.