Floofy Cake

I was at the store, quickly looking for food for a get-together that I planned at the last minute, and I ran in a friend who told me about an easy tasty dessert that she had made the day before. The best part- it was only two ingredients- an angel food cake mix and a can of pie filling. Mix them together and pour in an ungreased 9x13 pan and bake at 350 F for about 30 minutes. Top with whipped cream if desired.

It sounded easy enough and I already had an angel food cake mix, so I grabbed a can of whipped topping and a can of raspberry pie filling. For fun, when I got home from the store I googled the ingredients to see if I could find a more "official" looking recipe, so if you are interested in more pictures, click here. 

While I was throwing it together, it occurred to me that this would be a great dessert for food storage. Cake mix, cans of pie filling, and boxes of Dream Whip, and you are good to go for a quick, easy (did I mention only two ingredients- unless you are counting the topping, and then it is three, but still....) and very tasty dessert. I think it would even work out in a dutch oven if you wanted a slight change up from cobbler while camping.

This recipe is definitely a keeper.

The Fruit of My Labor

 It is canning time again. This time it is pears. I found a tutorial here that had nice pictures if you want to do your own (on my computer it looked like it was a blank page- I had to scroll clear down to find the instructions). So far, I am up to 3 dozen half pints and 17 pints. I haven't ever done pints before, but my husband wanted slices, and they just weren't fitting too well in the smaller jars. I still have about 20 lbs. of pears left that are still on the hard side. Now I just have to wait for them to ripen and decide what to do with them.

Last year after I had done all of my pears, some friends were talking about the tastiest jam- a pear raspberry. I swore I would try it this year. I was unable to get the actual recipe (yet), but the closest I was able to come up with came from here.

I only used half the sugar, and it is still on the sweet side. I think I would cut the sugar down to 1 cup if I do it again. It looks really pretty. I was able to get 7 half pints from 1 batch.

*UPDATE*
The "Official" Raspberry Pear Jam Recipe
5 cups Pear Sauce
1 cup Raspberries
2 cups Sugar (or 1 1/2 if you prefer)
1 large box Raspberry Jello

Boil pear sauce, raspberries, and sugar for 20 minutes. Add box of jello and cook until fully dissolved. Put in jars and process in canner. (No specifics there- I think I did mine for 15 minutes cause that is what it looked like a lot of similar things were canned for). To make the pear sauce, you just peel and cut up your pears in a big pot with about a tablespoon of water and cook until the pears are nice and mushy, then mash. Kind of like making mashed potatoes, just these ones get a lot runnier as they cook. 

Salsa (no canner needed)

A friend had a recipe for salsa that didn't contain cilantro. Since I really don't like cilantro, and tomatoes were also on sale, I was anxious to try it. Since it also involved a new method of canning and I like to learn new things I was extra interested. I ended up with 14 half pints from one batch. It looks so pretty with all of the multi-colored peppers, but I have heard that it is fine to do it with whatever is available or on sale. So without further ado, the recipe for the salsa:

Open Kettle Salsa

12 cups chopped roma tomatoes 1 anaheim pepper

3 cups chopped sweet onion 1 jalapeno pepper

3 green bell peppers 1/2 cup white vinegar

3 yellow bell peppers 1/4 cup sugar

3 red bell peppers 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 Tbs plain salt (not iodized) 1/2 tsp black pepper

1/8 cup lime juice

5 cloves garlic

Slip the skins from the tomatoes (place in boiling water for a few minutes) After the skins are removed place tomatoes in a food blender and grind up, be sure to cut off the top of the tomato(core it) and throw away. Measure 12 cups and put in a large heavy 8 qt pan. Cut up the peppers, garlic and onion or use a food processor or blender to chop them, seed the jalapeno if you want it to be less spicy leave seeds in for more spice. Add the chopped peppers to the tomatoes as well as the rest of the ingredients and boil for about 2 hours. Stir occasionally to keep it from sticking to the bottom.

Place clean jars in the oven on a low temp. about 200 degrees, and let them heat up. Heat a small pan of water to boiling. Place the canning lids in it. Pour the salsa in the jars, coming to 1/2 inch from top. Wipe the top of the jar with a clean cloth and put the hot lid on and then the ring. Twist the ring tight. Set the jars aside to cool.

Preserving Peaches

Peaches are on an unbelievable sale here so I have have been stocking up. I invited my canning tutor friend over Saturday to show me what to do. After having difficulty trying to peel half a case we decided they weren't quite ripe enough yet and so those peaches became jam. There was a little bit that didn't quite fit in, so we snacked upon it. It was quite tasty.

Then yesterday I tried to can the rest of the peaches by myself. I got them all done, but the Small Fries felt very neglected. Some of the jars I tried the No Added Sugar method, and others I did the regular way. I ended up with 18 half pints of jam, 52 half pints of peaches, and two more cases of peaches to jam, and preserve, and freeze (what can I say, they are on a very good sale). I do the half pint sizes because I have little children, and they are just the right size for pulling out for lunches and not having to worry about leftovers. I was just going by the instructions in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. It took all morning and half the afternoon, but I feel accomplished.

The end result: four cases of 40 peaches each turned into 18 jars of peach jam, 10 jars of peach butter, 81 half-pints of sliced and diced peaches, three freezer bags mostly full of frozen peach slices to add to smoothies, and unknown numbers of peaches eaten just the way they were because they were so tasty. Add to that the peach freezer jam that was made the week before with the peaches left over from our camping trip, and I think we are set in the peach department for quite a few months.

The ants at our picnic

We were getting together with friends for Memorial Day and in charge of a dessert. After much thought, I took my inspiration from What's New, Cupcake? and brought ants. My husband made the ants while I was putting grass on the cupcakes, and he didn't realize that the ants were suppose to be carrying the watermelon off. Oh, well. It turned out cute anyways.

The watermelons were assembled from fruit slices that were chopped and combined. It reminded me a lot of chopping up gumdrops for Dad's Fruitcake.