Rainbow Cake - Success!

It's my birthday tomorrow, so we had a big turkey dinner last night at Mom's. Like always, Mom's turkey was perfect and our bellies were full (over-full mostly). I elected to make a cake for last night's affair and I excitedly opted to make a Rainbow Cake.

Baking the cake was easy and fun. I used two white cake mixes, which I made one at a time and each became three layers of the cake. I absolutley love working with colour paste and over the next while I am going to find any excuse to use them. Colour is fun!

Prepare cake mix

Divide into three

Add colour (red, orange, yellow) and mix

Bake for about 22 minutes

And repeat!!

Add colour (green, blue, purple) and mix

And bake about 22 minutes

All the colours of the rainbow - baked!

The assembly of the cake was a little harder than baking, which I detailed in yesterday's post. I excitedly stacked the layers together (with a little parchment paper between them), and when I unstacked them, each layer ripped a giant hole in the layer beneath it. Whoops! Also, the more I handled the layers, the more fragile they became, with the green one actually breaking in three. If I try this cake again I know it will go a lot smoother, and I'm happy to say the cake turned out awesome regardless of the difficulty I faced.

While dealing with cracking and breaking cake layers, I forgot to take photos of how it was assembled. And while decorating, I was just hoping that it didn't collapse, so no photos of that either. Just imagine it being assembled with lots of wishing and hoping that it would work out.

To cover the cake and ice between the layers, I needed almost three full cans of vanilla frosting. I wouldn't claim that I have awesome icing skills, and icing a multi-layer, multi-colour cake with a tonne of icing is hard. The crumbs of each colour layer seemed to actively jump onto the icing knife so they could spread themselves happily throughout the white icing. Every attempt at correcting it seemed to make it 100 times worse. But not to worry! The solution is to distract the people with sprinkles. Sprinkles are my new cake decorating best friend.

Also, it is super fun to throw sprinkles at a cake!

Based on the complications, I wasn't really sure what it would look like inside. I'm so happy that it did not disappoint. This cake is definitely visually crowd pleasing. It tastes pretty great too.

Freezer Meals - Steel Cut Oats

I love the idea of Freezer meals; just pull something out and heat it up. It's home made fast food. Actually making the food takes time, but the time saved when I am hungry is totally worth it.

I eat steel cut oats everyday for breakfast, and if you've made them before you know they take about thirty minutes to prepare.  That doesn't work for me everyday.  According to the package directions, prepared steel cut oats last 5 days in the fridge, so I used to make them in 5 day intervals.  That didn't work for me either. I first thought about freezing them while watching my friend Betony freeze meals for her daughter using ice cube trays. I did some internet research and discovered that prepared steel cut oats can be kept for 30 days in the freezer and that adults get to freeze their foods in cupcake pans.

Start with Steel Cut Oats.  Have you tried them? I think they have so much flavour and I love the texture.

Cook oats as per package directions. I cook 5 cups at a time, in two different pots, so I end up with 25 portions for the freezer.

Scoop hot, cooked oats into freezer containers.  I use a cupcake pan and a mini loaf pan, each portion measuring about 2/3 cup.

 
Freeze for about 2 hours.  Remove from freezer for about 5 minutes to loosen edges. Remove portions from cup cake pan and put in a resealable Ziploc bag and return to the freezer.

Pop in microwave when ready to eat and enjoy quick steel cut oats.  I eat mine with cinnamon, 1 tbs dried cranberries, and 2 tbs chopped walnuts.

Experimenting with Sushi

In my sushi making experience, I've made and consumed many California rolls (and posted about them here).  I recently became obsessed with spicy sauce and all the joyous possibilities associated with making spicy sushi maki at home.  I have been collecting ingredients over the past few weeks and yesterday it was finally Sushi Fun Day for me.

My morning started with how to videos on YouTube, as I was experimenting with hand rolls and trying to properly prepare the sushi rice (I picked up Rice Vinegar to add to it!).  My morning instructional videos got me pretty excited about the idea of eating a whole lotta yummy sushi!


Spicy California Hand Rolls

I shredded some imitation crab legs and tossed them with spicy mayo (mixture of Hellman's and Sriracha Sauce). So easy to make and super yummy to eat.

Also important were the avocados and cucumber!

I cut my Nori sheets in half and got down to business!  First I added rice on one end and made an indent for the filling:

Then I added my cucumber, avocado, and spicy crab meat:

Then I rolled it up!

Spicy California Inside Out Rolls

Another adventure in sushi for me yesterday was maki with the rice on the outside of the roll.  I wrapped my bamboo mat in plastic wrap and went for it!  I added rice to the Nori sheet and sprinkled it with toasted sesame seeds.

Then I flipped it over and put fillings on the non rice side:

And then rolled it up!

I ended up making a lot of these:

And If That Wasn't Enough...

I also made some smoked salmon and avocado hand and maki rolls, avocado maki, and avocado and cucumber maki.  I put some spicy sauce on some of the maki to make it look and taste amazing.  Not pictured are the four hand rolls John and I ate while I was preparing everything and the countless pieces of maki that accidentally got eaten.

And finally my beautiful plate that was quickly and happily devoured:

I can't wait to make it again!!  And we are eating leftovers for dinner tonight. Yay!!

Light My Candle

We go through a lot of scented jar candles around here.  After they've burned down, it always feels like a shame to throw them out, as they make excellent candle holders.  I recently Googled 'how to get wax out of a jar candle' and discovered a super easy solution.

Step 1: Take the used jar candles and place them into the freezer for 1 hour or so.

Step 2: Remove candles from freezer. They will be frosty! Take a dull knife and poke at the wax until it loosens.

I did four candles at once, so I chipped away a nice pile of wax. It smelled great!

Step 3: Wash the empty jars in hot water to remove any remaining wax that couldn't be chipped away.

Step 4: Replace with other candles/tea lights.  One day we might try our hand at pouring hot wax and wicks back into the jar, but for now just using it as a candle holder works just fine.

Step 5: Enjoy!!!!

Keep Off The Grass

Our indoor cat Gary doesn't get outside too much.  We have a harness and a leash for her, but she hates them, so her outdoor excursions are always twenty minutes or less.  Her activities while outside are few; her main goal is to locate long grass and eat as much of it as possible.  Gary loves grass!

We bought her a pot of cat grass last year for $1.99, and she promptly murdered it.  For a little cat, she doesn't seem to have a limit on how much she can ingest.  She will simply have it all, right now, thank you.

This year we bought cat grass seeds for $1.99, and she is already on her second round.  To give her more surface area for her grass, I re-used a take out container as a planter/greenhouse.  This way the cat grass is both "green" and frugal.  Sounds good to me!  Here's what I did:

Supplies:

1. Planter/greenhouse (this is from Swiss Chalet take-out)

2. Potting Soil

3. Cat grass seeds

Growing cat grass:

 1. Put potting soil into the container

2. Make holes for lots of seeds

3. Plant lots of seeds

4. Water

5. Put lid on container and place in window

Cat grass sprouts.

Cat grass!

Gary after enjoying some cat grass.

Now that this batch is fully grown, I am going to start a new round.  That way, by the time Gary completely destroys this current batch, she'll have a new one she can start on!

Make Your Own Iced Tea

Following some tips from Canadian Living, I made some pretty rocking Lemon-Ginger iced tea.

What you'll need:
16 cups boiled water
1 cup sugar (or to taste)
10 bags green tea
2 tsp powdered ginger (or to taste)
1/4 cup lemon juice (or to taste)
Large jug

To make iced tea:
Pour 16 cups of boiling water over tea bags.  Let steep 15 minutes and then remove tea bags.  Add 1 cup of sugar to the tea while water is still hot.  Stir to mix in.  Allow tea to cool on counter.  Once cooled, refrigerate.

This recipe has about 1 tbs of sugar per cup.  Add more or less to suit your desired sweetness.  Also, though the iced tea was good the day I made it, it tasted even better the next day, so hang in there if it doesn't initially wow you.