Ugly Bling Bings

Red Velvet Cake

I just learned that Mayet's favorite cake is Red Velvet. I should have known this though. In the past, whenever she was assigned to bring a dessert, she always brought red velvet cake. And on her birthday last year, her fiancé made her red velvet cake.

So, for her birthday this year, I made her a red velvet cake. I'd never made it before. And because this was for Mayet, I searched the web for the most catchy red velvet cake recipe. This is how I found The BEST Red Velvet Cake Recipe - Divas Can Cook. This recipe must be shared!

Here are the ingredients and prices, since I'm on a "Name That Price" roll.

 

2 cups all purpose flour	$0.30
1 teaspoon of baking soda	$0.01
1 teaspoon of baking powder	$0.04
1 teaspoon of salt	$0.04
2 Tablespoon of unsweetened, cocoa powder	$0.50
2 cups sugar	$1.00
1 cup vegetable oil	$0.67
2 eggs	$0.66
1 cup buttermilk	$0.95
2 teaspoon of vanilla extract	$0.72
1-2 oz. red food coloring	$6.38
1 teaspoon of white distilled vinegar	$0.01
½ cup of prepared plain hot coffee	$0.58
Total	$11.86

I did not use the commonly associated icing, to which Abmel commented "I would have used a cream cheese icing..." Well, I didn't! Here's the ingredients for the best frosting I've ever had: 

5 Tablespoons Flour	$0.18
1 cup Milk	$0.38
1 teaspoon Vanilla	$0.36
1 cup Butter	$2.59
1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)	$0.47
Total	$3.98

That's a whopping $15.84 for this red velvet cake. 

And Jaida loved it!

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The Cost of a Five-Star Dinner at Home

Difficulty rating for making Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon: DIFFICULT.

Why I chose to make this for Mayet's birthday: I'm CRAZY.

When I told the butcher where I buy my meats, and the physical therapist who's making my bum knee better this, stopping for a moment of impressed curiousity, they replied "Tell me how it turns out!" My PT also asked me to estimate how much just the main part of the dish cost.

Here are the ingredients for Beef Bourguignon, adapted from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck. I bought these ingredients at Quality Food Center in April 2013.

6 oz. piece of chunk bacon	$2.55
3 1/2 Tbs olive oil	$1.77
3 lbs lean stewing beef	$27.65
1 carrot	$0.17
1 onion	$1.21
Salt & pepper	$0.05
2 Tbs flour	$0.07
3 cups red wine	$5.99
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups beef stock	$3.69
1 Tbs tomato paste	$0.17
2 cloves garlic	$0.10
1/2 tsp thyme	$0.62
Bay leaf	$1.00
18-24 white pearl onions	$5.98
3 1/2 Tbs butter	$0.65
Herb bouquet (4 parsley sprigs, 1/2 bay	$1.50
bay leaf, 1/4 tsp thyme)
1 lb mushrooms	$4.03
Total	$57.20

Cook time: over 120 minutes. More like four hours for me! If my time is calculated into the total cost of making this dish, at minimum wage, the total would be $93.96.

The vegetables and noodles that were served with this dish were made by Mayet's future parents-in-law, which took them 30 minutes to make, and $10.00 worth of ingredients.  Bringing the grand total to $103.96.

Servings: 6. But there were seven of us, and we ran out of every bite of the meat before everyone, the teenager especially, got their fill. Need I say more how the dish turned out?

Boy, am I glad the red velvet cake was a hit that night! (This is a whole other story.) Otherwise, there would have been one or two unsatisfied dinner guests, and definitely one grumbling tummy. Mattie's. He looked longingly at the serving dish left only with noodles laden with the sauce of the beef stew.

The sauce was what made the dish! The spices were what made the sauce. No wonder sailors and explorers sailed to the far reaches of the East for spices. And just because we have jet liners and state-of-the-art ocean liners doesn't make the spices cheap.

I will say, though, that it cost an average of $14.85 per adult to eat just this dish. Very, very, very scrumptious $14.85 per person.

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Boots

Riding boots.

Engineer boots.

Stiletto boots.

Boggle

It's garage sale season again! I bought three green glass vases for 10¢ each, a toddler's play table for 50¢, three books for $1.25, and my favorite treasure find for $2.00... drum roll please!

It's a game of words, including names, spelled out by stringing letters together in sequence.

The winner is the player with the most words strung together within the time of the minute glass.

For the letters above, I came up with these words...

Who
War
Wan
What
Wane
Wart
Warn
Oat
Oath
Oar
Hot
Hat
To
Tao
Tar
Tara
Tan
Talc
Than
Tho
Arc
Art
An
Anal
Art
Arab
Awl
Ale
Nato
Nab
Near
Neo
Lab
Learn
Lean
Leo
Lane
Alban
Rat
Ran
Raw
Earth
Ear
Ban
Bean
Bane
Bale
Bear
Barn
Beal
Blane
Bar
Bran
Bra
Brawn
Brat
Boar
Boa
Brawl
Carat
Car
Carl
Cart
Crane
Crab
Cat
Clan
Label

Of course I didn't come up with all of these words by myself in sixty seconds; I was boggled! I had help from Sonya.

Candles and Debris

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In the wake of the disastrous seventy-two hour snow storm that hit our region, when I attempted and eventually succeeded in building snow candelabras, this is all that's left.

Tea candles...

And debris...

Slush

Today the temperature climbed to a comparatively warm 39ºF (compared to 29ºF). Which is cause for three things:

1. All the paranoid drivers are coming out of

    hiding, and getting themselves stuck in snow

    berms in the medians. Listen here amigos,

    if you drive a light weight sedan like a 

    Volkswagen or a Kia, you will not, I 

    repeat, NOT get through the twelve inch 

    berm created by the snow plows! (I don't

    blame them for doing it though; their brains

    are still slush because there is still snow,

    albeit melting snow.)

FYI: I did not take pictures of the roads because of No. 1. Doing so would be like going for a swim at a beach where shark warnings are posted.

2. Rain boots versus Sorels. Sorels are bulky,

    fuzzy inside, and cozy warm. Rain boots

    simply keep your wool socked feet dry.

    They don't stave off the cold too well. This

    is why I stopped at twelve columns, rather

    than lining the whole sidewalk as originally

    intended.

3. Wet snow, AKA slush. Once again, a lesson

    for you warm-blooded relatives basking in

    the shade of swaying palm trees. You are

    familiar with slush. It is the very same

    consistency of ice in a snow cone. At 7-

    Eleven convenience stores, the stuff is

    doused with red, blue, or purple syrup, and

    you eat it. Notice how the ice remains

    compact. This is prime snow for making

    snow men, snow balls, and snow castles.

    And these...

I made them with a commercial size dustpan (because I don't have a flat shovel) a bucket, a Nalgene bottle (not shown, but I'm drinking out of it right now), and an apple corer.

I bet you are so itchin' to know what I made!

This is what the apple corer was for. Ventilation.

This is what the Nalgene was for. A cavern.

Behold my creation, snow candelabras!

And now for a quick break from all things snow. My hunk of a husband called me in from the freezing rain for dinner.

Behold, 5-Star's creation! Cheeze melted over a slice of tomato on a bed of Sun Flower tuna (thanks to Miko for sending me some!) over a toasted English muffin.

But that's not all. He also made salad! With shredded mozarella and sliced black olives. (Mayet doesn't like olives. FYI.)

And while we bask in the warmth of an aromatic kitchen, the snow candelabras light a welcoming beacon to our front door.

Slush. It's what snow sculptures are made of. And 7-Eleven slurpies.

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