Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Happy New Year (especially if you like carrot cake)

First and foremost, thank you Karianne and Kelly for the fantastic calendar!! It is placed prominently in my kitchen to remind me how wonderful friends are. I have notified my DH that we need to take more photos of ourselves and less of the furkids.

Can you blame me, though?





TEH CUTENESS! IT HURTZ MY EYEZ!!!1

Anyways, I wanted to post an official "Happy New Year" and two of my favorite recipes. If you're not a baker, feel free to ignore the recipe part and concentrate on the cuteness of the furkids, or post photos of your own kids (fur or no) doing something cute. I can never get enough cuteness.

Where was I? Oh yes, recipes.

When I was just a young'un, my mom and I lived together (dad left early on and I have no siblings), and I think that was when I first learned tolerance. Several members of my family are bigots and make no bones about disparaging people based on their skin color. I believe my mom wanted to stave that off early, so she made it a point to introduce me to as many ethnic backgrounds as she could.

My oldest and dearest friend from kindergarden is Vietnamese.

Some of my fondest memories are of going to the home of a friend of my mom's, and eating cookies. She was African-American, she had three kids (my age), her name was Myra, and she made the BEST oatmeal cookies EVAR. So it's no surprise that we ended up with the recipe, right?

In my house, we are cookie afficionados.

Myra's Oatmeal Cookies

Cream the following:
1 and 1/4 c shortening
1 c white sugar
1 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Add the following to the creamed mixture:

1 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 and 1/2 c flour
3 c quick oats

Bake at 350 degrees for 7-10 min

I am also a member of an Akita rescue forum which includes people from all over the country who are interested in helping Akitas in need. One of the rescue groups has a picnic in New Jersey every year and they raved about one woman's carrot cake. So she posted it on the forum for all to enjoy, under this name:

Akita Carrot Cake

1 and 1/2 c flour
1 and 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 and 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 and 1/4 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 jars (4 and 1/2 oz each) strained baby food carrots
2/3 c crisco
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 8-oz can crushed pineapple (drained)
1/2 c chopped walnuts
2/3 c coconut

Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 min.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 3-oz package cream cheese
1/4 c soft butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 c confectioner's sugar

The recipe calls for a tube pan, so if you've got one of those, feel free to use it. We do not, so I used two round cake pans and made a layer cake with the cream cheese icing between the two layers. It is FREAKIN' DELICIOUS.

Baker's Note: I use butter-flavored crisco to make the cookies extra-nummy, and you can add
whatever you want to these recipes--raisins, whatever. Also, when any recipe calls for either cinnamon or vanilla, I always add extra. Like the whole bottle...

Hope these recipes bring you as much joy as they have my family.

Can you tell we're food-oriented?


Happy New Year!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Total cuteness!!!

Unknown said...

Bah. I didn't notice before I posted that all the lines ran together. I'll try to fix it!

3 Beauties said...

K-fu I think I love you!

"when any recipe calls for either cinnamon or vanilla, I always add extra. Like the whole bottle..."

You make my heart sing! The furkids are fabu also. I understand how you could enjoy spending time with those 2!

Thanks for the recipes, I CAN NOT WAIT to try them out! I shall let you know when I do.

Karianne said...

I had to read this twice because the furkids kept drawing me back. There is something about Pearl that just mesmerizes me, Sumo makes my heart melt. And, you know how much Ivy loves her "little" furcousins! Their cuteness does hurt my eyes!

I love how you work with the Akita rescue group. Umm, not that you have anything else to do with that spare time.

Melissa said...

I'm sure your recipe is divine....I promise to try it after I lose my Resolved-to-Lose-It-This-Year weight.

Is there anything bad with cream cheese frosting on it?

Melissa said...

oh...yes, your babies are darling.....I must've missed their cuteness with the carrot cake recipe staring me in the face. Hmmm, think I'm hungry?? :)