Katie Made a Cake!

Actually, Katie has made this cake twice in the last few months---it's that good! I have always liked bundt cakes, pound cakes, coffee cakes.... oh, yes, I pretty much like most any type of cake, but this Tucson Lemon Cake takes the cake. (Ok, you can laugh at that pun). This cake tastes fabulous with coffee in the morning!

I'll stop rambling now, and just give the recipe. :-)
Ruth




Tucson Lemon Cake
16 servings

Cake Ingredients: 1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup margarine, softened
3 eggs
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup poppy seed
2 Tbl. grated lemon peel
2 Tbl. lemon juice

Lemon Glaze Ingredients:
Mix glaze ingredients together.
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup melted margarine
2 Tbl. grated lemon peel
1/4 cup lemon juice

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 12-cup bundt pan or tube pan 10x4 inches. Beat sugar and margarine until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Mix flour, soda and salt. Beat into sugar mixture alternately with buttermilk. Stir in remaining ingredients except for glaze. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes. Immediately poke holes in cake with a long-tined fork. Pour 2/3 of the glaze over top of cake. Cool. Invert onto plate. Spread with remaining glaze.


Changes we made:

We only used 1/2 the amount of poppy seed that the recipe called for. Poppy seed is rather expensive and we decided to use less so that we could make this cake more often. Does anybody know where to get poppy seed at a good price? Can I save the seeds from poppy plants and use them in baking? I should do a bit of research on this.

We didn't have buttermilk the second time Katie made the cake, so she made her own by mixing some lemon juice with regular milk. I don't remember the ratio, but it's a standard buttermilk substitute.

Vegetables and Quiche

Check out all these pretty vegetables my dad gave me on Tuesday. Dad has a huge garden this year and his plants are just starting to explode with produce. I especially love the broccoli...it's so yummy!
Below is a quiche I made last week. Whenever I make quiche, I use this recipe that I found online once and heavily adapt it to my needs. I like this recipe because it never seems to fail, and it doesn't have any exotic ingredients in it. It's also sized just right for a small quiche for the two of us. For the quiche below, I added fresh tomatoes, fresh spinach, and diced onion as my vegetables...no meat. Note, I always add more then the 2 eggs in the recipe...usually 4 or 5.

Have a great day, friends!
Jessica

What the World Eats

The link below is a facinating TIME photo essay that shows 15 different families from around the world and the foods they will eat in one week. It also shows how much they will spend for that food. Of the two American families shown, one spends $159 a week, and the other spends $341...the least spent is an African family. They only spend $1.23 for their food for one week.

What the World Eats