Wild About Cake!

My daughter is completely obsessed with animal prints, mostly zebra stripes.  For her birthday, she chose a theme with bright pink and purple zebra stripe patterns.  I always like to make her cake myself to match her theme.  After a lot of thought, I decided that I would win the "Awesome Mom" award by making her cake zebra striped ... not the icing, but the cake itself!

I used one cake mix here, and divided it into two bowls.  One has cocoa added for chocolate and one has purple food coloring.  You can also use pureed fruit to color your cake.

The initial instructions depend on how big your cake is going to be.  If you are doing a large cake that requires more than one cake mix, use two different flavors or put food coloring in one mix.  If you are doing a smaller cake, divide the mix into two bowls.

Make sure to grease and flour your pan or baking dish so that the cake comes out easily, and don't forget to preheat your oven!

FYI ... if you try this, purple and chocolate become very similar in color after it is baked.

Start by drizzling one color/flavor into the pan in a stripe pattern.  Some "globs" are ok, because zebra stripes are not perfect, but try to keep them at a minimum.

Continue layering in stripes of batter, alternating colors/flavors.  Make sure not to put too much per layer.  The amount that you see here works very well.

This one is ready for the oven!

After you have layered all of your cake mix, bake according to your mix/recipe instructions.  After it is baked you will immediately see the stripes.

This is a different cake than the one that you saw in "batter stage".  Remember me saying that purple and chocolate are almost the same color after baked?  This one is chocolate and strawberry.

As if it doesn't look amazing enough already, do you want to see what the inside looks like?  Hold onto your hat!

Have you ever seen more beautiful zebra stripes in your life!?  :)

Simple Side - Roasted Veggies

Oven Roasted Red Potatoes

I know the title says "veggies" and the photo is of potatoes.  Blame it on my kids' picky palates!  I titled the post "veggies" because, although I show potatoes in the photo, any veggies would be super yummy!

You Will Need:

• 2 cups veggies, choose your favorites (I like to used red potatoes and carrots)
• 1 to 2 T olive oil (approximately, enough to coat)
• 1 t. onion powder
• 1 t. garlic powder
• 1/2 T dry rosemary
• Salt and pepper to taste

Make It:

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees (remember that all ovens cook differently, 425 is what works with my oven)
2. Wash and cut up your veggies, making sure to keep them consistent in size.  If you are using baby carrots or new potatoes, you may choose to leave them whole.
3. Place your veggies in a bowl and toss them with your seasonings and olive oil.  Adjust seasonings to fit your taste.  You may want to add your favorite or omit one that I use. 
4. Spread coated veggies in a single layer on a sheet pan and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until veggies are tender.  Halfway through cooking, I toss them around a bit.

I'm A Stonyfield Food Superhero!

By going to Stonyfield Farms website and creating a fun Superhero Profile (for free and only takes less than 5 minutes) you can help children have healthy food to eat.  For every profile created, they are donating $1 to Food Corps.  What is Food Corps?  Here it what they say about themselves:

FoodCorps places motivated leaders in limited-resource communities for a year of public service. Working under the direction of local partner organizations, we implement a three-ingredient recipe for healthy kids. Our Service Members:

• Deliver hands-on nutrition education

• Build and tend school gardens

• Bring high-quality local food into public school cafeterias

Our Mission

Through the hands and minds of emerging leaders, FoodCorps strives to give all youth an enduring relationship with healthy food.