This is one of my favorite cakes to bake in the summertime. I’m not a huge fan of biscuit based shortcakes, but pairing berries with this deliciously, buttery, moist pound cake is one of the best ways, in my opinion, to sweeten up the summer.
This cake is pretty easy to throw together, and the beauty of it is, it can be made a day or two ahead of when you need it, or frozen for up to a couple of months, and it still tastes perfectly delicious when it’s time to eat.
I made this dish purely out of skepticism.
I recently received the America’s Test Kitchen: Slow Cooker Revolution cookbook as a gift on Mother’s Day from my girls, because I guess they’ve heard that I like to cook!
If you’re an avid reader of this blog, you know that I love America’s Test Kitchen. They are some crazy smart food people over there. I’ve never made anything of theirs that hasn’t been good, so when I saw this recipe for a french toast casserole in a Crock Pot, I was really skeptical. I mean, I love my Crock Pot, I really do, but some things just don’t work in it…and a lot of recipes I’ve tried in it just come out tasting like flavorless mush. When thinking of French toast in a slow cooker, I had visions of rubbery eggs and mushy bread. It wasn’t a pretty vision.
My girls are fairly decent vegetable eaters. Emily will try more than Avery, but that’s the case with every food, not just veggies. Asparagus, though, is one vegetable that they consistently turn their noses up at. Since I’m a big ol’ meanie, I make different asparagus dishes every year, knowing that at some point, they’ll come to the dark (green) side.
This pasta dish helped…a bit. The smoky, melty cheese and salty prosciutto added so much flavor to the dish, that they didn’t seem bothered by the asparagus. In fact, Emily even ate some of it! (One out of two ain’t bad, right?)
I love this cake. My husband loves this cake. My children love this cake.
I’m guessing a lot of other people do too, and that’s how it got its name. It certainly is yummy, and it’s a pretty impressive dessert for being so simple to put together. It’s a great dessert for a crowd, or pot luck, because you can make it ahead of time and it actually tastes better the longer you let it hang out in the fridge!
We’ve now reached the chapter in our pre-move process where it’s crucial to try to use up what we have in the fridge/freezer and in the pantry. This is a super meal for times like these, if you happen to have these items hanging around. If not, well, groceries don’t get much cheaper than Ramen noodles.
(Contrary to popular belief, you can consume Ramen noodles in the comfort of your grown up home…not just off of a hot plate in a college dorm room.)
My kids love twisty, twirly Ramen noodles, and I love when I can turn something simple into something delicious. This dinner was a win-win.
The weather may be warming up, but I’m still a sucker for a good bowl of soup, even when the temperature rises. The key is bringing some of that fresh spring/summer flavor into the soup to brighten it up. This recipe does that perfectly, and the fact that you can throw it together in no time flat, and go from stove top to table in less than 20 minutes is pretty fantastic, regardless of the time of year.
My Grandma was a wonderful cook. It’s been sixteen years since she passed away, but I still remember Sunday dinners at her house like it was yesterday. I remember crowding in, knee to knee, around her tiny dining room table, with my parents, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. We’d dive into course after delicious course, and the sounds of laughter and love would fill the house.
(She was Italian, and in case you haven’t heard, Italian people like to eat.)
We’ve gotten to the point in our pre-move period where I’m trying, desperately, to limit what I’m buying at the grocery store. I’m attempting to go through what I have in my cupboards and freezer and buy as little “new” as possible. One of the items I need to move through is a gigantic bag of frozen chicken breasts from Costco. You know the bag I’m talking about, right?
That’s a lot of chicken.
I try to change up what I put on this blog, so that you’re not seeing chicken dish after chicken dish week after week. If you start seeing chicken dish after chicken dish in the coming weeks, now you know why! (Sorry about that!)
Little did I know, that when I planned to make this for dinner, it would turn out to not only be delicious, but the perfect dinner for a night when the unexpected happened.
Just a couple of days before my car died, I remember thinking, “Wow, the battery in this car sure has lasted a long time. I’m surprised I haven’t been stranded somewhere yet.”
You can guess what happened next, right?
Well, March certainly has roared in like a lion this year. Blizzards, thunderstorms, tornadoes….ugh. I’m so ready to put wintery food behind me for the year, but when it continues to be wet and blustery, I just want warm and cozy at dinner.
Dinners don’t get much cozier than this. Tender pork tenderloin, browned with juicy, sweet pears and then finished off in a vanilla cider cream sauce? Yes, please.