Friendship Cake

Friendship Cake

Cake Ingrediants: You need two sets of these ingrediants.

• 
  
  3 cups flour


• 
  
  4 teaspoons baking powder


• 
  
  1/4 teaspoon salt


• 
  
  1 Cup butter


• 
  
  1 Cup sugar


• 
  
  2 teaspoons vanilla


• 
  
  1 1/3 Cups light cream


• 
  
  8 egg whites


• 
  
  food coloring

Frosting Ingrediants:

• 
  
  4 packages of cream cheese


• 
  
  1 Cup butter


• 
  
  5 - 6 Cups powdered sugar


• 
  
  1 Tablespoon Vanilla

To make the Cake:

1.) Mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside

2.) Beat butter for 30 seconds with electric mixer, Add 1 cup sugar and vanilla, beat until fluffy. Add the flour mixture and light cream to mixture, beating on low speed after each ingrediant is added to mixture.

3.) In a large bowl, beat egg whites on medium until soft peaks form. Gradually add 1 Cup sugar until peaks are stiff. Gently fold egg whites (about 1/4 at a time) into creamed mixture.

4.) Divide mixture into 3 greased 9 inch round pans. Add red, orange and yellow food coloring to the mixtures. Stir color in evenly. Back 25 minutes. Cool layers in pans for about 10 minutes than remove and allow to cool on wire rack.

Repeat steps 1 - 4 to make 3 addional layers for Friendship Cake. Use green blue and purple food coloring in step 4.

To make the frosting:

1.) Mix together butter and cream cheese unti well combined

2.) Add vanilla

3.) Gradually add in powdered sugar. Taste frosting after 5th cup and add 6th cup to your liking.

To Assemble the Cake:

1.) Even out the cakes using a large bread knife. Make sure they're the same depth throughout the whole layer so that the color looks even when cake is assebled.

2.) Place purple layer on plate. Add enough frosting to cover the layer with some spill over hte edges. Smooth out the frosting

3.) Add the blue layer on top of the frosted purple one, repeat frosting process

4.) Put the cake in refrigerator for 2+ hours or in freezer for 1 hour

5. & 6.) Repeat with green and yellow layers

7.) Put the cake in refrigerator for 2+ hours or freezer for 1 hour.

8. & 9.) Repeat with orange and then red layers.

Smooth frosting over whole cake and then there you go... Friendship (or rainbow) Cake!

Photo borrowed from Jennifer as I have not remembered to photograph my cake!

Refrigerating the cake between layers is imperative! If you skip this step the cake will get all wobbly and squished looking by the yellow layer - not pretty! Believe me, I know!

To speed up the process you can always use two boxes of cake mix, but I prefer the homemade cake taste!

My New Favorite Shampoo and Conditioner!

I am quite excited to tell all of you about a few of my new favorite things. Let me show you a picture before I get started, this is my new Shampoo and Conditioner:

I know, I know, it sounds crazy! Baking Soda? Apple Cider Vinegar? Believe me, when I first stumbled upon this crazy idea my initial reaction was astoundingly negative. I love shampoos and conditioners; they lather, they smell good, they make my hair silky smooth. Basically I thought it was just about the craziest hair care idea I had ever heard...until.... A few of the HHH gals and I were chatting and visiting one afternoon and I just happened to mention this idea to them. Lo and behold, not only had they heard of washing your hair with baking soda and then conditioning it with apple cider vinegar (acv), but Sondra told me that she had been using acv as a weekly rinse for years! After mulling it over and reading up on the baking soda/acv combo, I decided to try it out for myself. Almost three months later I couldn't be happier with the condition, cleanliness, and look of my hair. Give it try and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

Before you go jump in the shower with your box of soda and bottle of acv let me tell you what I've learned and how I went about making the transition. First off you will have to try, try, and try again. Experiment with how much or little you use of the baking soda. Figuring out what method to use to get the soda and acv from their original containers onto my head was a trial and error process for me. Take some time and don't get discouraged when you try three ways before settling on one that works for you. (What works best for me is to dump a bunch of baking soda into a small Tupperware container, I then added a little bit of water at a time until I got a paste, I popped the lid on and store it my shower. For the acv I took a squeeze bottle and filled it one quarter of the way full with acv, then I filled it to the top with water, I popped the lid on and store that it my shower as well. Easy!)

Baking soda does not lather, that took some getting used to, but it works for me now. You'll have to experiment with how much or how little you use in your hair, and how often you wash your hair. I'll warn you that I found for me and my scalp, using too much/too often dried my skin out a bit. Now I wash my hair with a few globs of paste every two or three days. (just take a bit and rub it onto your scalp, into your roots, and work it through your hair. Make sure to really drench your hair before putting the baking soda on your hair. I work the soda through my hair, drench my head again, and leave it sit while I shave my legs).

For the acv, some people use it just once every two or three washings. Again, for me and my scalp, I use the acv every time I use the baking soda. Sometimes I just pour the acv over my head and immediately rinse it out again, if I feel my scalp is particularly dry I'll let it sit for just a minute before rinsing. The acv truly leaves my hair as shiny and silky as any conditioner.

Okay now, go on, grab your baking soda, grab your acv, grab your rubber ducky, and go jump in the shower. I doubt you'll turn back!

Welcome to Random Recipe!

After much consideration, the bloggers at HHH have decided to begin a weekly feature! I am very excited to be the inaugural poster of what we have, in fact, dubbed "Random Recipe." Look for this post to show up once a week by a different member of HHH. Our recipes can be of the traditional kind; ie: a recipe for homemade food, or it can detail a recipe of the more handmade sort: an all-purpose, natural cleaning formula, for instance. We hope you will enjoy reading about it as much as we'll enjoy posting!

This past weekend was Valentine's Day, and instead of going out, my husband and I decided to stay in and cook one of our favorite meals: Stuffed Shells Arrabbiata. I thought about posting the entire recipe on here, but it's somewhat involved AND it incorporates two separate recipes, as we use a homemade marinara sauce in it. I thought the Marinara Sauce would be an ideal first posting, because it is ridiculously adaptable and can be a good base for anything from spaghetti to meatball subs to lasagna. So, here in all its wonderful glory, is the first recipe of Random Recipes!

The Infinitely Adaptable Marinara Sauce
(Basic Version)

2 (28-oz) cans crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
5 garlic cloves, finely chopped or pressed
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
A glug or two of wine (this is technically optional but we usually put it on our sauce each time! We use either red or white wine...whatever you have on hand is fine as long as it's something you'd actually enjoy drinking. Try to avoid bottles labeled "cooking wine" because they tend to be super-salty and not anything you'd ever pour in a glass and relax with after a hard day!)

Heat the oil in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and saute until tender. Stir in the tomatoes, oregano and sugar; add the glug of wine and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Decrease the heat to medium and continue simmering until the sauce thickens. Stir occasionally for about 10 minutes. Season the sauce to taste with salt and pepper.

That's the basic version, but really you can add lots of different ingredients to customize it! Here are some ideas:

~Adding fresh basil (roll a few leaves up and slice them across to create a chiffonade to go in the sauce)
~Substituting 1 (28-oz) can of whole or chopped tomatoes to add a chunkier component to the overall texture of the sauce.
~Adding pancetta or bacon (saute it before you get to work on the garlic and onion and add it to the sauce)
~Incorporate mushrooms into the sauce by also sauteeing them with the onions and garlic
~To make it spicy, add red pepper flakes
~Roast red peppers or tomatoes and incorporate them into the sauce in its final stages of simmering.
~Add, along with the oregano or in place of it, thyme or rosemary.

And there are many more variations! As I said, Carl and I added red pepper flakes and pancetta to create a spicy sauce for our stuffed shells. Yum! On a side note, one of my favorite stories from my fabulous HHH friend Nicole is about how her grandmother, whom she grew up with, always made her own homemade tomato sauce. Nicole actually says she didn't realize until a shockingly late age that you could buy tomato sauce jarred in stores! She thought everyone grew their own tomatoes and mixed up their own sauce at home; or at least everyone should. Well, it's the dead of winter and I can't grow my own tomatoes, but canned tomatoes are the next best thing. Nicole and her grandmother were right: there is nothing to the taste of homemade marinara sauce. Also, if you look in grocery stores, many jars are pretty expensive. At my local grocery store, I've even noticed some of the "upscale" sauces being sold for as high as $8.99 or even $9.99 per jar. Ridiculous! This homemade sauce is a fraction of the price and tastes amazing.

Enjoy!

A Love Affair with Etsy

My wonderful friend and fellow HHH member, Sondra, turned me on to Etsy, "Your Place to Buy and Sell all things Handmade", an amazing virtual marketplace. I have been hooked on Etsy ever since my first visit. I've purchased quite a few things, mostly gifts, from Etsy, but my most recent purchase is what I am here to blog about today!

The I Love Books Zippered Pouch, by Kukubee

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kukubee

I am a librarian at a public library and was recently given the opportunity to interview for a promotion.... and..... I got it!!! I am now the Assistant Manager of Outreach Services. This is something I've worked very hard for and am very proud of. I thought that all of my stress and hard work deserved a new special something and I absolutely fell in love with this cute little pouch!

The design is just adorable. On the front of the pouch is a girl reading a book, sitting on and surrounded by stacks of books. The text reads, I Love Books.

Front of pouch

Back of pouch

What I love so much about this, is that it is handmade and very unique. I can't wait to whip it out in front of my librarian friends!! It is just perfect for small items like pens/pencils, lip gloss or even change.

"I've traveled the world twice over,

Met the famous; saints and sinners,

Poets and artists, kings and queens,

Old stars and hopeful beginners,

I've been where no-one's been before,

Learned secrets from writers and cooks

All with one library ticket

To the wonderful world of books."

Anonymous

And the Adventure Begins

It was a bitterly cold Saturday in January when 3 of the 4 lovely ladies got together to make laundry detergent, shaving cream and deodorant. From scratch, purely natural - homemade!

Our Ingredients:

But for today, we'll talk about the laundry detergent.

Here are those ingredients, along with the finished product:

3 ingredients?
Is it really that easy?
Does it work?

I will give you a resounding yes to all three questions!

First you need to shave one bar of soap. A cheese grater works great for this. We'd recommend using a cheese grater you don't plan on using for cheese anymore, but to each his own.

Then combine the shaved soap with 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of washing soda. Mix it all together and then it is ready to use! The recipe calls for using two tablespoons a load but I've found that leaves a little residual detergent on the clothes and in the machine, resulting in the need for an extra rinse cycle - which then makes me a water-waster :( So for small loads I've found one tablespoon works perfectly and for medium and large loads i use 1 1/2 tablespoons. The clothes come out clean smelling, and may I mention super soft - and I love soft clothes.

See, I told you it was easy!

On a side note, my baby Gabe has eczema and while I haven't used this yet for his clothes (I'll admit I'm a little nervous - his skin is SO sensitive) I've used it for all of mine and Matt's clothes and all the blankets and he's had no reaction whatsoever. And he loves to rub his face on your shoulder or on blankets, so his face would certainly be indicative of a reaction by now if he was sensitive to the detergent! Can I tell you how excited I am that we'll be able to switch from using Seventh Generation (which I love but is so expensive)?

Vintage Button Jewlery!

A tiny obsession has recently started to find it's way into my daily accessorizing: Vintage buttons.

Sondra was the first to introduce me to jewelry (specifically, bracelets) made from Vintage Buttons. ButtonDownDesigns immediately grabbed my attention and I soon acquired a pink and white bracelet from Emilie Illson's shop. On her website, Emilie describes her bracelets as "Art for your wrist," I couldn't think of a truer portrayal for her creations. Emilie's handiwork was present at the Artisan Affair held at St. Bernadette Parrish in Cleveland, I met the artist (and purchased my bracelet) while at the Artisan Affair. Each piece from ButtonDownDesigns is crafted with care and thought, a personal note is sent along with each bracelet detailing where and when the buttons in your piece collected. If you can't find what you're looking for or if you have something specific in mind the artist will work with you to create the perfect match for your style and personality. It doesn't get much better than having a lovely piece of jewelry created just for you!

After visiting our friend, Maggie, in another large Ohio city she led me to another button jewelry artist. (I am quickly learning that many people in many different cities make amazing pieces of fashion from vintage buttons! If you know of any other artists working with buttons as their medium, let me know about them! Now that I've got it started I can't wait to add to my Button Bracelet Collection!) Back to Maggie, she sent along a link for Bella Bella Mosaics. Bella Bella Mosaics features mosaic paintings, mixed media collages, clocks, fountains, mirrors, AND Button Jewelry! Necklaces and bracelets are featured on Bella Bella's website, they are quite different from the orderly ButtonDownDesign pieces. Bella Bella uses wire and multiple types of buttons on each bracelet, creating a unique look and design for each piece.

I am truly in love with both of my button bracelets and hope that you can soon enjoy a piece of button fashion for yourself!

This picture showcases the back of each bracelet.
Each button on "In the Pink" is sewn onto the elastic band.
The bracelet from Bella Bella Mosiacs is secured with lots and
lots of wire - but not to worry - the bracelet is surprisingly
comfortable. It will mold to your wrist in no time at all!

The featured Bella Bella design was created using buttons with blues or black, the white buttons all have a black design on them, and the blues are in varying shades- all matching together quite nicely.

The ButtonDownDesigns bracelet came with a handwritten card explaining about the buttons used: "In the Pink" This bracelet feature 24 buttons dating from the 1930's and 40's. The 6 tiny white ones are the most rare. They are dolls buttons circa 1930.

A Little Bit of Poland on a Cold Winter's Night

It's a bitterly cold winter in Ohio and I rarely go outside unless I have a very good reason. Luckily for me, Saturday night provided just the occasion --- a trip to Sokolowski's in Tremont. Sokolowski's is one of my absolute favorite restaurants. It has been around and operated by the Sokolowski family since 1923. It's an old house, and the tables and booths are set up in all of the different rooms. Most fun and interesting of all, the restaurant serves food cafeteria-style. While waiting in line, you can take in all of the memorabilia hanging on the walls. You can find pictures of famous people who have dined there, Cleveland sports souvenirs from the past 70 years and all sorts of other diversions. We needed the diversions on Saturday, as the line for the food snaked all throughout the house, ending at the entrance of the restaurant. I was momentarily sad and disheartened, but I do have to admit that the line moved relatively quickly. We got there at 7 and were grabbing our tray at 7:45, and when you consider that sometimes places like Applebee's have 45 minute waits on Saturdays, it makes you feel all the better to wait a comparable time for a family-run restaurant whose food far surpasses any chain. Essentially, the food is soooooooooo completely amazing! My husband and I both got the breaded pork chops, which I guarantee are the most heavenly pork chops you will ever have. First of all, the entree comes with 2 of them, and they are breaded in a coating almost akin to stuffing. When you cut into them, they are so tender that the meat is literally falling apart. I know we've all probably had experiences of pork being anything but tender, as it is very easy to overcook and dry out, so that's saying something! Each entree comes with 2 sides and a roll. The rolls themselves are delicacies: super dense and doughy and coated in a garlic butter. Divine! Also, each meal comes with the salad bar, which Carl and I turned down on Saturday since our plates were so huge with the main course. All considered though, we got 2 pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a roll for $12.99. You can't beat that! We ate out with Carl's family, and their entrees also looked phenomenal. All told, you can choose from main courses like meatloaf, ribs, kielbasa, pierogies, chicken paprikash, prime rib and chicken portabella. Also, we gave into temptation and grabbed a slice of cheesecake at the beginning of the line (desserts are laid out at the beginning where you grab your tray...they all look fabulous) The cheesecake was Polish style with a layer of sour cream topping the cheesecake layer. I have a Polish Cheesecake recipe from my Great-Grandma Anna and the sour cream layer is imperative, at least in my book. As is everything at Sokolowski's, it tasted heavenly. Polish cheesecake recipes are generally creamy as opposed to dense; the extra creaminess comes from folding whipped egg whites into the cheese layer. The silkiness of the cheese paired with the tang of the sour cream layer is a magnificent taste explosion. Sokolowski's went a step further and topped their cheesecake with sour cherries. Yum! Megan and her husband are planning on taking Carl and I for Sushi soon, but I can't wait to take them to Sokolowski's! I love sharing food finds with great friends!