Flourless Gluten-less Passover Cake

Here's a super delicious, super rich cake good for Passover, Pesach, and any other holiday. Also it's super yummy when it's not a holiday. 

It's even gluten free!

Cake Ingredients: 

1 1/4 cup sugar 

8 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips

2 sticks of butter

6 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup cocoa

Glaze Ingredients:

3 tablespoons butter

4 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips

1 tablespoon milk

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Cake:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9 inch cake pan. Line it with parchment paper and then grease the parchment paper. Make sure to grease both the pan and the parchment paper.

Melt the butter with chocolate chips. Add sugar. Mix well. Add eggs a little at a time. Mix well. Add cocoa and stir until well blended. Add to cake pan and bake 35-40 minutes until risen with a firm crust on the top. Cake should be firm in the center. Cool for 10 minutes and then invert onto a plate.

Glaze:

Melt chocolate chips and butter. Stir in milk, honey, and vanilla. Pour glaze over cake. Decorate with chocolate chips if desired. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes before serving. 

Our Kitchen Renovation Has Leaked Out All Over the Living Room (and the Demise of "Dat Be Nice")

Well people, what can I say?  I tried out the link party thing, and although I enjoy it, it really does take up a lot of time.

I really don't want to do this thing if I can't do right by the people who take the time to link up.  I've pinned and commented and shared.  And while as the cliché goes, it's been real and it's been fun...my toddler ("Me not baby!") is jealous of the time spent.

And so...I'm putting out this one last Dat Be Nice so I don't leave anyone who comes by hanging.

Mean time, here are the features from last week!

Most clicked and my favorite (I might do this one with my class!) were cupcakes for the birds from Crafts a la Mode:

Fun, right?

And most pinned were these yummy looking cookies from Shoestring Elegance that I will definitely have to try making kind of soonish, because my Partner in Crime adores shortbread:

Meanwhile, in the home renovations department...for reasons too long and boring to explain, we can not move forward on the kitchen cabinets.  But my Partner in Crime did get a bunch of outlets put into the one-day kitchen:

We moved all of the books out of the study.  Who'da' thunk that so much dust could collect behind books in a mere 6 years or so?

And we moved them somewhere totally more convenient (like the middle of the doorway to the living room), so that we could have tile put in.

Also my Partner in Crime installed an extra shelf in my closet:

So that now I do the majority of my crafting in the bathroom.

And that's about what's been going on around here!

I have a real, honest to goodness old school Twipply Skwood silly sign picture in the works, along with some soon to be taken photos of the tile.  But that will have to wait since this post is already way too long.

Please link up if you are so inclined and thank you folks who are bearing with me as I explore all the terrain that Blogsilvania has to offer!

An InLinkz Link-up

How One of My Kids Might Have Turned Out Semi-Okay So Far Despite me.

Once upon a time that handsome teenage boy-o-mine in the sidebar used to be a cute baby that I apparently never listened to.The person next to him is the Sweet Pea, who more or less always demanded that you listen to her.

So one day I'm pulling out of the drive through ATM and I hear a little voice from the back seat,

"Ah LEDDER! Ah ledder Mama! Mama! It wote you ah LEDDER!!!! Aaaaah LEDDERRRRRRRR!"

I wondered what the baby was squawking about, but not enough to turn back around to see. If I HAD pulled back around to see, I would have found out that the letter he was talking about was the machine spitting back out my ATM card. But instead, I got a phone call from the bank later.

The second time we were at the grocery store. Kroger had bulk bins back then and I began my shopping trip by scooping out some kind of nuts or trail mix or whatever when I suddenly screamed and dropped my bag of bulk food. There were BUGS in the bin!

I recovered from the trauma, did the rest of my shopping, checked out, and suddenly realized I couldn't find my car keys. I searched the store, checking the aisles bemoaning our fate of obvious food poisoning as our milk, eggs, or whatever perishables I had in the cart got warmer and warmer.

In desperation, I asked the baby in the cart, "Jared, did you see what happened to my keys?" As if none of the frantic searching had even occurred, he calmly answered, "I think you put them by the peanuts."

I hadn't, in fact, "put them" by the peanuts. I had dropped them when I screamed. There they were right there on the floor by the bulk bins and we were free to go home in time not to spoil the food and end up in the hospital from rotten eggs.

Happily ever after. Except, I probably still don't listen to him enough.

I have six papers due plus my boy's bar mitzvah all in the next eight days. So how can I really be expected to think up a decent title I ask you?!?

When I mentioned my need to learn to plan a bar mitzvah in two and a half weeks, my friend Beth came up with this helpful hint:

I think first and foremost, you give everyone the wrong time and then print up correction postcards and forget to mail them. Isn't that the way you do it?

And that is exactly, exactly what I did!!!! So I'm good there.

But I'm not the only one working hard on this event. My boy has been studying practically since he was born. The-Guy is acting as his personal postman. Older Gal is tempering our bad moods with baked goods.

And of course my Sweet Pea is doing her darndest to free up beds for relatives. She does this by making herself at home (as usual) in the ER. (A door closed on her foot, but don't worry, she's fine):Even the good for nothing cat is pulling his weight, by reminding us that you should not forget to stop and smell the roses.
Eat some too. They're delicious.

And when you're done, feel free to drink some of the water from the vase. 'Cause all those rose petals make a body very thirsty. Apparently.
Plus, the roses are decimated anyway, so how much water could they really need?

Hope everyone has had a nice week! Thank you for the good thoughts for my friend - it will still be a long road, but so far so good!!

My First Ever Post With Sports In It. Ever.

When I get tired of sitting around and looking cute at home, I have to sit around and look cute somewhere else. Anderson Fair is always a nice change, especially if Michael Fracasso is playing.If you're into one-guy-with-one-guitar-singing-thoughtful-poetic-stuff, you SO should have been there. I know you weren't, because only about ten people were there, and you weren't one of them (unless you happen to be my cousin Bernard). But don't worry! He'll be back in February!

I sat around and looked cute at a Houston Texans game. We even won, which, if you're a Houston sports fan you know is totally and completely unexpected (no matter who we're playing).Getting there required sitting around and looking cute on the light rail.There was some walking involved too, actually.

The-Guy and I saw a horse in the center of downtown Houston, right near the tracks:Did you see him? He's at the far edge on the right:When I get tired altogether of sitting around and looking cute, sometimes I have to bake something. This is full of broccoli: It's not usually that phallic looking, but I made this one for a party. I thought skinny would be better for a party bread.

That was my weekend! Next weekend my classes start back up, so I'll be attempting to write papers while looking cute. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Mostly, I Just Sit Around and Look Cute

We had a few friends over recently and they asked about quite a bit of stuff that tends to escape me. We had conversations like this:

Friend - "So have you had the air conditioner off the past few weeks now?"
Me - "I'm not really sure. I don't really do the thermostat. The-Guy's in charge of all that."

And I had this conversation with another friend:

Friend - "Come show me how to use your coffee maker!"
Me (following her enthusiastically, as if I might actually be of some assistance) - "I know we have to press a lot of buttons. I don't really know how, actually. If The-Guy's not home, I just drink coffee at work."

And then there was this conversation:

Friend - "This friend of mine said it's really expensive to heat her pool. She says it costs her like $200 every time she does it."
Me - (blank look)
Friend - "But maybe you have a different kind of heater?"
Me - "I didn't even know we HAD a pool heater until my boy told me today."

In my defense, I was fine and good with apartment living, where lots and lots of life-spackle happens magically and without thought. It was The-Guy who thought that perhaps five people and two cats might not live entirely harmoniously in a two bedroom apartment.

And I do some stuff. I cook dinner MOST week nights. It also tends to fall to me to plan the attack against the vast amounts of paper that infiltrate our house via US Mail, children's backpacks and the like.

Far be it from me to actually GROW anything in any of The-Guy's beautiful and prolific gardens, but I do cook some of the stuff he grows.

I also take pictures of the non-food items:


I play taxi in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. I do a lot of the scheduling.

I've fixed a toilet or two and I picked out the color paint for the bathroom. And I did paint our living room green. But mostly, I just sit around and look cute. Apparently.

We Have Not-Wedding Photos!

Yeah, so people keep asking me about wedding photos and look! We got one!
We're going to get more later.* But we got getting-ready-for-the-wedding-photos. They're very, very much like wedding photos, except without the men (most notably the groom, which I understand is a requirement for many, many weddings).

Here are me, my mom, my gals, and an unidentified small cousin's feet**:






That's it for now! Hope everyone is having a great weekend and happy new year to anyone celebrating Rosh Hashannah!

*Actually, Jeff accidentally made a liar out of me, because he sent more after I scheduled this to post itself! So...more to come soon!
**Because I don't know how mom feels about small-cousin's picture on the internet. Otherwise her picture would be all over this post because she's adorable!

Some Jews Do Fix Stuff. But not that many I gather.

I think I've mentioned that The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken commands the plants around here. He told them to do this:
And this:

And this:

And this:
And they did, because he's in charge.

And he even told them to grow food, like this:
And this:And the plants did it, because they listen.

And then a few weeks ago I was out to dinner with some coworker-friends and I volunteered The-Guy to build something on our school playground. Apparently fixing stuff is not a Jewish thing to do.

The woman who teaches in the classroom next door to me interrogated the other women around the table, "Does your husband fix stuff?!?!?!" Everyone answered no, except my friend Missy.

But the other teacher was not so easily placated. About Missy's husband she said, "Well he's not Jewish. That doesn't count!" Apparently marrying someone Jewish does not impede one from performing household repairs.

She wanted to know if I was SURE The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken was Jewish. He is. AND he's remodeling the bathroom. I didn't get a before picture showing the ugly wallpaper and mildewy shower door. But here's a halfway in the middle picture:"After" pictures coming soon! By the way, does anyone need any fresh yellow summer squash?

This Blog is a Bargain. Apparently.

While innocently doing my schoolwork this weekend, I ran across an article on making a living by blogging. "Don't expect to make more than $50,000," it warned. But, it said, you mostly have to write about certain things to make a living. Let's see...they were sex, famous people, and something else I can't remember.

So yeah. My family sat three rows behind Lyle Lovett and his mom in the (totally awesome) Anderson Fair movie last weekend!!!!

And I have a whole category on dating and another on vibrating boobs. Does that make this blog worth $50,000?

No? Drat! I wish I could remember what that third thing was...

Anyhow, DJ Kirkby came over here looking for pictures of homemade tortillas awhile back. This is what I do for those kids o' mine: I make them a few dozen tortillas most every Sunday to pack in their lunches. (Recipe here!)Also, I took a bunch of pictures of mailboxes. I guess I was just impressed that they were all more or less on the same block of the same street.

I took this one's picture out of pity. It looked a little sad.

This is the one that originally caught my interest.

It's quite a variety for one street, isn't it?

I saw the Anderson Fair movie, The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken miraculously installed a shower door without even cursing a bunch or running back to the hardware store for something he didn't know he needed, and I wrote more essays for school than you can shake a stick at. That's been our week so far - hope you're having a good one!