Darn Good Chocolate Cake

I didn't come up with the title of this cake (thanks Cake Mix Doctor!), but it really was pretty good. I made this for my mother-in-law's birthday. It was rich, but good. I think vanilla ice cream would be the perfect compliment to it.

Darn Good Chocolate Cake

1 package devil's food cake

1 package (3.9 oz) chocolate pudding mix

4 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a 12 cup bundt pan. Blend the cake mix, pudding, eggs, sour cream, warm water, and oil for a few minutes until well blended. Fold in the chocolate chips until they are well distributed. Bake for about 50 minutes (it took me well over 60, but my oven is so-so), or until it springs back to the touch. Allow it to cool for at least 20 minutes before inverting the pan. Once you take the cake out let it cool completely. I sprinkled some powdered sugar over it so it would be pretty.

Chocolate Oat Bars

Everyone needs a dessert recipe that they can whip up in 15 minutes and requires minimal messes. This is that recipe for me. Everyone who has tried these really likes them, and I like them because they're easy and I don't have to heat up the house.

Chocolate Oat Bars

3/4 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups quick cooking oats

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup PB

Grease a 9x9 pan. Melt the butter in a saucean. Stir in brown sugar and vanilla until combined. Mix in the oats. Cook this on low heat for about 2-3 miutes, or until the oats seemed cooked down a bit. Press 3/4 of the oat mixure into the pan to make the crust.

Melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter over low heat. Pour this over the crust. Sprinkle the rest of the oatmeal mixture on the top. Put this in the fridge until it sets up.

So easy!

Cake Pops

For our friend Saramay's birthday I created cake pops. These have been featured on many blogs before and I've always been itching to make them. Samara picked me up some candy melts in Fairbanks so I could finally make them. I thought they were pretty easy to do and looked impressive. They're sort of time consuming and tedious, but fun as well.

First, you bake a cake and let it cool. I just used a cake mix, so that gives you a rough estimate about how big of a cake to make. Then, once the cake is cooled, you break up the cake in a big bowl and put about a jar of frosting in it. You mash this up until it becomes a sort of sticky mess. I then used my cookie scoop to scoop out balls of the cake mixture. I put these in the freezer for about 15 minutes while I melted the candy melts.

I put the sticks into the candy melts and then poked them into the semi-frozen cake balls. Here is a picture:

I put this back into the freezer until the candy melt hardened up. I then sort of drizzled the candy melt over the cake ball. I tried to dip it, but that ended in sadness. (The cake ball fell off. It was tasty, though.) I then sprinkled some fancy sprinkles on it that my mom gave me. (These tasted like mocha. How fancy!)

Here are all the cake balls lined up in the styrofoam. I poked holes in the styrofoam to allow the cake pops to dry. This worked pretty well.

Overall, I think this was a success. I like how they're fairly simple to make and the possibilities are endless.

Baked Oatmeal

Last weekend Anthony's parents and brother were in Dillingham to see what this rural Alaska business is all about. I wanted to make them something warm and filling for breakfast, but didn't want to have to get up at 5 AM. I found this recipe and gave it a try. I really thought it was pretty good and super easy. The best part about it was I could mix the ingredients the night before then pop it in the oven in the morning. This kept me full all morning and was quite good! (Sorry there are no pictures. It just wasn't on my mind at 6:30 AM.)

Baked Oatmeal (from Cooking Light)

2 cups uncooked oats

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup raisins (I used crasins)

2 tbs chopped almonds

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 cups milk ( I used evaporated with no problem)

1/2 cup applesauce

2 tbs butter, melted

1 large egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 375. Combine the first five ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the milk, applesauce, butter, and egg in a separate bowl. (I then left them separated overnight and combined them in the morning.) Add milk mixture to oat mixture. Combine well and then put into an 8 inch baking dish covered in cooking spray. Bake about 20 minutes.

Easy chicken & Bean Enchiladas

I know the thought of making home made enchiladas is kinda daunting. This is the stress free way of doing it. I even made 2 different types both under 15 minutes (not including cooking time). This is so easy you can do it with the kids. By using left over grilled chicken or left over crockpot chicken you can make this easy and cheap. I like the idea of cooking once and eating twice.

When I asked my friend Saramay what she wanted for her birthday, her answer was for me to cook Mexican food. I can do that. I was basically given free reign to cook what I wanted as long as I showed up at her house on Friday at 6pm with food in hand. I had decided earlier in the week I was going to crock pot a chicken, so I had some left over chicken for this dish. I call it faux enchiladas because a.) I don't use the red enchilda sauce on the chicken and b.) I don't use corn tortillas. So it's more like all things in burrito form with a different style of cheese. I do want to say that my mother-in-law taught me how to make the chicken enchiladas.

Chicken Enchiladas
2 cups of diced/shredded chicken
1 small onion diced
can of cheese soup
16on container of sour cream
1 lb of shredded cheese
1 packages of flour tortillas (taco size is fine, but you can use burrito if you want bigger enchiladas)

In a bowl mix the soup and the sour cream. Reserve 1/2 and put onion, chicken and 1/2 of the shredded cheese in a bowl.Mix thoroughly. Spray down casserole dish with cooking spray. Fill a tortilla with chicken mixture and place seam side down in casserole dish. Continue until you run out of chicken mixture & Tortillas. Take the remaining cheese soup mixture and spread on tortillas. Top with shredded cheese and heat in oven at 350 for 30 minutes or until hot and cheese is melted.


Bean and cheese enchiladas
1 can of black beans (rinsed)
1 small onion (diced)
1 pound shredded cheese
1 can of enchilada sauce (yes, the premade stuff is ok to use--red or green you decide)
flour tortillas

Mix the beans, onion and 1/2 of the shredded cheese. Fill the tortillas with the bean mixture and place seam side down in a casserole that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Continue filling with bean mixture until you run out of beans or tortillas. Top with enchilada sauce. Finish with the remaining shredded cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve this to your vegetarian friends.


Sorry the pictures aren't pretty. I took the uncooked over to a friend's birthday party. It was a huge success.

Fromage Fort--taken from Good Eats

What can I say, I am a sucker for the food network. What foodie isn't? One of my favorite shows is "Good Eats" with Alton Brown. It's like Mr. Wizard and Emeril had a show. It's science and food all rolled in to one. I was fascinated by this particular show due to the high cheese content and the thought of leftover cheese being used before it goes funky.

Gather together:

• One pound of left over cheese at room temperature
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley leaves
• 1 small clove garlic

Remove any rinds from hard cheeses. Grate hard cheeses and cut others into 1/2-inch cubes.


Place cheese, wine, butter, herbs, and garlic in a food processor and blend until smooth, approximately 2 minutes.


Serve immediately or refrigerate for at least 1 hour for a firmer consistency. This can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. I made mine in to balls and garnished with extra herbs.



This stuff was pretty good. I didn't get to eat a lot of it due to a trip in to the interior (that means not the bush of Alaska, but some place on the road system). It was a great way to use up all the cheese I had leftover from recent trips to Anchorage. I would buy cheese in bulk and hope I would get to eat it all before it went funky. There isn't a whole lot of cheese selection here in the DLG, so anytime I make a trip out, I try to pick up a couple pounds. My favorites include: Parrano, (non smoked) Gouda, Cave aged Emmentaler, Butterkaese, Havarti & Parmigiano-Reggiano.