Yesterday the vehicle malfunctioned, so I took the day off from work. I worked my tail off at the house and was able to find my kitchen countertops again. To celebrate, I decided to bake a cake.

I had read about using a can of Diet Coke with a cake mix to bake the cake. Forget the oil and eggs, all you needed it a liquid. Apparently when cake mixes first came out, all you had to do was add water. They didn’t sell well since no one seemed to trust just adding water. So they changed the instructions and cake mixes sold a lot better.

Since I had a few cake mixes left over from my daughter’s birthday party ( I bought a cake instead of making one), I had everything I needed to give it a try. Aside from burning the bottom of the cake, it turned out pretty good. The cake tastes like cake although there is something different. It’s not bad – just different. Maybe not as heavy as cake usually is? It has a lighter taste. I would definitely make another one using Diet Coke instead of eggs and oil. That saves about 60 calories a serving.

Now to find an alternative for icing as icing really does make cake delicious and delightful.

There is one easy way to relieve some of the stress of the holidays – have your meal catered. Let someone else cook while you enjoy visiting with relatives. I do enjoy cooking occasionally and find I am more in the mood during the holidays. I don’t cook a lot since we always go to visit family during Thanksgiving. If I ever have to cook, then I will seriously consider letting someone else do it.

Have you been to the grocery store this week? I’m sure it’s a mad house. It is around here. Everyone is getting ready for the big meal. Just think if it was catered, you could avoid all the shopping madness. I had to run to the store yesterday. Today I’ve decided that we can do without whatever for a few days. It is just not worth the headache.

Having Thanksgiving catered is one way to relieve stress. Let someone else worry about the food. Sounds like a plan to me.

When I made the panda cake, I needed a few eggs. I checked the date on the egg carton and it was past that date by a few days. I wasn’t sure if the eggs were still good, so I do what I always do when I have a cooking/food question. I asked my mom.

She told me that besides from the smell, you can tell an egg is bad if it won’t stay together once it is cracked. The yoke will separate. She also said she always cracks her eggs in a bowl and then pours them into whatever she is making. This way she can check the eggs and also fish out any egg shells that may have fallen.

My eggs were still good and the cake turned out great. And I picked up a tip on how to tell if eggs are bad.

Ever since I first heard of E-Mealz, I wanted to sign up. As usual, I obsessed over actually joining and then decided not to. After all, I stay at home. I can plan my own meals. It really doesn’t take that long. The problem with planning meals is that it does take longer than I like. If I do with what I know, then it takes less time, but we eat the same meals again and again. I finally decided that it would be worth the $15 to try it for 3 months. That breaks down to $1.25 a week – not a bad deal to have an answer to “What’s for dinner?” that my husband insists on asking at least twice a week.

I chose the low card 5 meals a week plan for two. My daughter hardly eats anything I cook, so there is no need in cooking more. My husband is technically not doing low carb, but he will eat whatever is cooked.

The plan comes with five meals, ingredients list, and instructions. The shopping list prints out on a separate sheet of paper. I love how it gives a cost estimation. Friday will be my next trip to the grocery store and my first using E-Mealz. I’m looking forward to it. It will be nice to have a complete grocery list and meals planned for next week. I could definitely get used to this.

We are dieting in our house. We are not eating on the same plan. I have opted to do Atkins and have lost 25 pounds so far (Yeah me). My husband is trying the Mediterranean Diet which includes eating a lot of pasta, bread, and rice – all no-nos on Atkins. Since I do most of the cooking, I needed to find a way to cook both of our foods without using the stove. I’m determined not to turn it on this hot, hot summer. Luckily I ran across a product called Pasta Perfectat a local thrift store. It was still in the box, so for $1.69 I decided to give it a try.

You put in your pasta and then add hot boiling water. Then put the strainer top on followed by the cap. Then wrap with the insulated hugger. It came with a cookbook that has listed the amount of time needed to cook various pasta. I’ve used it twice so far. I works great and cooks the pasta. I just heat up the water in the microwave. I always cook way too much pasta when I cook on the stove top. With Pasta Perfect, I measure out a bowl and then add it to the cylinder. Clean up is so easy since it’s just one container. The first time I even used whole wheat pasta, and it turned out pretty good. I have to take my husband’s word for it since I didn’t eat any.

So between the Pasta Perfect and the grill, I can cook us both meals without having to touch the oven. That’s definitely a positive since it is already pretty hot and it’s not even July yet.

Sometimes it pays to run out of an ingredient and have to borrow from your neighbor – in this case my neighbor is my mom. I went to make biscuits when I realized I was out of flour, so I borrowed some of hers. Lo and behold my biscuits tasted better. Could flour really make that much of a difference? Apparently so.

For a lot of ingredients I just put up the no-name brand and flour is one of them. There are some that I’ve come to realize that it’s best to have the quality of that brand instead of saving a few cents. I found out my mom uses White Lily self rising flour. I had been using self-rising flour, too. But my flour was a generic brand. Now I use White Lily since it does make a huge difference in how my biscuits look and bake.

My biscuits still aren’t nearly as good as my mom’s. My mom would tell me it’s from 50 years of cooking that her biscuits taste the way they do. I have a few more years to go but at least now with better ingredients my biscuits are on track to one day be comparable to hers.

I was watching “Red Eye” last night on the DVR so I guess it was Monday’s night program. Anyway they had the host of the A & E show “Hoarders” on there. He was talking about how some people are compelled to buy a certain item and gave an example of a woman who has 500 pair of scissors.

Now I love to buy measuring cups but my “collection” is not nearly that large. In fact, it’s under 10. But having multiple measuring cups make meal preparation just a little easier. I can measure out several items at the same time. Also I don’t have to clean up a measuring cup to re-use it immediately for another ingredient. The downside is that there are a few more dishes to do. But it’s a trade off. I’d rather do a few more dishes if that means that I can get done cooking faster.

I usually pick up measuring cups at rummage sales and thrift stores especially if they are in good condition. So I wouldn’t say I’m compulsive about buying measuring cups. Right now I have plenty. It really does make cooking easier to have more than one measuring cup.

One of my favorite desserts is Key Lime Pie. Usually we just buy it frozen or by the slice. Recently I decided to make one from scratch.

Key Lime Pie is very simple to make especially if you use an already made graham cracker crust. The most difficult part is squeezing the limes. The recipe I was using didn’t have a meringue. To me it really needed it or at the very least a whipped topping.

Also I didn’t have a proper zester so I think a lot of the white part of the lime made it into the zest. This is very bitter. So before I tried my second attempt, I bought two things – a zester and a juicer(manual). I also topped it with meringue, too.

The juicer – even if it was manual – helped greatly with squeezing the limes. It was so much easier than trying to do it by hand. I didn’t use as much zest on the second one and mainly used it on top of the pie. I’ll be making this again soon. It’s a great summer dessert.

Blueberries are in season and so our blueberry bushes are full of them. Since we’ve moved to the country, I’ve been wanting to do more cooking and country-life activities. So since we had an abundance of blueberries, I decided to make some blueberry jam. This would be my first attempt at making jam and canning. First I picked and washed the blueberries.

After preparing the jars, I cooked the blueberry jam with a ton of sugar, pectin, and lemon juice.

After adding the sugar, I then noticed that my pot was way too small, so I began to dump out some of the mixture with measuring cups as I didn’t want to paint my stove purple. So it was a learning experience. I did get 12 small jars of blueberry jam. I was glad that all the jars did seal.

Next time I will buy bigger jars instead of these tiny cute ones. I seriously thought they held more. My husband opened one up today and used half of the jar on three biscuits. I was glad that I had bought a canning kit that had some neat tools in it like the magnet to retrieve the lids from the boiling water.

Up next I plan to try apple butter. I may also try blueberry butter since we still have plenty of blueberries. I used the website PickYourOwn.org to find instructions for blueberry jam and will try a few more of their recipes in the coming weeks.

I wanted to make my Mom some raisin bread for Mother’s Day. I cranked up the bread maker Saturday evening thinking that everything would be fine with the humidity. I was wrong as the bread didn’t rise. I used all ingredients at room temperature and used bottle water. So the weather is the only thing left to blame.

I decided to try it again Sunday morning. It was 73 degrees inside compared to 80 degrees the night before. Finally I baked a loaf that didn’t fall.

So what I’ve learned is that if I want to make bread in the summer, then I should make it first thing in the morning for best results.