We haven’t seen the sun here in days.  At least the azaleas are happy.

Have a great weekend!

The past 9 days have flown by and now it is time for the fun and games to come to an end.  Yes, the kids are going back to Florida today.  Sob.

The fun continues!

I’m neglecting the blog this week.  You see, we have house guests.  From Florida.  And we’re very busy.

Making chocolate cake.

And eating chocolate cake.

Here’s the recipe.  Enjoy!

Darn Good Chocolate Cake

1 pkg. plain devil’s food or dark chocolate fudge cake mix
1 pkg. (3.9 oz.) chocolate instant pudding mix
4 large eggs
1 c. sour cream
1/2  c. warm water
1/2  c. vegetable oil (canola, corn, safflower, soybean or sunflower)
1 1/2  c. semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly mist a 12-cup Bundt pan with vegetable oil spray, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pan aside.

Place the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, warm water and oil in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2-3 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should look thick and well combined. Fold in the chocolate chips, making sure they are well distributed throughout the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing it out with the rubber spatula. Place the pan in the oven.

Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, 45-50 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Run a long, sharp knife around the edge of the cake and invert it onto the rack to cool completely, 20 minutes more. Or invert it onto a serving platter to slice and serve while still warm.

From The Cake Mix Doctor
Copyright © 1999 by Anne Byrn.

Dixie says, “Hope you’re having a fun weekend.  I’m loving all these cook outs – there’s food everywhere!  Woof”

Next door to the library is a playground with a walking path.  A coworker and I have been walking over there together these last few weeks.  The other day she spied lady’s slippers so I brought my camera and took some photos.  Beautiful.  And rare.

Kind of like a holiday weekend.  Enjoy!

When we visited Hillary and her family last February we had a wonderful dinner prepared be Hillary.  The star of the meal was her Lemon Chicken and it was really delicious.   I’ve made it several times since watching Hillary do it and my family loves it just as much as Hillary’s family does.  I figure you all might like it, too, so I’m going to show you how to make it.

I use boneless skinless chicken breasts, the same as Hillary.  In the morning, throw ‘em in a ziploc bag and pour in some lemon juice.  Put that in the fridge and go to work – or whatever it is that you do all day.  When you’re ready to cook dinner take the chicken out of that ziploc bag and put them in another ziploc bag.  This one will have flour, salt & pepper,  and paprika in it, too.  Shake that chicken all around until it’s coated with the flour.

Now heat up some oil.  I like to use my cast iron fry pan for this part.  It makes me feel old-fashioned.  And it also is just about the best thing ever for frying chicken.  And steak.  In butter.  There is nothing like steak cooked in butter in a cast iron fry pan.  Mmmm.    Oh wait, sorry, we’re talking about chicken.  So fry your chicken on both sides in that oil.

Slice up some lemon.  You know what sliced lemon looks like but this picture is pretty so I’m showing you.

Once your chicken is browned on both side put the pieces in a baking dish.  Sprinkle the top with a bit of brown sugar and then put a couple of lemon slices on each piece.  Pour some chicken broth in there, enough to come up about an inch or so.  Cover the pan with foil and put it in a 350° over for about 45 minutes.

The chicken is moist and flavorful and lemony.  I like to serve it with rice and broccoli – which is what Hillary served it with, too, I think.  And yes, I forgot to take a picture of the finished meal.  I just couldn’t wait long enough to gobble it up!

I hope you’ll gobble it up, too.  Enjoy!

I’ve kept up my resolve to spin, spin, spin.  It’s really working on spinning down the overwhelming spinning stash.  Here’s what I’ve finished lately:

8 oz of merino/silk from Cloverleaf Farms.  Purchased: Rhinebeck 2008.  Destiny: socks.

4 oz superwash merino from my dear friend Kim of  Woolen Rabbit.  Purchased: SPA 2009.  Destiny: fingerless mitts.

4 oz BFL from Rachel of Have You Any Wool.   Purchased: Beats me.  Destiny: a hat.  Rachel has recently returned to blogging – go say hi and welcome back, okay?
I have such a problem choosing what to spin next because I love everything so I’ve adopted a new technique.  I send Dale into the craft room to choose the fiber for me.  It’s been a lot of fun to be surprised this way.  And it shows him that I do actually spin the stuff that I buy!

How about you  – what are you spinning?  Or knitting?  Hmmm?

I feel sort of left out regarding this week’s Ten on Tuesday theme.  It’s 10 Favorite Cites and honestly, I don’t have 10 favorite cities because I haven’t been to 10 cites.  Pathetic, I know.  Not one to be dissuaded, and because this Ten on Tuesday thing has become a habit, I will talk about the 2 cities I’ve actually visited and loved, and then I will list 8 more that I would like to visit.  You good with that?  Good.

1. Boston.  I love that dirty water.

2. Washington, D.C.  I’ve been twice and feel like I could go again and again and again.

3. Chicago.  I really want to be in the Oprah show audience.

4. Las Vegas.  I don’t even know why I want to go there and yet – I do.

5. London.  I’ve been watching The Tudors and now I have this burning desire to visit The Tower of London.

6. Paris.  Why not, right?

7. Rome.  Okay, Italy, really.  I would like to just eat my way through that country.

8. Stockholm.  The home of my people.

9. San Diego.  I love a good zoo.

10.   New York.  I put this one last because it’s probably the only one I’ll actually get to visit!

So how about you?  What’s your favorite city?

Hannah’s boyfriend, Rob, is a senior so last Friday night they went to his prom.  There is no grand march and no prom queen so it was all rather anticlimactic after the last prom event.

And yet, she still looked beautiful.

Last time she channeled Cinderella.  This time it was Tinkerbelle.

Rob was pretty pleased to be taking the former prom queen to yet another prom.

They looked fabulous together, I think.

The hairdo was a bit different this time, being a twist and all, but still beautifully done.

And they enjoyed themselves – which is all that really matters.  This, to me, was the shot of the day.  Oh, to be young!