Tag: lemon

It’s Garden Time!

Posted on by Kimberly Anne
It's Garden time

It’s garden time and my husband came home with his collection of plants to start our spring/summer garden. I looked at the receipt and thought we could have purchased a lot of produce at the grocery store. But, nothing compares to the happiness he gets from his garden. Plus you can’t beat the freshness of homegrown vegetables.

It is our garden in the sense that it is in our backyard. And our money is spent to buy the plants and fertilizer. But my husband is in charge. This past winter my husband did a winter garden. It was his first time. He planted onions, green onions, bok choy, brussel sprouts, and broccoli. The bok choy was great. He shared it with others. Something my husband doesn’t seem to do is plant the seeds a few weeks apart. He had so much bok choy at the same time, a lot of it was thrown out.

The brussel sprouts looked great until the long stem of sprouts stopped growing, We have seen them growing in a field and ours never came close to that. The broccoli was the wrong kind. Instead of big clumps, they were long and thin. They won’t be in our garden ever again.

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Lemon Almond Paste Cake

Posted on by Kimberly Anne

This has to be one of the easiest cakes I’ve made, and probably one of the best. It’s a big hit with my husband’s friends. When they get together to watch a football game, they plan a big meal and quite often this is the dessert. It can be a bit pricey to make because it needs a full cup of almond paste.

Ingredients:

  • Betty Crocker Super Moist Lemon Cake mix (and the 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil 1 cup of water it calls for)
  • 1 Cup of Sugar
  • 1 cup Almond Paste
  • 1 Pound or less of Powdered (Confectioners) Sugar and water

Directions:

  • Make cake according to the directions on the box, including greasing the bottom of the 9 x 13 pan.
  • Pour 1/2 of the liquid cake into your pan.
  • Combine the sugar and the almond paste and mix with a food processor (or a hand mixer) until well mixed.
  • Take 1/2 of the crumbled mix of sugar and almost paste and crumble it over the cake.
  • Gently pour the remaining liquid cake on top of the crumble.
  • Then crumble the 2nd half of the crumble mixture on top.
  • Bake as per the directions on the box, until it’s a light golden brown.
  • After the cake has cooled drizzle powdered sugar and water frosting over the cake. I usually start with a cup or two of the powdered sugar and then whisk in water until it becomes drizzle consistency and is enough to cover the cake. (See the next paragraph for more details.)

I hate when someone gives me a recipe with non-exact ingredient amounts, but now, I’ve done it to you. Every time I make this the frosting is not exactly the same. But it tastes so good. Don’t completely cover the cake with frosting, just drizzle it around until you cover about 1/4 of the cake.

I rely on recipe cards for most of the recipes I use. If you do, too, occasionally it’s a good idea to weed out the recipes that you have stored in your recipe card box. Those recipes, that you haven’t made in years because they are just too complicated or no one really likes them that much. Why not get rid of them now, before your children inherit them.

A side note about the pronunciation of the word “almond.” You may think it’s pronounced all-mond. But ask any farmer that grows them and they will most likely say they are am-end farmers. Farmers know best. At least that is what I was told when we moved in close proximity to the Almond Capital of the World in Northern California.