Mommo's Fudge Cake

I haven't posted much lately because we have been eating some pretty lousy dinners around here.  It's sure hard to feel like standing in the kitchen for an hour at the end of a long day, so we go with scrambled eggs or pathetic concoctions of leftovers.  My family has been nice enough to not complain too much - perhaps because I seem to have kept up on the desserts well enough.  (Baby likes sweets!)  So, here is my grandmother's chocolate cake recipe that we've been enjoying this past week.  She got this recipe from a friend years ago who was reluctant to share it because she knew that replications of the cake would probably turn out different than the one she just served.  Apparently she found the batter so delicious that her cake was significantly thinner than if you bake all of the batter.  She's right - it's goooood, baked or not!  And it's easy, nothing fancy to throw this together.  My girls helped me put plain vanilla frosting and sprinkles on top, but I grew up having this cake with meringue or chocolate frosting on it... you really can't go wrong!

Mommo’s Fudge Cake

2 squares Bakers unsweetened chocolate

1 C. boiling water

1 stick butter

2 C. flour

½ tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. baking soda

2 C. sugar

½ C. buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat to 350°.  Add water and butter to chocolate, and stir til melted (or microwave all 3 together, stirring frequently until melted), and cool.  Sift together flour, salt, and soda; add to chocolate mixture.  Add sugar, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla.  Bake in 9x13” pan for 35 minutes.

Fruit Skewers

Again, hardly a recipe, but I thought these were tasty and easy and a bit fancier-tasting than standard fruit salad, although sticky to prepare. :)

1/2 a fresh pineapple
1 fresh mango
1/2 pint of fresh strawberries
36 purple grapes
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
1/16 tsp. ginger

Cut up the fruit so there are 36 bite-size pieces of each kind.  Add them to a bowl that has the spices mixed in it, mix well and let sit for a couple of minutes.  Add one of each kind of fruit onto 36 4" skewers.

Sausage with Apples and Onions

This was a seriously easy dinner.  I made mashed potatoes, and steamed some broccoli to go along with this.  I think it ends up being fewer than 10 ingredients for the entire meal, and everybody gobbled it up.  I was surprised that this ended up being a meal where I didn't have to beg my kids to take bites of things!

Sausage with Apples and Onions:

1 lb Hillshire Farm smoked sausage, sliced into 1/2 pieces
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 apple, diced
1/2 tsp. beer'n'brat mustard
salt and pepper

Get the sausage slices browned, and after flipping to the other side, add the apples and onions to the pan.  Brown until the onions are soft and the apples are starting to brown, then add in the mustard.  Season with salt and pepper.

I made a gravy out of the pan drippings by adding about 1 tsp. of flour to the fat remaining in the pan, then adding about 2 T. apple juice and 1/4 to 1/2 C. water, with salt and pepper to season.  There wasn't much fat left in the pan to work with, so it didn't make much, but it was enough to be tasty on the potatoes, anyway.