Mondays are supposed to be my alone days… they are supposed to be a day that I get the housework and laundry done in silence… a day where I can ponder the events of the weekend and decide all the ways I should become a better person…
everyone should get to be alone on Mondays…
but in our area… the school thinks they can cancel school on Mondays! I know! the audacity… how dare you take my Monday from me! I don’t care if you are learning how to be a better teacher… I need the pitter-patter of little feet to be in the hallways of the school, not my home…
thankfully… Papa steps in and takes my son hunting (although this happens from 5:30 – 8:30 am.. and then he is back at home for the whole Monday)
and the other son has football practice in the morning… and the daughter has her iPad and Netflix…
but this all comes to an end around 9 am and we are stuck with a whole awkward Monday together…
so I make a list of my jobs and realize that I have 3 workers that can do them for me! they still accept a pop for payment for just about anything…
but even the list of jobs runs it’s course and it becomes boredom… with me cooking in the background…
and notes like this are passed from an eight year old girl to her 12 year old brother…
she ‘borrowed’ these precious CFL pins from him 2 years ago… thing is, they both actually deeply care about things like this… the older boy and I cannot understand it but my 12 year old was distraught for 2 years about the absence of these pins…
which mysteriously show up in her backpack… and prove what he has been accusing her of for 2 years now… thievery…
this made it so I had to take her with me when delivering meals to the field tonight… I could not, with a clean conscience, leave her alone with him… I was worried for her safety…
and when I speak of meals… they have not been overly glamorous lately… and I blame the farmers for taking too long to harvest the crop…
chicken ceasar salad is my kids favourite… although I shudder to think about how gross it is when the farmers actually eat it…
this is about as easy as it gets… store bought gnocchi with Prego pasta sauce, deer sausage and cheddar cheese… but oh so tasty…
(although a lot of dishes to scrub… oh the struggle of dishes)
but I took the time and was extremely excited to try this cake for the second time… first time was last harvest and I love to try recipes again and see how I can improve the recipe…
I remember seeing this when one of my favourite cookbook authors, Ina Gartner, said she would test a recipe over ten times before putting it in her cookbook…
so I can promise you this is a good cake… I’ve made it twice and loved it both times…
beets act like zucchini in the same way of making it moist…
and the salt and lemon juice in the frosting give enough tart and tang to make the cake not too sweet…
the beets making the frosting pink were a crowd pleaser for my 8 year old daughter…
frosting the cake is always the worst and best part of it…
and worst if you are rushing and trying to frost a warm cake… it still tastes incredible but does not hold up the way a room temperature cake would hold the icing… instead it melts the icing…
and then the food gets packed up… and my daughter and I head out hoping that it can survive the journey it will take before it is consumed…
she might not have been too worried… and she also is the one that insisted on having the umbrella in the trunk… you just never know…
beet cake
Ingredients:
For the Cake:
– 2 medium beets, cleaned and unpeeled
– 2 tsp olive oil
– 3/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed and room temperature
– 1 cup packed brown sugar
– 3/4 cup sugar
– 2 large eggs, room temperature
– 1 tsp vanilla
– 2 cups all purpose flour
– 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
– 1 tsp baking soda
– 1 tsp baking powder
– 1 tsp kosher salt
– 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
For the Frosting: (I only used half this frosting recipe)
– 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
– 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
– 4 cups powdered sugar
– 2 tbsp finely grated cooked beets
– 1 tsp vanilla
– 2 tsp milk
– 1/2 tsp lemon juice
– 1/2 tsp regular salt
Directions:
– wash and cut beets into large chunks… place in tin foil with olive oil and bake on a cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 1 hour
– remove from oven and open up tin foil and let cool
– in a mixer, combine butter and sugar… add eggs one at a time and then vanilla
– combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt
– alternate flour mixture and buttermilk into the sugar mixture
– finally, add 3/4 cup grated beets
– put into two 9 inch cake pans that have been greased and parchment paper in the bottom of each
– bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until centre of cake is done
– let cool for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a rack and cool
– for the frosting, combine all ingredients and whip
– spread frosting in-between the two cake layers and all around it and on top
– put in fridge for an hour and then slice it and serve it
– to freeze, slice and put individual pieces in containers to freeze
i feed a farmer 
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