The Weekend Dish – Checkerboard Cake

Posted on April 5, 2013 by backyardsisters

Adventures and experiments in the kitchen can be challenging and fun. Trying to come up with a dish to go with this month’s theme of patterns, a checkerboard cake immediately came to mind. Never having made one and a bit uncertain about what seemed like a daunting task, I suppressed the idea for a day or two exploring other possibilities but I kept coming back to the cake and readied myself for a challenge. First, I learned there is a special pan one can buy for creating this effect, but not wanting to invest in one and, with further research, I found a video online of Buddy, the cake boss, teaching Rachael Ray how to make a checkerboard cake using cookie cutters. Well, without circle cookie cutters, I improvised using a glass and a glass vase ( thoroughly cleaned of course ). Checkerboard cake here we come. First task is making chocolate and vanilla cakes.

Most cakes after cooking have a slightly rounded top, at least mine do, so to get even layers that will sit flatly on top of each other; after the cake has cooled, trim about one quarter of an inch off the top. Then cut concentric circles from the center out and you will have three circles of cake.

Next step is to alternate the chocolate and vanilla rings. If you have a vanilla ring on the outside insert a chocolate ring next and finish with a vanilla ring in the middle. After assembling your first layer, apply frosting. I learned a trick from the cake boss – use a bag to apply the frosting. I used a ziploc bag and cut a hole in one of the bottom corners. By applying the frosting this way, all you have to do is gently spread it around to smooth it out and it keeps it from getting full of crumbs. For the next layer, start with chocolate on the outside then vanilla and finish with chocolate in the center then add frosting again. I made a three layer cake so for the last layer I repeated the pattern of the first layer. Then apply frosting to entire cake. I could have made another layer but ran out of frosting. . . and time.

It’s fun cutting into the cake and revealing the impressive checkerboard pattern!

I made the cakes from scratch because I prefer that to mixes, but if you want you can use cake mix. I put my foot down at the frosting from the grocery store though; it’s just not as good as homemade!

Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake (from the Hershey’s Cocoa box)

2 cup sugar
1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Hershey’s Cocoa
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Heat oven to 350° F. Grease and flour two 9-in. round cake pans. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour into pans. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes, remove from pans to wire racks and cool completely.

Yellow Cake (from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook)

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter,softened
1-1/2 tsp vanilla (I doubled this, I like vanilla a lot)
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 375° F. In a large bowl combine dry ingredients. Add milk, butter, and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer on low speed until combined. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs and beat 2 minutes more. Pour into 2 greased and floured 9 in. round cake pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove from pans until cooled completely.

“Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Frosting (also from Hershey’s Cocoa box)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2/3 cup Hershey’s cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating on medium speed to spreading consistency. Add more milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. Makes about 2 cups frosting.

I once and a halved the frosting recipe but I didn’t have enough to make a fourth layer so I would double it next time.

If you would like to watch the Rachael Ray video click here.

This can be made with different colored and flavored cakes also.

It makes me want to go play a game of checkers. While eating cake of course!

~ Susan

Touchstone

Posted on April 4, 2013 by backyardsisters

I am drawn to certain empty things like urns and skies.
I abhor other barrenness, like empty promises or hearts.

I rail against the empty life. Fill it with books, philosophies, a deep well of love.
I protect certain empty hours. Create a space for dreams and meditation, staring into spring.

My backyard before I moved

When I am on the abandoned beach, I miss you.
When I am deserted, I miss my beach.

Patterns emerge against emptiness.
Sound breaks silence.
Silence relieves talk.

Knit one. Pearl two. Add one. Drop a stitch.

My grandmother used to mutter directions for a sweater or scarf she was knitting. If the pattern were disrupted she’d have to rip the stitches out.

You can unravel yarn but it always shows the kinks of where it’s been.
If you don’t know how to knit, what do you imagine?

Backyard Sisters’ mom and dad

A pattern emerges against the emptiness.
Knit two. Pearl: One.
Now isn’t that a fine direction?

~Catherine

p.s. Maybe you like to read. I do. Maybe you like to knit. I don’t. Either way, a rather interesting book crossed my path. Literary Knits: 30 Patterns Inspired by Favorite Books,by Nikol Lohr, is a book about as self-explanatory as its title.

Lohr has created knitting patterns for clothes items for women, like the Daisy cloche inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; for men, like the Gregor sweater inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis; and for young girls, like the Anne Shirley dress inspired by Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud. If knitting is your thing, or if you want to see one yarn artist’s rendering of a word artist’s description, check it out.

Admirable use of the concept of patterns in literature I would say.

Patterns are Powerful

Posted on April 2, 2013 by backyardsisters

Happy April! Here at Backyard Sisters a new month means a new photographic topic to explore and this month it’s patterns. Patterns are everywhere. Once you start taking note and incorporating them in your photos you may become a pattern fiend. Using patterns in a photo can draw in the viewer and keep them there as they are examining, following and maybe getting lost in your pattern. One place that immediately came to my mind to begin the pattern practice, The Getty Center in Los Angeles, is crawling with patterns; in the architecture,

and in the gardens.

Patterns made by man,

geometric patterns

and patterns found in nature.

This month, we turn our eyes and lenses to the patterns around us. See what patterns you can find as you go about your everyday life. The patterns are there, simply look around and see what designs captivate your imagination and will invite your viewers to get lost in your photos.

Looking forward to sharing a patterned month with you.

~ Susan

Give me a break

Posted on March 28, 2013 by backyardsisters

Sometimes I have an urge to use big words I don’t yet know the meaning of, or better yet to make up new words to describe certain perfections, like this dawn when the sun rose into a fog-shrouded sky at the exact moment the mist receded. For one instant the dark flared – gilded with stars – then gave way to morning. The camera was no match, nor really is this description.

I’ll remember the moment, keep working to get it right. And then I’ll drub it up against something rugged to set the beauty in relief. “No threat, no poem” is a truism we poets abide and practice and teach. As Dave Smith writes in his essay “St. Cyril’s Dragon” The Threat of Poetry:

Great art intends threat…The good poem destabilizes, unbalances, stirs up, digs down, demands feeling in exact circumstances…No poem succeeds without threat, implied or explicit. Threat manifests what is important to know. Threat engineers the struggle of self to come into being.

That’s all well and good, but the constant struggle takes energy and it’s necessary for me, for you, to take time to revive. Whenever I forget to build rest into my schedule, the universe has a gentle way of reminding me. The cast of characters hanging around La Jolla Cove this weekend taught infinitely wise lessons with their presence.

Play whenever you can.Take care of your own.

It’s great to hang out with friends.

But having someone special is the best gift of all.

Now before you think there’s no threat here, consider. The La Jolla Cove seals are no stranger to peril. Tourists and restaurateurs complain about the stench of too many seals too close to town. Conservationists and environmentalists clash with businesses to protect the seals. You can read a roundup of the controversy, or crisis as some call it, at the Seal Sitters link here.

Or you cannot. Sometimes it’s alright to take a break from crisis or controversy and simply enjoy the beauty right in front of you.

And that, good readers, is the last word on the March of contrasts.

Sealed with a kiss
~Catherine

p.s. When you are revived and ready to seriously consider how addressing the threat can create a fine poem, do revisit Dave Smith’s essay, “St. Cyril’s Dragon” The Threat of Poetry.” In fact, you might even sign up for Poetry Daily. From the “About Poetry Daily” page:

Poetry Daily is an anthology of contemporary poetry. Each day, we bring you a new poem from new books, magazines, and journals.

Poems are chosen from the work of a wide variety of poets published or translated in the English language. Our most eminent poets are represented in the selections, but also poets who are less well known. The daily poem is selected for its literary quality and to provide you with a window on a very broad range of poetry offered annually by publishers large and small.

The Lowdown on Low Contrast

Posted on March 26, 2013 by backyardsisters

There are days when the weather is not perfect, surprise! It may be cloudy or hazy or foggy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take photos. You will get a different look to your photos those days. They will have a low contrast dreamy look to them because the sun is diffused which creates a more even lighting. The dark black shadows and bright white highlights are tempered.

I find I gravitate to coastline landscapes on these days, maybe because the fog we so often find ourselves enshrouded in here creates the low contrast lighting and there is a sense of mystery to a foggy coast.

I have also noticed many catalogs and wedding photographers are using low contrast lighting in their photography. One way to achieve this is to shoot towards the sun and expose for the model which often creates an overexposed background or by adjusting the contrast and brightness in post processing.

Simple subjects or scenes tend to lend themselves to this type of look.

Photography using low contrast is yet another method of conveying a mood or feeling to your photos and is fun to play around and experiment with both on location and in post processing.

Dreamily searching out diffusion this week,

~ Susan

Weekend Dish – Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Posted on March 22, 2013 by backyardsisters

The chicken lettuce wrap is another study in contrasts. The warm chicken mixture is the perfect foil to the cool crispness of the lettuce, which is enhanced by the savory saltiness of the chicken mixture contrasting with the relative blandness of the lettuce. It makes a healthy, low carb and gluten-free appetizer – sure to please a varied crowd, and in the words of Lucy Ricardo, “it’s tasty too!” They also make a yummy after school snack if you’re feeling ambitious – or happen to have some leftovers, which is highly unlikely. I discovered this the other day when making these for this post timed out perfectly with my daughter’s arrival home from school. She was thrilled and appreciative.

Now let’s get to it. . .

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

1 pound ground chicken breast (some stores carry this, if yours doesn’t, I have put boneless pieces of chicken breast in the food processor and chopped fine)
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 bunch green onions
3/4 cup shredded carrots
3/4 cup chopped shiitake mushrooms
3/4 cup chopped water chestnuts
1 clove garlic minced
1/2 tsp minced ginger
1 thai chili pepper finely chopped more or less according to taste

Sauce:

3 Tbsp tamari soy sauce (to make this dish gluten-free you must use the tamari gluten free)
1 Tbsp black bean sauce with garlic
2 Tbsp hoisin sauce
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp mirin
1 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Combine all in a bowl and set aside for later.

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat, when hot add the canola oil and then the chicken. Cook and stir while breaking up with a spoon until the chicken is almost no longer pink and add green onions, carrots and mushrooms stirring for about one minute or until the chicken is no longer pink. Next, add the water chestnuts, garlic, ginger and chili and continue stirring for another 2 minutes. Finally, add the sauce and stir to incorporate and cook about a minute more.

Wash and prepare lettuce leaves, I like to use endive because they are tender yet crisp and a nice size, butter lettuce or romaine or any lettuce you prefer can be used. Then, either serve all ready assembled or with the two components separate and let your diners assemble for themselves.

May this weekend find you with some lucky diners at your table.

~ Susan

Life after death

Posted on March 21, 2013 by backyardsisters

Dear One,
Last time we met, 40 years ago, you were five, maybe seven? Would I recognize you today if we passed on a trail?

I hear yesterday from my father – still close with your father who passes along your news – your husband is dead.

I dream you last night. I see you far off, vulnerably alone, head hunched against a great grey howling landscape.

I didn’t know your husband, don’t know your children, can only impose any understanding of your grief based upon imagination and experience losing others who are not my husband.

So, why write now? I have no balm to erase pain.

I do have one small wonder to offer. Have you ever, as mother, as teacher, observed how very much we are already our one true self in childhood? As we age we grow longer legs, big teeth replace baby teeth, our noses broaden a little. We learn about history, mathematics, physics, and literature. What I’m talking about though, is that flickering now, flaring then, essence of our true being that burns through the years of a life.

I vividly remember an essence of you: your all out glee when playing Hide and Seek, as if the thrill of returning to base, of throwing yourself absolutely into the game was the secret to staying alive; the way you measured both sides of an argument and implored us squabbling playmates to just get over it; your unruly hair and dirty knees when there were hills to charge or mud to tame; the way you begged us to play wedding and house. You loved those games more than the others and cared for dolls and the mop-stick man with fierce fervor. I love you forever you’d say to the wooden handle. You’d swoon and we’d giggle until breathless.

When we lose someone, I know it is the person we miss. We miss their laugh and their warm hand, their scent, and voice, and the way they break into a smooth slide and spin us around the kitchen on a Tuesday night for no reason. I love you forever.

But more than that, there is a singular way we see ourselves reflected in the eyes of a person who absolutely knows us and loves us in spite of all we are. We simply are with some people in a way we aren’t with the rest of the world.

Your husband isn’t here to look at you that way now. Unfathomable.

But I see you, that fiercely strong and passionate girl. There are many others who still see you with love and caring. We reflect your deep goodness back upon you. We are here, not in your kitchen yet here, a steady presence for you and your children, holding you up in our hearts while you tumble upon grit and boulders. We will wait with you through the grey.

With gentleness,
~Catherine

p.s. There is no one way that grief happens, though many doctors and psychologists refer to its five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Whenever I hear this, I imagine a five ring circus. The audience is an assemblage of family and friends peripherally affected by the grief waiting and watching for signs that the new widow, the newly one-child-less parent, the orphan, will make it through a little tap dance, a little hissy fit, a little barter or a wailing upon a stage set up in each ring before being allowed to exit stage left and reenter The Land Of Normalcy.

I don’t know what to do.

I hate being audience. I hate doing nothing. I write.

I offer Mary Oliver‘s book Thirst, a collection of the most achingly beautiful poems written by a poet in a state of grief.

Heavy

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.

Splash of Color

Posted on March 19, 2013 by backyardsisters

Color contrast adds visual interest and impact to photos. When looking at a color wheel, you notice that one side contains the warmer colors the reds, yellow and oranges and the other side is where you’ll find the cooler colors: blue, green and purple. The colors opposite from each other are considered complementary colors and as such are pleasing to the eye when used in combination. Red and green are an example of a complementary pair of colors.

The designers of the 7-UP can know this and here I played up the red by throwing a Coke can in to the mix. Blue and orange are another pair of complementary colors.

The Caribbean is full of color splashes. The towns are often painted with bright yellows, reds and oranges and many of the locals dress in the same bright colors which all complement the beautiful blue sea.

Color can be introduced into a monochrome scene to draw the viewer in to the photo. The players here in the vivid hued shirts stand out against the sand colored building and ground.

The gloominess of the rainy day is brightened by the umbrellas and shirts of the pedestrians. Color contrast can be added to a photo by either using a splash of complementary color in a scene of a predominate color, such as a splash of red in a predominately green scene, or by adding bright colors into a neutral toned scene.

It’s yet another tool to use when you are composing your photos. Remember, generally the cooler colors harmonize with the warmer colors.

Here a splash, there a splash.

~ Susan

The Weekend Dish-Irish Soda Bread

Posted on March 15, 2013 by backyardsisters

The song begins the moment first guests arrive, a ditty all four Keefes learned by heart one summer when an Irish singalong CD was our soundtrack while driving backroads from Dublin to Shannon.
(Go ahead, click play and listen while you read.)

At our house on March 17, “there’s a welcome there for you” regardless of where you hail from. We invite the intrepid and seasoned St. Patrick Day’s revelers in for a taste of tradition dating beyond our family trip to the homeland, beyond the Backyard Sisters’ mom making corned beef, back, back to the maternal and paternal grandmothers who couldn’t let a March 17 pass without corned beef and a haunting round of “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That’s an Irish Lullaby) sung a capella in the kitchen.

At the O’Keefe’s Hooley on St. Patrick’s Day, “whoever you are you’re one us,” ’tis true. But there are three hard and fast rules for being a good guest.

Sing along.
Wear green.

Maizie the Wonderlab. Photo Credit: James Keefe

And kick off your shoes to kitchen jig.

We take care of the rest by creating a feast based on updated versions of the Irish classics of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes; some sort of green vegetable, an ancient green jello salad recipe, and Irish soda bread.

The corned beef is boiled in the conventional manner, then treated with a catsup, horseradish, mustard, brown sugar, and melted butter glaze which is brushed over the beef, then oven roasted for 30 minutes at 350 to create a savory, almost caramelized coating. Cabbage is oven roasted in olive oil so it browns and remains more crisp than its boiled cousin. Potatoes are mashed, country style with roasted garlic and laced with parsley. Usually by the time I’m finished making all of this, enthusiasm and time left to make soda bread have waned.

And honestly, up until last year, for me Irish Soda Bread wasn’t anything worth troubling over. Some years I whipped up Bisquick biscuits; other times I called Pop ‘N Fresh biscuits Irish, or better yet, I passed out bread duty to guests. As the luck of the Irish would have it, last year my friend Maureen brought the bread that changed my mind about it being a second class citizen at the feast. And wouldn’t you know, this recipe is straight from Ireland by way of her mother.

Eileen Shea’s Irish Soda Bread. Photo Credit: James Keefe

Here’s the story behind the bread, in Maureen’s words.

The Irish soda bread is a very fond memory from my mom, Eileen Shea. Her parents came over from Ireland and met in buffalo NY , settled in an Irish neighborhood there. My mom had been making the bread for many years, always on St. Paddy’s day, along with corned beef and cabbage if course! I began making the bread when I had our daughters and wanted to keep the Irish tradition alive for them…. I make it every St. Paddy’s…I hope the girls will carry on the recipe when they have their own families….

It’s funny because I am out here in the desert with my Buffalo cousins , who have kept up the same tradition and actually brought us a wonderful loaf of soda bread on the plane …we have been eating it as we speak, the same recipe that our moms have shared ….

So cheers to you and cheers to Eileen and Maureen and the Buffalo cousins. “Whoever you are, you’re one of us.”
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
~ Catherine

Eileen Shea’s Irish Soda Bread
Preheat oven to 350

4 Cups flour (scant)
1 T baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2/3 Cup sugar
3/4 Cup butter (chilled)
1 Cup raisins
2 tsp. caraway seeds
1 1/3 Cups buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Cut in butter. Add raisins, caraway seeds, and milk. Turn out on a floured board. Knead about one minute. (Maureen divides dough in half and makes two small round loaves.)

Bake on cookie sheet for 50-60 minutes until brown and crackled.

contrast – CONTRAST

Posted on March 12, 2013 by backyardsisters

In photography, contrast is one of many tools used to draw attention to your subject while also creating a mood. There are a few different types of contrast. Today, I have tonal contrast on my mind; the difference between the light and dark areas of a photo. When there is a greater difference between the light and dark areas it is considered high contrast and conversely when there is not much of a difference between the two it is a low contrast situation. Higher contrast images tend to be more dramatic and convey a sense of power while low contrast images have a softness to them imparting a feeling of gentleness. There are a few methods we can use to create high contrast images. One is to choose subjects with contrasting colors, such as piano keys.

Adjusting your lighting is yet another way of achieving greater contrast. In a darker room using a strong light source from the side of your subject will bathe that side in light while leaving the rest in the shadows.

Using this technique, you can highlight the area of your subject you wish to call attention to while creating a dramatic mood at the same time. Underexposing your photo by a stop or two, which is similar to adding black to your image, will enhance your shadow areas. If you don’t want such a dramatic difference in your light and dark areas keep your exposure at the proper exposure determined by your light meter.

An additional technique for creating high contrast is placing your subject in front of a bright light source (a window or a sunset for example) and exposing for the light source, which results in a silhouette of your subject.

I challenge you to go out this week and look for the contrast in your world and try to enhance it.

Keeping in mind, “where there is much light, the shadow is deep.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~ Susan

backyard sisters

Saving ordinary moments from the brink of oblivion

Author Archives: backyardsisters

The Weekend Dish – Checkerboard Cake

Touchstone

Patterns are Powerful

Give me a break

The Lowdown on Low Contrast

Weekend Dish – Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Life after death

Splash of Color

The Weekend Dish-Irish Soda Bread

contrast – CONTRAST

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