Crazy Cake Recipe

I can't believe it's Friday already! I've been stuck in the house for the majority of this week since we got about 5 inches of snow on Tuesday so it's pretty refreshing knowing today is Friday and that Monday I can go back to class!

I wasn't for sure what to post today but after chanting "write what you know" to myself a few times as I baked my brother a cake I realized I should share the recipe! It's my favorite scratch cake I've made and everyone in the house has pestered me for weeks now to make it again.  After Thanksgiving I got into a baking kick and I was baking new items nearly every day and the favorite in the house is still the Crazy Cake.

Since my brother heads back on the road tomorrow for work in Wyoming, I decided I'd be a nice sister and bake the cake for him since I've been slacking on being Betty Crocker as he refers to me, since school started.

The recipe comes from an old, extremely loved and worn cookbook that my mom has had....for forever.  It's the Hodgeman County Bicentennial Cookbook of 1776-1976 to be exact. I wish I had photos to prove to you how much it's been used because it's literally starting to fall apart off of the spiral binding but our camera isn't working right now.

It's a pretty simple cake.

1 1/2 c. flour

1 c. sugar

1 tsp. soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3 T. cocoa

1 T. vinegar

1 tsp. vanilla

6 T. oil

1 c. water

Mix and bake at 350 degrees until done.  The recipe also says if you want two layers you have to double the recipe.  It doesn't specify any time but I've found it's usually done in 25 to 30 minutes, but I always test the center of the cake before pulling it from the oven.  The only thing I've changed in the recipe is that I like to put in an extra tsp. of vanilla.  For icing, since I haven't found a scratch recipe I like yet, I just use a can of frosting from Betty Crocker, usually just white vanilla.  Cream cheese frosting is good with it as well, but it's very very rich when combined with the moist cake.

I wish I had photos to share, but I don't. :(

Let me know if you give this recipe a shot and what you did for icing!

Back to the. Basics

If you're following me on Twitter you've probably realized that I tweet a lot while I watch tv. *cough* Torchwood *cough cough*  The most recent Netflix marathon I've become attached to has been Grey's Anatomy.  I just started season three yesterday, and if weren't for our internet being slow because of the pile of snow on our roof affecting our antenna, I would probably be close to the end of the season by this evening.

Off topic.

In one episode, don't ask me which one because I've watched so much Grey's in the last week I can't remember specific episodes/seasons since it all kind of blurs together, the chief put's Dr. Yang in her place after teaching her a lesson.  The moral of the story basically was that sometimes you overlook things and make them more complicated than what they need to be by letting things cloud your mind.  It's all about going back to the basics and doing what you know.

Since I'm back in school this semester my bank account is pretty empty and I can't afford to pay for my gym membership like I did last year.  Last year I was pretty good about going in three to five times a week and working out for at least 25 to 30 minutes.  The goal was simple: to get moving.  Clearly, in the last month I haven't been able to do that and I've started to see how much it's affecting me.

I spend a lot of time at my desk sitting in this office chair that should really have been pitched and replaced a few years ago, doing homework.  I lose track of time pretty quickly, especially if I'm doing research. I mean, come one, one website leads to another and then another and before you know it you've got a bunch of new resources saved to your favorites and a hour and a half have passed!  It's been difficult for me to get used to this way since my two classes are on Monday and Tuesday and then my third one is online (the one that has yet to start...) so I spend the remainder of my week at my desk.  This ends up causing back flares (from the terrible desk chair I was talking about), hip flares and overall just really sore and weak muscles.

Determined to find some sort of solution I did what I thought was the easiest way to ask for help with something like this. I went to one of my Facebook groups of fellow spoonies and asked for any and all suggestions for at home stretching.  I got a lot of feedback and decided to join fitocracy.

I've been on fitocracy before but my mindset wasn't right when I had joined.  I think I'll have to explain why I stopped using it some other time because this post is already long enough.  I seriously wasn't for sure if I wanted to go this route again, mostly because I didn't know how to make what I used to do at the gym work for me at home without any of the equipment and very limited space.

Back to the basics.

My goal is to get moving more so I'm not sitting at my desk for hours and hours at a time during the week.  That's simple when you really think about it!  I was trying to make everything 10 times as difficult as it was needed.

Like I said, I'm on fitocracy now and if you'd like to follow me my username is JessieJohn .

 A good lesson to remember, just to take it back to the basics.

My First Month as a Hospitality Student

I’ve mentioned before a few times that I changed my major when I transferred schools.  I’m now in the hospitality department majoring in hotel management.  Don’t give me that look, yes I know what look you’re giving me.  It’s the “that’s actually something you can study?” look.  Or, perhaps it’s the “what do you do in class?” look.  I’ve seen a lot of those types of looks, believe me.

The program I’m in is pretty small; last year there was about ten students total that graduated from the hospitality department.  I told you it was small.

I’m only able to take three classes this semester, and only two of those are in the hospitality department.  I’ve only been in the major for a month but one thing is certain.  I LOVE IT.

Let’s put aside the fact that every class session we get interrupted by the chef in the kitchen next door bringing us food from and focus on the other important things.

We’re all friendly and easy to talk to.

I say ‘we’ because there’s not anyone (that I’m aware of at least) that are taking these classes just for funsies.  Our department is located on a different campus in a building that fits our department size: small.  We, as in the hospitality students, love our little program from what I’ve seen.

We’re easy to talk to, I mean, we’re HOSPITALITY students. If we can’t be approachable and easy to talk to, what are we doing in this department and industry?

I’m not going to lie and say I’ve made friends with everyone in the department, because that’s not true…yet.  I have had quite a bit of anxiety the last couple of weeks but it makes it so much easier when I can roll my chair (all of the chairs and tables in our main room are on wheels, just another reason to love this place!) to the next table and ask someone what they think about reading material and have a pretty in depth conversation about philosophies on running an efficient restaurant or hotel. Or, as I really enjoy doing, rolling to the next table and asking for any gross sanitation stories they might have encountered, because let’s be real, we learn what not to do from hearing the gross stories we’ve witnessed over the years.

Speaking of gross stories, we’ve gotten pretty good at those.  Ever been to a restaurant and see something nasty happen from one of the workers? You might have forgotten about it but if you sit with any of us from my sanitation management class you’ll probably remember it in a heartbeat because that’s like all we talk about.  We often get sidetracked from the lesson plan because one stories leads to another, and another, and another…  Yeah, it’s gross and makes you never want to eat outside of your own home again, but it makes you appreciate the service and food when you do go out and it’s all done correctly.  Oh, and for me at least, it makes me want to clean our kitchen like you wouldn’t believe.

In addition to these gross stories, we can point out how much bacteria growth your food has probably gained during the duration of your party because you’ve let it sit out for too long.  Don’t get offended if I don’t eat anything at your party, I’ve just grossed myself out thinking of the multiplying bacteria and the nasty affects that arrive with it.  We can also probably tell you what illness you have contracted from a restaurant if you’ve been feeling sickly. That is if you decide to tell me, your friend, if you have diarrhea, vomiting, a fever or nausea.  No, I’m no doctor, but I can probably point you in the right direction of the doctor who will diagnose you with those sickly pathogens.

You mentioned something about taking a trip in a few weeks.  Let us help you; we’ll find you the best rates for travel and lodging using our favorite sources, for free.  We’ll probably even recommend a couple of restaurants we want you to try and report back to us on and find interesting things to do and see.  You don’t have to do a thing but ask.

Besides being able to gross you out in probably less than three minutes, I have a feeling we’re pretty useful to have as friends now that I think about it.

The best part of being a hospitality student is knowing that because of the vastness of the industry, I’m not alone in thinking that I’m crazy for wanting to be in an industry that works 24/7, 365 days a year.

Change: Breaking My "Mold"

I feel like one of the things that the grownups in my life forgot to mention to tell me when I said I couldn’t wait to grow up as a child and even as a teen was that things change in life.  Change happens on the daily and sometime it’s very subtle and other times it’s a 160.  The point I’m trying to make is that change is something I can’t control most of the time and it’s scary realizing that the person I was two years ago is completely different than the person I am today.

I love my jeans.  I wear them nearly 365 days a year and I have no problem with that (well, except for those hot Kansas summer days when wearing shorts and a tank top feel like I’m wearing jeans and a parka).  As reflective as I’ve been recently about the changes I’ve made in my life, the ones that I consciously did and the ones I subconsciously changed I’ve realized that so much of my teen years I tried putting myself into a mold.  In some cases, I think I tried cramming myself into that mold.

I’ve tried several times to explain this but have failed to do so in a way that wouldn’t make me sound completely bonkers.

My family is an outdoors family.  Growing up I spent most of my summers at the family farm fishing and camping or we’d be out at a state lake doing the same.  In the fall and winter I’ve accompanied my father, brother, uncle and cousins on hunting trips.  These activities produce some of my fondest memories of my family and my childhood.  In the last year or so I’ve slowly started to realize that I don’t make learning everything I can about guns a priority, or that I still don’t really know how to skin a fish properly.  Even more important to this realization is that I’m tired of pretending to make these things a priority, of trying to make them define me.

I don’t know what defines me.  I’ve changed since high school and my thoughts and views on life are different.  My priorities have changed. My dreams and goals have changed.

Change.

It’s a weird concept to think about.

Back to the molds I was talking about.  I had these molds that I was trying to conform to.  For example, I felt like because I enjoyed going shooting with my brother that I was slacking on being on top of the knowledge and information to make him proud.  I felt like because I enjoyed being on stage in theatre in high school that I need to be more outgoing and sociable.  Even now, I’ve changed my major and I feel like I have to fit the mold to be more sociable and outgoing in order to be succesful the industry.

What I’m trying to get at (I think) is that I shouldn’t feel inclined to say I hate wearing my dress pants because they aren’t my jeans.  My dress pants are really freaking comfortable and I feel super confident in them.  I shouldn’t feel inclined to go to the gun store and stare blankly at cleaning tools just to give the illusion that I know what the hell I’m doing.  I shouldn’t feel inclined to do anything that makes me want to define myself as one thing or another because it’s what I think I should be defined as.

In short, I want to be me.  As I’m writing this, I realize that’s what my 20’s are going to be about, finding who I really am and what I want to be as future Jess.

That’s scary as shit but yet exciting all at the same time.