Over the years I’ve made at least 25 wedding cakes for friends and family, and my kids have often helped me. We’ve spent hours together figuring size and servings; and between the two of us, we’ve probably made a few thousand icing roses.

Yes, we’ve made thousands, but most of them we rejected as too flat or lopsided to use. But they were good for laughs.  And they tasted good. Yes, they tasted good – that’s the icing on the cake!

Basic Rose Icing

This icing is easy to work with. It covers well, and it’s easy to squeeze out of a tube to make borders.  And it will harden so completely that you can make flowers on wax paper and pick them up with your fingers as you arrange them on the cake.

1¼ cups Crisco

½ cup water

2 pounds confectioners’ sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the Crisco and water with electric mixer, and then add confectioners’ sugar a little bit at a time. Finally blend in the lemon juice and vanilla. Keep it covered when you are not actually using it, to prevent a shell from forming on the surface.

Chocolate Rose Icing

This is rich and yummy, even if you’re not a big chocolate lover.  And it’s almost as easy to work with as regular rose icing.

Use the same basic recipe and directions as above, but substitute ½ to 1 cup of cocoa instead of confectioners’ sugar.  It depends on how dark and chocolatey you want it to be.

*Use 4 tablespoon water and no lemon juice

Cream Cheese Icing

This is not easy to work with if you are making traditional roses and leaves, but it’s smooth and esy to swirl. It’s our absolute, hands down, favourite! It’s great for carrot cake, which I always make for John’s birthday.  But it’s also delicious on every other kind of cake.  It was Dan and Monica’s choice for their yellow wedding cake.

8 ounces cream cheese, softened at room temperature

1/2cup butter (not margarine), softened at room temperature

8 ounces confectioners’ sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla.

Mix all ingredients until smooth.

Try to avoid eating it straight out of the bowl with a big spoon – you won’t be able to stop.

Homemade Pizza has been a Thursday Night tradition in our home for as long as we’ve been married. In my pizza night post last May, I told you all three of our kids had jobs at either Round Table or Mountain Mike’s when they were in their teens. And now they all make their own homemade version.

Well David has taken that to a whole new level.

He took a Saint Paddy’s Day Pepper and Pesto Pizza to work today for their office potluck.  Celebrating his true Italian and Irish heritage.

He called us late last night from his “test kitchen” and told us about the project, and we laughed so hard.  The nut…er shamrock…doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

David’s Pesto Pepper Pizza

All you need for the crust is 1 Tablespoon yeast, 1 ½ cup warm water, 2 teaspoon salt, and about 4 cups of flour. And a little oil and green food colouring

David’s toppings were: bell peppers, Anaheim chilis, jalapenos, green onions, and cilantro. He also used grilled chicken breast that had been marinated in pesto to make it green.

directions:

Dissolve yeast in warm water and stir in half flour and add salt and foor colouring

Stir in some more flour to make a sticky dough, turn out onto floured surface and knead flour in until the dough is not sticky

Knead for about 5 minutes

Place in buttered or oiled bowl and let it rise a little, then punch it down

Roll out to a circle and place it on a baking screen or metal pizza pan.

Brush the crust with pesto

Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella cheese.

Place chicken and vegetables on top.

Bake in a preheated oven (400°) for about 25 minutes.

Tule fog is that thick wet fog that creeps along the ground into Modesto and most of central California. It appears after the first big rainfall of the winter, and sometimes we have it for days on end.  During those bleak and clammy days, few things are as comforting as chicken and dumplings. Tule fog chicken and dumpling!

But this year our weather was historically warm and dry. And lacking in fog…ergo, (I realized yesterday) lacking in chicken and dumplings.

Spring is getting ready to spring, and we’ve moved to daylight savings time, but yesterday brought one of those long lost rainfalls.  I celebrated our surprise winter day by building a fire in the fireplace and making Tule Fog Chicken and Dumplings for dinner.

Chicken broth recipe

1/3 cup olive oil

1 large onion diced

½ cup chopped celery

6 plump chicken thighs, skin removed but with the bone in.

2 tablespoons chicken base or bouillon (I use organic “Better Than Bouillon” chicken base – available at Costco)

fresh or frozen vegetables of your choice

¼ cup fresh parsley, snipped finely

Sauté onion and celery in olive oil in a heavy Dutch oven until they are transparent.

Add chicken, and brown on all sides.

Cover with about 8 cups of water.

Add bouillon

Simmer for one hour.

Add frozen or fresh vegetables.

Add parsley.

Bring the broth to a low regular boil.

Now it’s time to add the dumplings.

Dumpling Recipe

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

3 tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

4 tablespoons melted butter

Sift the dry ingredients together.

Stir the milk and butter together and add to dry ingredients.

Stir completely, but as little as possible – stir just until it is mixed.  The less you handle the dough, the lighter and fluffier your dumplings will be.

Drop dough into the boiling broth by tablespoonfuls.  Then lower heat to a simmer.

Cover tightly and DO NOT LIFT THE LID for 20 minutes.

Serve immediately.

Mmmm….delicious! Now bring on that tule fog!