Hey everyone! I hope you’re all having a happy holiday season. We are visiting my parents in Iowa and in the whirlwind of travel and Christmas celebrations I completely forgot to post the last batch of bentos! Let’s play a little catch-up!
Monday:
I ran with the fish theme for Monday’s snack and decorated a mini-blueberry bagel to look like a fish with the food markers. The tail is made out of a clementine.
Tuesday:
Snack and lunch were combined in the laptop lunch box on Tuesday (as usual): blueberry mini-bagel, two chocolate stars for a little treat, two clementines, cheese sandwich snack crackers, baked tofu and carrot sticks.
Wednesday:
The main component of lunch on Wednesday was leftover spaghetti and meatballs in the thermos (not pictured), so I made the snack box extra big to supplement that. I put in a couple of spritz cookies, clementine wedges, some garlic toast guys, and more cheesy crackers.
Thursday:
Thursday’s lunch was a clementine, some grapes, baked tofu with cold gingerbread men and some more of those crackers.
A little elf supervised the packing of the snack box. He suggested grapes and a half banana. Who has a banana? Wyatt has a banana.
Friday:
And finally, Friday’s snack was grapes, a clementine and even more cheesy crackers.
Oops! Monday already and I just realized I haven’t posted last week’s bento boxes. Thanksgiving weekend confused me, apparently.
Monday:
I worked all day Monday, so Zach packed Wyatt’s snack (and he was even nice enough to take a picture). He put in crackers, a half banana and a clementine.
Tuesday:
Tuesday’s lunch was clementine wedges, a leftover individual turkey “meatloaf” from dinner the night before, catsup for the meatloaf and a few Hello Panda candies. There were also some mashed potatoes in the thermos.
Tuesday’s snack was pretzel thins, craisins and a couple of slices of turkey pepperoni to fill the gaps.
Wednesday:
Wednesday’s lunch and snack were combined in the laptop lunch box. I packed: a couple Hello Panda candies, another clearly labeled banana, whole wheat pretzel sticks, clementine wedges, a wheat dinner roll, dried cranberries and baked tofu.
I’m thankful for a husband who loves me and our family and who works long hours to make sure we have everything we need. I’m thankful that even when I’m (mostly) unemployed, our family wants for nothing.
I’m thankful for a huge family who loves me.
I’m thankful for cheese.
I’m thankful for the nice weather in the SF Bay Area.
I’m thankful for a roof over my head and a working heater.
I’m thankful I live within easy driving distance of stores that sell bento supplies.
I’m thankful for technology and all the ways it makes my life better. Digital cameras, iPhones, laptops, RAIDs to hold our data, a hosted instance of Wordpress — I fully realize that not everyone has the access to gadgetry that I enjoy. And I’m thankful that so many of my other needs and wants are being met that access to gadgetry is something I even care about.
I’m thankful for plumbing.
I’m thankful for the internets and all of the people who are part of my life because of it.
I could go on all day, but I’ve got desserts to prepare (for which I am also thankful).
I found a new box at the grocery store over the weekend and it debuted on Monday. It’s a snack box designed to hold Goldfish crackers and it’s just the right size for Wyatt’s snack only days.
Wyatt was very excited about it and wanted to pick what went in it. He selected pretzel thins and baked tofu.
Tuesday:
I was scraping the bottom of the barrel on Tuesday because I desperately needed to go to the grocery store. Wyatt tried to get all picky about lunch, but I had to lay down the law by telling him, “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” I dug and dug in the fridge and ended up packing the last 5 grapes, a half banana, a cheese wedge and some stale crackers. There was nothing else in the house to send in his lunch, so I actually had to cook some pasta while the kids ate breakfast so Wyatt wouldn’t be hungry all day. I tossed it with some butter and garlic and put it in the thermos (not pictured).
Wednesday:
I was so excited about this lunch! When we went to the store on Tuesday, Wyatt asked me if I would buy shrimp. People — he has never willingly eaten shrimp before! I don’t know why he wanted it — probably a friend had told him that it was yummy — but I didn’t hesitate to buy it for one second. Not only did Wyatt eat all the shrimp I gave him for dinner, but he had seconds and asked for some in his lunch too! Wooo!
So his lunch had three shrimp, two rice balls, a few grapes, a clementine and a slice of banana bread.
For his snack I sent a half banana, pita crackers and a few more grapes. Do you like the Big-Brother-esque message I wrote on the banana? Wyatt is learning some sight words at school right now, so I’m trying to write messages he can read whenever possible. That eye kind of creeped me out though….
Thursday:
Lunch and snack were combined in the laptop lunch box on Thursday. I sent a clearly labeled banana, pretzel sticks, peaches with sprinkles, a laughing cow cheese wedge, pita crackers, baked tofu and a clementine.
Friday:
We pulled the fish box out again for Friday’s snack. this one had a jelly sandwich (cut to fit) and a half a clementine.
The first thing I want to say about this cake is that it is INSANE. It is just completely Batman CRAZY.
Let’s start with the name: Better-Than-Sex Cake.
Right there — don’t you want to be friends with the woman who invented this cake? You know she’s fun at a party, right? (And you know that it had to be a woman who first made this. No man would ever give a cake that name. They just wouldn’t.)
Next, there’s the cake itself. You start with a chocolate cake which is bound to be pretty good. But that’s not good enough. No — you have to make it sweeter and gooier. And then after making it pretty dang sweet and gooey, you have to make it even more sweet and more gooey. And then — what the heck — let’s throw some whipped cream on top, just for kicks!
The upshot here is that you use a cake as a sponge to absorb caramel.
Completely ridiculous.
We didn’t have this cake for years and years when I was growing up. I think it only made an appearance for a few years when I was in my pre-teens (we didn’t call it “tweens” back then) but it really made an impact in my memories — for fairly obvious reasons, I suppose. My mom told me she got the recipe from a woman at work (she was an elementary school teacher at the time) and the other lady got it from her church cookbook. Hee!
Now, let’s get to it:
You’re going to need a box of German chocolate cake mix, eggs and oil to make the cake, a can of sweetened condensed milk, a jar of Mrs. Richardson’s butterscotch caramel sauce and a tub of Cool Whip. This is a Weight Watchers recipe. (Kidding!)
Make your cake according to the package directions.
Stir it up real good.
Bake it in a 9 x 13 pan.
As soon as it comes out — while it’s still warm — poke it all over with the handle of a wooden spoon or some other pokey thing.
Next pour an entire can of sweetened condensed milk over the top of the cake, letting it drip down into the holes you poked. This will make the cake gooey to the core.
Then the recipe says to pour 3/4 of the jar of caramel sauce over it. Seriously? Is the thinking here that the whole jar would make it too sweet? You could dump a half a bag of sugar on this thing at this point and it wouldn’t taste any sweeter. What harm is 3 oz. of caramel going to do? I went ahead and put it all on.
Gently spread the condensed milk and the caramel sauce around the top of the cake with your spoon, pushing the goo down into all those holes you poked.
Tuck it in around the edges so those get gooey too.
Then dump the thawed container of Cool Whip on and spread that around. The Cool Whip is important because it balances the flavor of the cake out.
Slice and enjoy!
The Verdict:
Zach didn’t care for it at all, which is pretty much what I expected. He’s not big on desserts in general so I wasn’t too surprised.
I also gave some to my neighbor and her niece and told them to be brutally honest. They said that they liked it, but who knows if that was true or if they were just being polite. They did love the name of the cake though and we all had a good laugh about it.
After Wyatt ate his piece he told me he thought it was good but, “It wasn’t that sweet, Mom.” ?!?!?! “The only part that was sweet was the orange stuff,” he said. Oh yeah — you must mean the caramel that’s infused every crumb of the cake. Yeah, aside from that it’s pretty mellow.
I thought it was pretty darn tasty but man was it sweeeeeeeeet! I thought my teeth were going to jump out of my mouth in protest and run to the nearest dental office seeking amnesty. This is a cake a twelve year old is going to like much more than someone in her late 30’s will, that’s for sure. The flavor of the cake settled a bit after a night in the fridge and it didn’t seem quite as overwhelming, so that was good.
My final say is this: This cake is pretty good, but it’s not something I’ll be making regularly. It’s kind of fun for the kitsch value and it’s fun to tell people the name, but honestly after all my years living in a health-conscious area and attempting to eat a healthy diet it’s not going to be very appealing to my friends and familiy and I feel too guilty eating it myself. So this one might be better off staying in my memory.
And to answer your final question: No, it’s not.
Better Than Sex Cake
1 box German Chocolate cake mix (and the ingredients to prepare it — probably eggs and oil)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 jar of Mrs. Richard’s butterscotch caramel ice cream topping
8 oz. tub Cool Whip
Bake the German chocolate cake in a 9×13 inch pan according to the package directions. As soon as it is out of the oven, poke holes in the top with the end of a wooden spoon. Pour one can of sweetened condensed milk over the top. The pour ¾ (or one) jar of Mrs. Richard’s butterscotch ice cream topping over the top. Cool. Spread cake with 8 oz. cool whip. Refrigerate.
October 29, 2009: The boys took their costumes for a spin a couple days before Halloween. The Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder have never looked better, if I may say so.
October 30, 2009: The kids at Wyatt’s school got to wear their costumes to class for the day and they had a big Halloween parade on the playground complete with the high school marching band! Wyatt marched with his friend who also dressed up as Batman.
October 31, 2009: This year’s jack-o-lanterns. The Batman was Wyatt’s choice, for obvious reasons. The smiley guy was Augie’s pumpkin — because he’s so smiley, of course.
November 1, 2009: Ahhhhh….now this is a photo that brings true joy to a mother’s heart! Our driveway is super narrow and we have to move our car to bring our garbage and recycling bins up to the curb from behind our house. It’s a total pain in the patoot and Zach and I both hate doing it. I used my wily mom brain to convince Wyatt that moving the garbage is super fun! and now he gets mad if I don’t let him do it. Nice.
November 2, 2009: Today was my mom’s birthday, so I took a picture of Augie holding a sign that said “Happy Birthday Grandma!” and sent her the photo at work.
November 3, 2009: Yep! This is exactly what you think! Augie is a WALKER now! It’s so fun to watch him go, go, go!
November 4, 2009: This is a common sight in our house — the salad spinner sitting in the sink. I absolutely despise washing the salad spinner by hand and we can’t put it in the dishwasher because it will get misshapen. It’s completely irrational, but I hate it so much that I would rather never eat salad at home than wash it. Seriously. I’ll wash all the dishes in the sink and even wash the sink itself and just leave the spinner sitting there. Eventually Zach will wash it (usually when he wants to make a salad) but until that happens it’s not going anywhere.
(You’ll notice part way through this week that the photos get kind of crappy. The battery on our good camera died on Halloween night and we had to order a replacement online. It took over a week to get it in hand, so I had to take my photos with a phone camera. Just so you know.)
Comments
bentos · food · kindergarten · photo
