I’m a little concerned about what you all think of me. I mean, I posted about gingerbread and cobbler and chocolate chip cookies and chocolate beet cake, all in a row. You probably think that all I eat is sugar and more sugar. And you’re right. Just kidding! See, a lot of what I eat is too boring to mention. Leftover salad for breakfast, oatmeal, peanut butter and jelly, more leftover whatever, granola, tomato sandwiches, eggs. It’s just not note-worthy.

And then when I get it into my head to fix something different, something unusual, something gourmet, then my whole family suffers.

Take, for instance, last night. Late in the afternoon, I dug a bowlfull of fingerlings, boiled them up, and then turned them into Smashed Potatoes (more on that recipe later—it’s a good one). While the tators were in the oven, I fled the house to go on a jog-slash-walk. Mr. Handsome kept an eye on the potatoes and the kids, and then he fed the potatoes to the kids, along with some ketchup. Everyone was still hungry when I got home, which was totally understandable and expected, so I made Supper Part II: Fried parsley and lemons wrapped in corn tortillas.

Yes, you heard right. I fried lemon slices

and parsley

and wrapped them in warm corn tortillas,

all because Gourmet magazine told me to.

It was actually quite yummy. Different, refreshing, and definitely gourmet. Not something the kids ate (I didn’t even do any insisting as I knew my offering was a little over the top), and not something that could stand in for an actual meal. But hey, I (rather, Mr. Handsome) had already served those smashed potatoes, and the kids were happy enough about gobbling up plain tortillas with ketchup. Mr. Handsome had a rather sour look on his face (from the lemons, maybe?), so I fried up some of the leftover boiled fingerlings in the lemony oil (Yo-Yo Boy said they tasted like a carnival—I’m still not sure if that was a good or bad thing), and Mr. Handsome ate some of the potatoes wrapped up in a tortilla, along with cheese and ketchup.

I made him a coffee shake afterwards. To compensate.

I think he feels towards my gourmet cooking as I feel towards his smashed applesauce. See, we’re a good team—we are each adept at doing dumb things, so we each have become skilled in the art of Dumbness Survival. Maybe that, surviving your spouse’s dumbness, is the bottom line to a happy marriage? Ooo, now there’s a deep thought. I’ll have to ponder that for a bit.

Okay, I pondered. Now allow me to elaborate:

Here, here! In order to survive a marriage you must know how to survive the other person’s dumb ideas, dumb mistakes, and dumb experiments—in other words, the sum total of his royal Dumbness! (And remember, at the same time you are surviving his dumbness, he is also surviving your’s.)

I have a feeling I could write a book about this. (Mr. Handsome could, too.)

Ps. I think the lemon-parsley tortilla wraps would be better, more acceptable, if they were served with shredded, spicy chicken and sour cream.

I am such a copycat. I read a recipe and then I make it and then I post it, just like that. It’s so unoriginal.

I was pondering the question of why I do so much cooking from blogs rather than from cookbooks (though I certainly have more than my fair share of well-thumbed cookbooks) and why it is that I end up really liking so many of the recipes that I find on the blogs. I think the reason is that people who blog about food are generally talking about and cooking food that fits the time of year I’m experiencing; in other words, food that I’m already thinking about and hankering after. For example, I read about a friend who’s making zucchini bread and so I take making zucchini bread into serious consideration. (Unfortunately, my zucchini plants are dead—curses on bugs and diseases.) I read about blackberry cobbler, so I make it—a couple times, for good measure.

And then I read about Chocolate Beet Cake. I have leftover cooked beets in the fridge. Out in the garden there are more beets, nearly pumpkin-sized. I study the picture. I contemplate the ingredient list. I compare the new recipe with the chocolate beet cake, called Secret Chocolate Cake, in Simply In Season that I had made last year. At the top of the page I had written “Yummy!” and, “good everyday cake”. I had even frozen the beet and applesauce puree, pre-measured, so I could easily turn out a cake come wintertime. But I never did. I guess the cake just wasn’t good enough.

But this beet cake looked like it just might be good enough.

So last night I melted the chocolate and butter, pureed the beets, stirred everything together, and baked the cake. I didn’t get around to assembling and frosting it until this morning, and as soon as it was done, even though it was only 10:30 in the morning, I cut into it, forking bites into the kids’ gaping maws. I chewed my bites slowly, thoughtfully, scrutinizing the texture and flavor. I thought I could detect a beety-ness, but I wasn’t sure. So I had another piece with my afternoon cup of coffee. I didn’t taste any beety-ness that time, just moist, fudgy, chocolatey-ness. Mmm. I don’t think I’ll be sharing pieces of this cake with anyone anytime soon. Just the recipe.

Chocolate Beet Cake
Adapted from Rosanna’s blog, Paprikahead

Updated, July 26, 2017: I made this last week and it turned out disturbingly dense. I’m not sure what went wrong, but no one wanted it, so I gave it to my brother’s family. On a scale of 1-10, ten being the best, my brother (who eats anything) gave it a four.

2 cups pureed beets
1 cup butter
8 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 ½ cups flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Cook up several beets, peel them, and use a food processor to puree them. Set them aside.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, on low heat, melt the butter and chocolate.

In a large bowl beat the eggs and sugar together; add the chocolate and beat some more. Add the rest of the dry ingredients alternately with the two cups of beet puree. (I didn’t have quite enough puree, so I added a couple tablespoons of applesauce to round out the two cups—it worked just fine.)

Grease two 9-inch round cake pans and line the bottom with wax paper. Divide the cake batter into the pans and bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes. Let the cakes cool for ten minutes before running a knife around the edges and turning out onto a cooling rack. Peel the wax paper from the cake bottoms. Allow the cakes to cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream Frosting
1 stick butter, at room temperature
3 ½ cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-3 tablespoons milk

Beat the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla together. Add the milk, a tablespoon at a time till it is a spreadable consistency.

I added about a quarter cup of leftover cream cheese frosting that was languishing in my refrigerator, which resulted in a spectacular frosting. You might want to experiment with just adding a little chunk of cream cheese to the frosting…

About a year ago, Mr. Handsome started building a clubhouse/fort/playhouse for the kids. He didn’t get very far. The kids have periodically asked, begged, and pleaded for him to do more work on it, all to no avail. The wooden framework has remained just that, a framework, while Mr. Handsome has busted his tail finishing up our house.

So yesterday the kids took matters into their own hands. They loaded the wood that was in the barn onto the trailer, secured it with rope, and drug the very heavy trailer down to the fort…

where they worked together to lift the boards up onto the beams.

Then they erected some sort of tepee.

Today they have busied themselves nailing the boards down.

Yo-Yo Boy and Miss Becca Boo have had some in-depth discussions about how they want to sleep out there, have their own kitchen, put in electricity for lights, make their own garden; in other words, live out there. When I told them that then I would miss them, they were quick to assure me that they would come visit me. “We’ll just be right here, Mama.”