Wow! Was this an easy cake to make! To top it off, it is a Weight Watchers recipe! It is a wonderful light cake - perfect for summer barbecues! Here is the original.
It took all of 30 seconds to make. No joke! Then you bake it for 35 minutes. Even better - it only has two ingredients!
Pineapple Angle Food Cake
One box of Angle Food Cake mix
One 20 ounce can of crushed Pineapple. (I used one with no sugar added.)
Granted, I used a packaged product, (I do have a recipe for an angle food cake using whole wheat flour) but I purchased this last winter at a buy one, get one free sale. The directions for making this cake can be summarized into three words: pour, mix, bake.
Empty the box of angle food cake in a bowl. Pour in the entire can of pineapple, juice and all.
Stir just enough to moisten the cake mix, no more. Mine took 20 seconds. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan. I started with a slightly smaller pan and when I put it in the oven, it started to rise so much that I had to remove it and pour it into a larger pan. While I was doing that, I was eating the leftovers from the bottom of the bowl and forgot to take a picture!
So here is a picture of it in the larger pan, in the oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.
One of the reasons this post was published so late in the day is because I wanted to bake this in the Sun Oven. I set the oven outside at about 10:00 a.m., hoping I could preheat it to at least 300. It was scheduled for thunderstorms all day and up until it rained, it was partly cloudy. The clouds were light and I was sure the oven would heat up. Unfortunately, it didn't. I couldn't get it to go above 250 degrees. Not hot enough to bake an angle food cake. So late this afternoon, I gave up and put it in the oven.
35 minutes later, the cake was done. However, the top of my cake looks like the face of the moon with lots of craters and hills/valleys.
This is because I baked it for about 10 minutes in a smaller pan, then switched to the larger pan you see here. Next time, (and there will be a next time - I am going to bake this again the next sunny day we have!) I will use an angle food cake pan. Mine was raising nicely in the oven but while it was cooling, collapsed a bit. I believe, if I used an angle food cake pan and turned it upside down to cool, this would not have happened.
Still, it tasted heavenly! While it was baking, I made an icing to drizzle over it. I didn't use a recipe, just added everything to taste. I used water, powdered sugar, powdered milk and a touch of cream cheese.
I am going to bring one to my next church social!
I really do love my garden, but I will be happy when I can take a break and just watch stuff grow for a while! I have been working quite steadily at it, but alas it still isn't done yet! Here is an update:
Some of the peanuts are up. Here is a picture.
These are Spanish peanuts. They are doing well. The Virginia Jumbo had to be replanted. They were eaten. Mister Chipmunk managed to pop the mouse trap without getting hurt and ate all the peanut butter on it. Then, he proceeded to eat every Virginia Jumbo seed I planted! We need to think of another way to rid us of this creature.
The green beans I planted are up too.
Now I need to move the raised beds that will hold the other half of this year's crop. That is on the list to do next.
In preparation of moving the raised bed, I harvested both carrots and peas that were growing in the old bed! Not many mind you, but anything is better than nothing. These were the replants I planted so late in March. I really didn't expect to get a harvest at all! There were not enough for canning so they went into the freezer.
I put up the rain barrels for the summer.
The only thing I must do now is find the hose that hooks them together. I put it away last fall in a ''special spot' (so it wouldn't be misplaced) and now I can't find it! I still want another rain barrel. Because I won't pay retail price for another one, I must wait until I can find something that will work.
Most of the herbs are planted too! I only have the parsley and tobacco left. Well, plus one pink flower and the new woad I started from seed.
I harvested the garlic too. I am very pleased with the garlic this year. Some of it was left over fresh garlic from the store. (I planted what I didn't use.) Some of it I bought from a seed catalog company. I am going to save some of the cloves to plant this fall. The crop is stable enough now that I won't need to purchase any more garlic cloves to plant.
Onions are still in the ground. They should be ready by the end of the month. Then I will plant the squash in their place.
To help with the crop rotation next spring, I think I am going to build another raised bed on the other side of the yard. That should leave at least one bed available at all times, and I won't have to skip any crop (or plant it late) because I don't have room for it.
The tomatoes and peppers are growing well. Although, nothing interesting to see yet.
Here is a picture of some of the corn. I am quite excited to be growing popcorn this year. I can't wait to eat it!
I am really looking forward to harvesting all of my summer crops this year!
When I see a blog post on how to save money, I like to feature it here. Many bloggers have good ideas on how to live frugally and save money. We can all learn from each other! Saving money and living frugally is one of my main interests. Personally, in today's economy I think it is critical to stretch your money as far as it can go. I don't know anyone who likes to waste it.
While I often post about how to save money, I don't often link to niche sites like this one. This site's main theme is emergency preparedness. In fact the title of the article is Seventy-Five Ways to Save Money For Prepping. However, this list is so comprehensive, I think it is fitting for anyone to use to help save money. In it, you will see ideas that I have mentioned here, as well as new ones I haven't.
If you are not into emergency preparedness, overlook the somewhat extreme nature of the blog, and concentrate on the list of the 75 things you can do to save money.
These ideas will help to make your money last longer!
My husband and I just got back from a trip to Tennessee to look for some homesteading land. We are looking for acreage. Enough to keep one or two beef cattle, a milk cow, a horse or two and chickens. The need for partial electricity or no electricity at all has been the subject of many discussions between my husband and me!
This is our third trip looking for land this year. (I apologize for not creating enough posts in advance to publish while I was gone.) And, I am somewhat disappointed in the land we visited. We were so hoping that one of these properties would be "it"! We did a lot of research on the properties before we went. Cutting out a few of them because they didn't meet our requirements. However, my experience has shown me that there is no substitute for walking the land. After visiting all of the ones we thought had potential, my husband and I agreed that we were not going to make an offer on any of them.
It is back to the drawing board to start all over in looking for our non-electric homestead.
That's right, make it for free! NO material costs! The only cost you may have is to purchase a crochet hook (If you don't already have one). I first saw this on The Shooter's Blog by the company Cheaper Than Dirt. It is made with plastic bags you get at the stores!
After I saw this bag, I had to research more on my own. Anything you can crochet with yarn can be made with plastic bags. People are making rugs, flip flops, Christmas decorations and a lot more! Here is a Pinterest link that has lots of other ideas on what you can make with plastic bags.
What a great frugal idea this is! Besides, it is a great way to recycle all those plastic bags. For my first project, I wanted to make a tote bag. I watched this video before I started mine.
I didn't find any pattern instructions that I liked, so I didn't use any. I made up my pattern as I went along. I really like the shape of my bag, but next time I will move the bottom white stripe up a bit so it is closer to the top stripe. I think it will look better if both the strips are centered in the middle of the bag. (If you are making up the design as you go, these things happen!)
As Sarah Beth instructed (the girl in the YouTube video), I made some 'yarn' to start (in all the videos I watched, I heard it called 'plarn'). I wasn't sure how much I would need so I ended up making new plarn as I went along. My bag has a round bottom that is 12 inches in diameter. It is also 12 inches tall. It took approximately 60 gray bags and 15 white bags to make it. I used a size J crochet hook. In my opinion, the size of the crochet hook isn't critical. If your hook is a bit smaller or a bit larger than mine, it really doesn't matter.
To make the plarn, cut up the bags as instructed in the video. I cut mine while I was sitting on the floor (hence, the blue rug in the background).
When I finished my first round of plarn making, I had two balls of it. At this point I had cut up 35 bags, so I thought it was plenty to start.
I chained 5, and joined them together. Then, I put two single crochet stitches in each chain.
I watched quite a few different YouTube videos on how to crochet with plastic bags before I started. On one of them, the woman suggested that you use single crochet stitches instead of double. She said that she found the double crochet stitch to be a bit weak. She thought the single crochet stitch made for a more sturdy bag. (My apologies to the maker of that video, I didn't bookmark it and I could not find it again to post here!) With that bit of advice, I decided to use the single crochet stitch to make my bag.
For the first few rows, each stitch received two new stitches so the base would lay flat.
Then, I only added two stitches when it needed it. My goal was to ensure it continued to lay flat. In general, I think I added two stitches about every other stitch or so. I continued in this manner until I achieved a 12 inch diameter. I had a total of 98 stitches.
At that point, I stopped increasing the stitch count and kept it to 98. This forced the ends to curl up and create 'sides'. I didn't have structured rows, I had a continuous loop. When I got tired of crocheting in gray plarn, I switched to white. When I switched colors, I had to create structured rows so the ends of the colors would match up.
I got tired of the white color really fast and decided to switch back to gray.
I kept going until it was time to make the 'handles'. I measured off where I wanted the handles with some safety pins. I measured the distance so the space would fit my hands. When I hit the safety pin, I chained about 15 stitches to create the handle. Then went back to single crochet stitches to complete the row.
On the second row of the handle, I skipped a stitch directly over where the handle stitches attached to the bag- for a total of 4 stitches - one stitch on each side of both handles. That helped ease in the fullness of the extra stitches needed for the handle. I then added 2 additional rows. At the last minute, I added an extra row of white to trim it off. The last thing to do is to tie off the last piece of plarn to make a nice finish.
I don't finish my pieces like most people do. (Even when using yarn, I finish my projects this way.) I created a slip stitch to end the project, and then weaved about 6 inches of the plarn into the finished bag. This keeps the ends from unraveling and makes for a nice finished look.
It only took a couple of weeks to make. I usually cut up five or six bags and then crocheted a few rows each night after I came back from Zumba.
It was super fun to make! I am going to start some new plarn for my next bag today!
