Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cake

Good Fat Tuesday morning! (And I mean Fat Tuesday in the Mardi Gras sense of the phrase. Please don't be offended!)

The Gallery Pics are from my newest hobby/interest/obsession. Trying every new "gourmet" potato chip on the market. It's going to take a while. There are literally dozens of these new chips on the shelves.

Last week I had Pita Chips seasoned with sea salt. I LOVED those. However, they are very, very hard and a little thick, so if you have anything loose in your mouth (crown, filling, tooth, etc.), I would be careful eating these particular chips. Also, I am now a huge fan of sea salt. Very good.

As the pictures indicate, this week's chip of choice was the Sweet and Beet Chip. The bag is full of beautiful dark gold chips and a few purple ones. The dark gold chips are good (sweet potato), but not very salty at all. The purple chips are pretty (beets), but not very tasty OR salty. I do like sweet potato, so this purchase wasn't a waste. I will eat each and every sweet potato chip in the bag.

And I will try to feed the beagles the beet chips!

Next week... Parsnip Chips! You think I'm kidding, but I'm not!

RANDOMNESS #1 - My exercise buddy, Cam, and I continue to walk and Body Pump during the week. I was very excited yesterday afternoon because I decided I would take my new and improved Body Pump body to Cato for a new skirt/shirt ensemble for Easter. (They have the prettiest display windows.)

According to my instructor(s), everything on my being should be tight, tight, tight! Unfortunately, everything I PUT on my being was tight, tight, tight!

I'm going to give it another week... or ten!

RANDOMNESS #2 - Spring Break is almost upon us, and we're planning a Faulkner Five camping trip for a few days and nights. This is our 14th year of consecutive tent camping... and some years we have gone two or three times. (We're planning on two trips this year depending on weather.)

That's a lot of camping, and while I would like to make it to 15 years and call it a day, Mikie and the kids still really, really love it. (The kids do not know it's not my "thing," and I think it is a huge testament to ME and how I act when we are in the wilderness they haven't figured it out yet. That, or they just don't care what I think or feel.)

I'm going to share some old camping stories the rest of this week from our earlier experiences.

DISCLAIMER - While it is most definitely NOT my "thing," it is the best "thing" we've ever done as a family. Waking up together in very close quarters, playing cards, talking, sitting by the fire, making s'mores, talking, riding bikes, talking, playing basketball, fishing, talking, riding in the boat, drinking hot chocolate, etc., etc., etc. are definitely family bonding moments. I mean, you actually get to eat THREE meals a day together. That can be hard to do at home with work, school and extracurricular activities.

One Fish, Red Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish

Ahh, Guntersville. Our favorite campground. Familiar, familiar, familiar. We even got in our regular Section... close enough to see the lake and enjoy the benefits thereof, but even closer to the bathhouse!

We had gone camping with other families from our church, and we were busy just watching kids on bikes, kids on scooters, kids playing ball, kids walking along the lake borders, kids getting really, really dirty... you get the picture. Kids having a ball!

As always, our attention was mainly on the now five year-olds as they went hither and yon. (Have you noticed the more familiar a child becomes with a place, the more courageous they are exploring said place? That's what we were having to really watch for. We had been to Guntersville several times now, and the familiarity was almost against us... almost like being in our own backyard, but not child-proof in any way, shape or form.)

We could see their little heads as they picked up rocks and threw them into the water. We were pleased they were obeying and no wading was taking place... but we knew not to take our eyes off them.

There they went. They were bending over. I wondered what on earth... Between the two friends they carried something large and cumbersome. They would bend over and put it down and then get a new grip on it before hoisting it up between them again. They were walking toward us, and we waited to see what they had discovered!

Into the campsite they marched, red-cheeked and breathless, holding onto their prize. It was a huge (and I mean bigger than the pigeon that landed on my head) fish. And the problem they had carrying it had nothing to do with the fact it was fighting them or wiggling or anything normal like that. It was a huge dead fish. Ugh!

"Look what we caught!" they excitedly said.

"Well, I don't know if 'caught' is the right word," I said.

"We did catch it," they claimed indignantly.

Uh-oh. I had offended them. "Well, that is certainly one big, dead fish," I said smiling.

"We want to cook it and eat it," they demanded.

"Uh, I don't think so. I think there's a rule about eating a fish that's dead when you catch it," I said, hoping they would buy that one.

"Oh," they replied looking at their catch.

One of the dads came up at that point and walked back to the side of the lake with them to dispose of the giant dead fish. (But not before I got a picture of the two boys with their "catch" of the day.)

"Well, that was pretty gross," the moms all agreed.

We settled back into our positions of watching the kids all around us, and special attention was given to the five year-olds once again walking along the lake. There they went. They were bending over. They held something huge between them and started walking toward us. I didn't have to wonder what it was.

If possible, this dead fish was bigger than the first. "Guys, what did we say about picking up dead fish?" I asked.

"We're pretty sure this one was alive when we picked it up. Can we cook it and eat it?" was the sly reply.

"I'm no expert, boys, but that fish has been dead for quite a while. No, we will not cook it and eat it! Take it back, wash your hands UP TO YOUR ELBOWS and stop picking up dead fish!"

Now I was getting worried as to why so many dead fish were showing up on the banks of Lake Guntersville. That couldn't be good. (One more picture to remember the "Year of the Dead Fish" and off they went.)

Again, we settled down. I was staring a hole into the back of the five year-olds' heads. Hands on hips, they were in deep discussion. Glances over their shoulders to see if we were indeed watching them. More discussion. And then I guess it was more than their five year-old little bodies could take.

There they were. They were bending over. This time they came up easily and started the walk toward the camp... each holding one small dead fish. For them to be so forthcoming about turning themselves in, I knew the discussions had brought forth what they thought was a reasonable explanation as to why they had disobeyed us for a third time.

They stopped in front of me. I went ahead and took the picture before they started talking, because when you punish a child, it kind of takes away from it if you start posing them right after you lower the boom.

"We just wanted to know what the difference is in catching the fish with our hands, and taking a fishing pole and catching them with that? The fish are going to die right after we get them out of the water anyway, right?"

Good one. "Yes. That's right. But for fish to be floating on top of the water at the edge of the lake means something is wrong with them. They could be sick or something, because a normal fish does not float on top of the water at the edge of the lake." Could I make myself more clear!

"So you're saying we can't eat these fish because they were sick before they died?" one of them asked.

"Yes! Yes! These are not healthy fish! This is not a healthy hobby! This is not like fishing with a pole from the dock! This is bad!" They were finally getting it.

They dropped the fish like they were poison. Since I thought the point had been made, I didn't want them to pick them back up and take them back to the lake. (I'd get Mikie to do that!) But I did tell them once again to wash their hands UP TO THEIR ELBOWS and never touch another dead fish again.

Communication is so important in parenting, isn't it? However, when I got the pictures back, I gave a set to each one. They were pretty proud of the giant fish they had "caught." I think they were much bigger than they remembered.

And after years and years of fishing, Josh has never "caught" one as big as the one he picked up with his buddy those many years ago. It's kind of sad really.

Maybe I should have had them mounted!

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cake

Back in August of 2009, I posted a Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cake on A Simple Life. It was the cake Austin chose for his birthday cake this year. Since it is hard to read all of the Archives in A Simple Life, I decided to try something a little different and re-post this recipe using strawberries instead of cherries. Mikie and Josh aren't cherry fans, but they do like strawberries.

You will need the following:

1 package Devil's Food cake mix
1 can strawberry pie filling (OR cherry)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup milk
5 tablespoons butter
1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Beat first 4 ingredients at low speed for 20 seconds; increase speed to medium, and beat for 1 minute. Pour batter into a greased and floured 13" x 9" pan.

3. Bake for 27 to 30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cake.

4. Bring sugar, milk and butter to a boil in a heavy 2-quart saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. Boil 1 minute.

5. Remove from heat. Stir in chocolate morsels until melted and smooth.

6. Pour over warm cake. Cool completely before serving.

This is good stuff! (Much better than a beet chip!)

Have a fun Fat Tuesday. Wednesday Wisdom, a Seasonal Tradition and so much more will be waiting for your return in the morning!

Take care, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Sincerely,

The Enchanting Belinda