Very Chocolatey Cake

We had a birthday at work this week and I wanted to bring my very famous chocolate cake. This cake is so good that a friend of mine will do work around the house for me if I bake him this chocolate cake. But I was ready to amp it up a bit. The only way to improve a chocolate cake is to add more chocolate, right? This recipe is so easy, moist and chocolatey. Try it you'll love it.

1 pkg of Devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 oz) pkg of instant chocolate pudding mix
1 c. sour cream
1 c. vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. of milk (This is the 1st amp up. This was water.)
1 tsp. of vanilla
2 c. of mini semisweet chocolate chips (This is the 2nd amp up.)

In a large bowl, mix together the cake, pudding, sour cream, oil, eggs, milk and vanilla. Stir in the chocolate chips. Pour into either a bundt pan or two 9 inch round cake pans. Bake on 350 for 45 minutes. Be careful not to over bake. Cool cake in the pan for at least an hour.

I'm still working on the frosting. The Hubbs says it needs a really good butter cream icing but not my peanut butter cream icing because the peanut butter takes away from the chocolate flavor. Is that possible? If you try it let me know what you think.

Julie and Julia - Post Viewing

I had the girls over Wednesday to watch Julie and Julia.

The Dinner...So as usual the preparation began early. Tuesday night I was attempting to make my first ever Creme Brulee. It is one of our favorite desserts and I thought I would give it a try. I mean I had the torch and everything (thanks Hubby). My timing was perfect, I constantly stirred but never brought the liquid to a boil. I reached the most crucial point of the preparation and there was no separation (that's a good thing). It looked perfect and smelled wonderful. I say looked because as I waited and waited for the Creme Brulee to set, it never did. Instead of Creme Brulee we ended up with Creme Brulee Soup. With no time left to prepare a backup dessert, I stopped on the way home Wednesday to pick up some Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches. On the upside, the rest of the dinner was delightful. The Mediterranean Pita's turned out perfectly and introduced me to a new sandwich topping. The pita's consisted of a pita with hummus spread over it, topped with tiny hamburgers, red onion, parsley and drizzled with olive oil. The hummus made the pita. I loved it so much that I had it on a chicken sandwich the next day (equally as good). With the pitas I served a simple Mediterranean lettuce salad. Yum-O.

The Movie...I like the book more then the movie but to be fair I usually do. However, Meryl Streep nailed the part of Julia. She immersed herself in the role as no other actress could have done. There, of course, were some disappointments from the movie. For those of you who read the book you will be able to appreciate what I am about to say. After the movie was over, we were discussing the lack of one of our favorite scenes from the book...bitch rice. How is it possible that that scene made it to the cutting room floor and the chicken meltdown made it...

The Wine...we had three delicious wines, of which, I can remember the names of none and the bottles have already made it to recycling :( We had a Zin, a Cab and a Merlot.

Julie and Julia

I'm planning a dinner with some of my best girlfriends this week. We are going to watch Julie and Julia. A movie based on a book that we have all read. So while planning I got to thinking about how my friends and I don't really like French cooking. How perfect would a French menu have been for this evening of fun? On the menu instead is Mediterranean. We are having Mediterranean Beef Pitas with a Mediterranean side salad and Catalan Creme Brulee for desert. Yum! Stay Tuned movie and food review to follow.

Resolutions

A friend of mine was blogging about her New Year's resolutions and it got me thinking about my own resolutions. I don't typically make resolutions or at least I haven't for years. Oh, I always use to resolve to lose weight or exercise. I even gave up caffeine once. It would last a week or two maybe a month and I would be back to my old ways. Last year that changed. No I didn't lose a bunch or weight or exercise more and I still drink a ton of caffeine. Instead I made a resolution to expand my social circles. Meet some new friends. Dispel the belief that we have a majority of our friend by the time we leave college. It was an interesting challenge with an amazing reward, if I followed through. It was the first resolution that I followed to the end. I have met so many amazing people this year. Friends that I get together with on a regular basis. I even extended the resolution to reconnect with friends that I had misplaced over the years. It has been a great year! So that resolution is going on with me for a few more years, at this point it's almost a lifestyle change. So with one successful year with a resolution under my belt I think that I'll give it another try. So what small manageable change could I make that would improve my life. Another thing that I'm going to borrow from my blogging friend, I'm going to spend some time with my camera. I'm going to learn how to use it and how to take better pictures. I'm going to take it off the auto setting and really see what it can do. Mostly to feed it into my other addiction...scrapbooking. Before you know it I'm going to be wanting a better camera. I guess that may be the downside to this resolution. Wish me luck and be looking for the results.

Let the Blogging Begin

Last year at some point I had this GREAT idea to start blogging. Well we see where that got me. I had so many ideas running through my head of things I could blog about and no idea where to start. Would my blog be specific or random? I love to read and belong to a wonderful book club, so I thought maybe I would share the books that I was reading and maybe set up a rating system. I also love to scrapbook and craft, so maybe I would share some of my creations. But I also love junking and decorating, so maybe the answer was to share my market findings and decorating tips that sounded fun. Or wine, I LOVE wine. I could make recommendations and rate my favorites. There are so many things that I love and would like to share with my friends and family, so why not share all of it. After all Martha does that every month in her publication. So this is the beginning of all the things that I want to share and some family stories along the way. I hope you ENJOY!