A Little Slice of Home

Every once in a while, I just get those little cravings for home. Though I love being here at BYU and seeing the mountain scenery, something inside me longs for the long stretches of flat land and big sky that Texas holds. 

To curb those longings, I either listen to country music (this is only in an emergency. I seriously never listen to it otherwise), or I cook some Texas-y food. I've got a fabulous potato salad, blackberry cobbler, and a pulled pork recipe. I'll blog about that sometime, but today is not that day. Those ingredients are hard to come by in college. But I'm sure I will sometime! 

(By the way, if anyone gets the undying urge to buy me this shirt, I wouldn't have a problem with that....)

Anyway. Today's post is on a Texas dessert that is so mouthwateringly delicious, and yet so simple to make:

Texas sheet cake!

Seriously so good. I made an entire pan on Sunday, and my roommates and I consumed most of it in only a little over 24 hours. 

Here's how to make it!

Assemble your dry ingredients! Flour, sugar, salt, cocoa powder, and baking soda.

Mix 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of flour, 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda and a 1/2 teaspoon of salt in a bowl. Mix well.

Meanwhile, heat up 1/2 cup of butter, 1 cup of water and 1/2 cup of oil. Once it's been brought to a boil, mix in with the dry ingredients.

Add two eggs and 1/2 of buttermilk. I didn't have buttermilk, so I, as the "innovative" college student I am, used sour cream (it worked just fine!).

Pour into greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, it is time to make the frosting! It settles best when it is spread on the cake fresh out of the oven, so make it while the cake is baking.

Holy yum.

So- the frosting is simple. 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup milk, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, melted, mixed with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 4 cups of powdered sugar.

 Lick the spoon. Because duh. 

Once the cake comes out of the oven, spread the frosting on it. It will melt onto the warm cake in the most wonderful way possible. Serve the cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or cold milk.

And there you have it. A little slice of Texas... or heaven (same thing).

Texas Sheet Cake

Mix together:
2 C. sugar
2 C. flour
4 T. cocoa powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

Bring to boil, and then add to dry ingredient:
1/2 C. butter
1/2 C. oil
1 C. water

Mix in:
1/2 C. buttermilk (or 1/2 C. milk and 2 t. of vinegar or lemon juice) (or 1/2 C. sour cream)

Pour batter into greased sheet pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Spread with icing while warm.

Icing:

Heat until butter melts:
1/2 C. butter
1/4 C. milk
1/4 C. cocoa powder 

Add:
1 t. vanilla
4 C. powdered sugar

Mix together well with whisk, or an electric mixer.

Chicken Pasta with Roasted Tomato Marinara Sauce

There is hardly anything tastier than good Italian food. So, a couple weeks ago when I inherited a bunch of tomatoes from an old roommate whilst moving to a new apartment, I thought to myself, "Well, hey. I could use these to make some marinara sauce!". 

I'm actually not sure what I was thinking. I'm not even Italian, and I've never made marinara sauce before. So, as far as how authentic this is, I have no idea. Oh well. When it comes to food, I just tend to act on a whim and experiment at will. 

It's the best.

Anyway, I made this dish about two weeks ago, and based the sauce off of about 6,000 different recipes I found online. I'll do my best to accurately depict what I did, but I need to start actually writing down my recipes right away so that I can more precisely put them on here if I really am going to be blogging regularly.

So, here's what went down: 

Chicken Pasta with Roasted Tomato Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

6 fresh tomatoes

About a quarter of a yellow onion

Garlic (I used crushed- also inherited from an old roomie. Non-college budget world? Fresh, minced garlic.)

Italian seasoning (That's literally what it was called. In an ideal world, I would use fresh basil and oregano.)

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Chicken, sliced

Pasta

Fresh parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375* while you prepare the tomatoes.

Mince the onion. Wash, quarter, and seed the tomatoes (That stuff inside is NASTY. Not a fan.), and then place inside of a glass pan. Toss with a drizzle of olive oil, and then season to your heart's delight.

Fresh, herb blasted tomatoes in olive oil, all ready to be roasted!

(The good thing about this recipe is that you can easily use as many or as little tomatoes as you like, and then adjust spices to taste... It's your sauce!)

Once the tomatoes have been seasoned in the way that you would desire, place them in oven for about 1 hour. 

Meanwhile, prepare the pasta and grill the chicken. Of course, being in my little college apartment, I don't exactly have a grill. I just sliced the chicken and put it in the oven with my lovely roasting tomatoes for the last half of the cooking time or so. Yum yum!

When the tomatoes are done, they should have become slightly brown/black on the edges.

This is where you crush the roasted tomatoes into a wonderful sauce, and where I really remembered how much I hate being a poor college student. Had I been at home, I would have simply put the tomatoes into a food processor so that they would have been adequately chopped. I just used a potato masher and a bowl instead, and it turned out chunky, yet okay, despite my longing for proper kitchen equipment.

(There were some recipes that then called to stew the tomatoes for 3-4 hours with some tomato paste, but I was in the mood for something fresh and simple, and... (let's face it) ain't nobody got time for that! Maybe that's bad, and I guess it's kind of not a "sauce" so much anymore as it is a really yummy crushed roasted tomato thing. I'm sure there's some technical term for it somewhere on Food Network. But it was good.)

Top the pasta topped with the chicken and sauce, and garnish with fresh Parmesan cheese. Serve with warm bread.

The completed product served with some (classy) Walmart Italian herb bread.

Doesn't get much better than this, my friends.

Hello!

Welcome to my blog, Cantare e Cucinare (Italian for Singing and Cooking... aka pretty much the only two things I feel like I've got a knack for)! The last time I had a blog was in middle school, and I hope that this one is more er... sophisticated than that one was.

A quick introduction: My name is Amanda, and I'm a Choral Music Education major at Brigham Young University. I love music, reading, doodling, experimenting with recipes, and napping. Life is a wonderful thing, and I'm glad to be living it!

Join me as I (attempt) to update this blog with fun stories of my "adventures", recipes, links to a few of my favorite things, and more!