A to Z Blogging Challenge

I have signed up for the A to Z Blogging challenge this year.

 I was invited by Donna B. McNicol, who has some terrific blogs of her own!

   The challenge starts on April 1st and the challenge is to write a blog post every day (except Sundays) starting with A and working your way to Z. Sound like fun? You can sign up for the challenge here. 

There's only 8 days left to sign up and so far there are 1602 participants!

I will be doing my challenge on my other blog,

  

Karen's Different Corners

Hope to see you there!

Juice and Cake!

It's been a while since I last posted. Valentine's Day actually!

It seems as if I'm only doing the holidays. So to keep on course...

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and along with making corned beef and cabbage and all the trimmings,  and having an extra bag of carrots and a few apples, I decided to get out the juicer.

Yep, it's an oldie but works great!

Nothing beats a glass of homemade juice! Even carrot juice is smooth and sweet and adding a few crisp apples, gives it an extra tangy sweetness.

But wait! 

Don't throw out the pulp!

It has all the fiber.

So what do you do with it, you ask?

You bake a cake!

I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. But not ordinary cream cheese. No, pumpkin spice cream cheese. Every once in a while I find some really neat things at the 99 cent store that my local grocery store doesn't carry! Name brands for just 99 cents? Works for me!

My Carrot Cake Recipe

Sift together

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

Add:

1/2 cup oil 

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups of the carrot/apple pulp from the juicer 

or you can substitute

1 cup grated carrots and 1/2 cup of grated apple for the pulp

1/2 cup of chopped nuts (optional)

1/2 cup crushed pineapple drained (optional)

Mix all ingredients together and add to flour mixture.

Pour into a 9x9 greased and floured pan.

(I used a 9x9 Corningware baking dish. I greased it with oil, but did not flour it) 

Bake at 350 for apprx. 35-40 minutes

Cream Cheese Frosting

3 T. unsalted butter

2 T. milk

1/2 cup of spreadable cream cheese

2 cups powdered sugar

Melt the butter, add milk and cream cheese, mix and then add the powdered sugar.

Note: Depending on how stiff you want your frosting, add more powdered sugar till your desired consistency. 

Even though I overcooked mine (Don't bake and be on the computer at the same time.) and didn't add pineapple to it, it was still moist even after cutting it and the next day also.