Grandma Row's Coffee Cake

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
2 cups flour, divided
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup raisins
½ cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°

Mix together the sugar, brown sugar, butter, and 1 cup of flour.
Set aside 2 tbsp of the mixture to use later for a topping.
To the main batter, mix in the remaining cup of flour, as well as the egg, buttermilk, baking soda, vanilla, and raisins.
Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9x13 cake pan.
Sprinkle the reserved sugar/flour/butter mixture over the top, along with the ½ cup chopped nuts.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until done.

Grandma Row's Butterscotch Brownies

Ingredients
½ cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs (Note: Grandma's recipe calls for 2 eggs, but an extra egg helps the brownies cook in the center)
1 ½ cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350º
Mix together the butter, sugar, and eggs.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt.
Add to the mix, along with the vanilla and nuts.
Mix together (may need to mix or stir by hand because the batter is very thick).
Spread into a well-greased and floured 9x13 pan.
Bake for 35 minutes.

Grandma Row’s Strawberry Cake

Ingredients
1 box yellow cake mix
1 small box strawberry jello
3 T. flour
¾ c. oil
4 eggs
½ c. water
16oz container of frozen strawberries with sugar, thawed
1 box powdered sugar (1 lb.)
½ stick butter, melted

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350º

Mix together the cake mix, jello powder, flour, oil, eggs, water, and half (8 oz) of the strawberries. Pour into a greased-and-floured 9x13 cake pan.

Bake 30min or until a toothpick comes out clean.

While cake is baking, prepare the icing by mixing together the remaining 8oz strawberries, the powdered sugar, and the melted butter.

When cake is finished baking, remove from oven, poke holes in the cake with a fork, and pour the icing over the cake.

Novella's Banana-Nut Cake

Banana-Nut cake was a specialty of Mikesha’s grandmother, Novella Roberson. Over the past decade or so, Mikesha has taken up this part of her grandmother’s mantle, and Banana-Nut Cake is becoming a tradition at Williams-Row Thanksgiving dinners.

Ingredients for Cake
1½ cups sugar
⅔ cup shortening
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp buttermilk
3 mashed bananas (ripe or overripe)
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup chopped walnuts
2 eggs

Ingredients for Icing
¼ lb butter, allowed to warm to room temperature
1 lb powdered sugar
2 mashed bananas (ripe or overripe)
½ cup chopped walnuts

Cake Directions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Cream sugar and shortening until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, beating lightly.
Stir in mashed bananas.
Sift in dry ingredients and stir to moisten.
Add vanilla and stir.
Bake in two 8-inch round pans at 350° for 25 minutes or until set.

Icing Directions
Make sure butter is at room temperature.
Cream butter and powdered sugar.
Mix in bananas.
If not thick, add more powdered sugar to reach desired consistency.

Note: This icing recipe never does get thick like butter-cream icing, it’s usually pretty runny or “gloppy”.  Meringue powder (from the cake decoration section) can help stiffen the icing somewhat.

Household Police

We had just finished dinner, and Hadleigh, 2 years old at the time, and Karson, 4 years old, were chasing each other through the house. As Hadleigh chased Karson, he ran through the hallway and shouted, "Stop in the name of Jesus," and guess what? She stopped! Nothing like pulling the Jesus card when you want something done.

There Is No Two

Here's a couple of funny things we overheard today

The two three-year-olds are arguing because they'd seen a toy commercial and both of them wanted it...

Kid1: Dad, Karson wants the same thing that I want!
Me: It's OK if you both want the same thing.
K1: No! I don't want him to want it!
Me: What if we bought two of them?
K1: There is no two.
Me: Well, what if I bought seven of them?
K1: There is no seven. Sorry!

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And at dinner time...

5-year-old: I don't want no mashed potatoes.
Mikesha: I don't want any mashed potatoes.
5yo: Me neither!

Kalebisms

My six-year-old, Kaleb, came up to me and said, “I need you to save up $1000 for my band.”

I replied, “I think you need to save $1000 yourself.”

Kaleb came back with, “Well, can you at least help me save $1000 with your money? I need a sound system for my band.”

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A little later, Kaleb said to Kyle (my 17-year-old), “Kyle, we should save our money to buy my guitar.”

Kyle said, “Kaleb, why am I saving my money?”

Kaleb said, “Ok... I guess you can use my amp.” (He doesn't have an amp, but I wonder if he's thinking about that sound system.)

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The other day, Kyle said something about needing a personal trainer to help him get in shape. Kaleb said, “OK, fine, I'll do it.”

Kaleb climbed up on a box and said, “We're going to start with some push-ups — get down and give me 20.”

Kyle did a couple but then said he was done. Kaleb said, “Good, ‘cause I'm done too.”