Moist Chocolate Cake

We grew up in one of those unusual and wonderful households where Mom baked everything from scratch. No boxed cake mixes for us! And Mom loves to bake so we often had cookies and cakes to greet us when we arrived home from school.

As a result I learned to bake very young. Sweet Blueberry Muffins is the first thing I remember baking by myself. I would get up early and greet the family with fresh baked muffins when they got up! This recipe is from the Betty Crocker Cookbook which Mom received as a wedding present. 

Another recipe I learned to bake as a child was a simple chocolate cake recipe called "Moist Chocolate Cake." This recipe was from a church ladies cookbook.  Mom had a couple of these cookbooks where local housewives would put their favorite recipes together and sell the cookbooks to raise money for the parish. 

This recipe is very easy - no eggs, no milk. Just a few ingredients - and always perfect! 

Recipe for Moist Chocolate Cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Add all ingredients to bowl and stir until smooth

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 1/2 cup flour

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/4 cup cocoa

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 Tbsp vinegar

• 1/2 cup salad oil

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1 cup cold water

Pour into ungreased 8x8 pan.
Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out smooth

For cupcakes: fill 12 muffin tins 1/2 full. Bake 22-25 minutes.  

Frost when cool. Enjoy.  

To start from seed or not to start from seed, that is the question.

The gardening centers and home improvement mega-stores have beautiful seedlings to purchase come warmer weather, so why plant your own seeds? I could say, “for the pure joy” but that would be a lie…anyone who grows their own plants know there is a lot of time and patience getting those little seedlings strong enough to consider planting outside, knowing you’ve lost many along the way, only to have heartbreak of seeing the entire lot demolished by cutworms in one night! But yes, there is a reason to try your own seeds…the gardening centers typically buy from wholesalers who grow vegetable (and flower) plants that are reliable, forgiving of the novice gardener, and tolerant to a variety of growing conditions. There is a lot of positive things to be said for that! And there is an increasing number of organic options appearing ever day! However it doesn’t mean these vegetables are the tastiest for your palate or best producer for your growing conditions. A tomato variety that excels in Massachusetts may limp along in San Francisco or fry to a crisp in Nebraska. Starting vegetables from seeds allows you to customize your vegetable garden to your tastes and locations…we customize everything in our lives, right down to our toothpaste, why not your harvest?

So is seed growing for everyone? No! But over time, anyone can be a convert. For starters, start with seeds that prefer to be “direct sown”. These plants do not like there roots disturbed and would prefer to be planted directly into the garden. For the novice gardener or the gardener that can not set up a pre-frost grow space, these are the seeds I would focus on buying and then use the hot start seedling flats from your garden center. These seeds are typically your root vegetables (i.e. turnip, carrot, beets, radishes), legumes (i.e. beans, peas), leafy greens (i.e. lettuce, kale, spinach) and melons / squashes (i.e. zucchini, cucumber, winter and summer squashes, cantaloupes, watermelon).

If you would like to try the direct sow seeds, ignore the hot start species and look here.

The other group of plants for seed starting are those with a long growing season that prefer a hot start (i.e. tomatoes, eggplants, peppers) also many hours of sunlight to make be strong. Putting these seeds on a window shelf will give you lanky plants that will disappoint you their whole growing season assuming they survived their transplant outside. For these plants, I strongly recommend a grow system which will require a space commitment in your home…you need a place to have the grow lights and also a location that four-legged companions or young children won’t choose to take a nibble. My grow system also has what is called propagation mats which allow for bottom heat to the roots of the seedlings giving them more base strength.

A compromise, if there’s a variety of hot start plants that you really have a hankering for is to have seedlings shipped to you. Many seed companies offer a selection of their seeds as started plants so you can have the best of both worlds…the variety you want without the commitment of a seed starting system. If going with this option, look at what the company offers for a guarantee for the seedlings, it would just take an unusual hot or cold spell to make those seedlings stressed in their shipment truck.

One last thing to consider looking at would be tubers / bulbs / roots that you can purchase as seed plants.  Plants that would fall into this category would be potatoes, onion sets, shallots, garlic, asparagus and cane crops (i.e. raspberries, blackberries).

Happy seed shopping!

Starting the new years' gardening calendar

It’s post-holidays which means the depth of the Persephone months in the Northern Hemisphere. According to Greek mythology, the goddess Persephone (daughter of Zeus & Demeter) lived underground 6 months of the year with her husband Hades and the remaining months on the earth. When she descends to the underworld, the seeds follow her into the ground for the winter, leaves fall from the trees, growth stops, crops die, and nothing bears fruit…nothing will reemerge until she does.

True to mythology, we witness the phenomenon of winter regardless of the temperature outside. Although the cold does have a huge impact on what will grow, hibernate or pass on, the reality is the plant world is completely dependent upon hours of daylight. During winter, the hours per day with direct sunlight diminishes and impacts the growth of plants. Those of us with cold frames will see even the hardiest of plants cease to grow further during these bleak days.

So what is a home gardener to do? Hibernate the months away? Certainly not! It is also the time of year that the postman brings, mixed in-between the post-holiday sale circulars, an abundance of seed catalogs! It is time to start thinking ahead what to plant and when.  This is the perfect time to plan!

I take my brand new calendar and mark out the following dates so they don’t get lost amid the frenzy of life: Date of last frost (http://www.almanac.com/content/frost-chart-united-states) preceded by 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks and 12 weeks before that date. This helps me to remember to get those seedlings started and/or into the ground at the right time. The other date I put on there is the date of first frost again preceded by 4 weeks, 6 weeks and 8 weeks before the first frost date so I can remember in the midst of summer’s abundant harvest to prepare for the fall and winter plantings.

This is a great way to start your New Year…with a freshly marked up gardening calendar!