Batter-Splattered

thrift store scores

Recent thrift store purchases...

A terra cotta pot shaped like a big fat chicken.

I filled it with dill and put it on the backporch.

I got four dining room chairs awhile back for $7 each.

The finish on them was not good but I figured, what the heck -- if I get tired of them or if I find something I like better, I can send them back to the thrift store. But then the husband latched onto them immediately -- he'd just got done telling me how he liked dining room chairs with a very high back on them and what do you know, these fit that bill. He spent many, many days stripping and sanding and staining... he took it very. Very. Seriously. Which means I'm glad I like how they turned out because I don't think I'm allowed to re-thrift them anytime soon.

And then I got these nice and heavy, long and rectangular tart pans, made in France:

Three of them. I was thinking that not only would they make very pretty tarts, they'd also look good hanging decoratively on that slim bit of wall between my kitchen counter and the bottom edge of the kitchen cabinets.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I found this vintage metal cake carrier at a thrift store a couple of weeks ago and ever since I've been positively itching to take a cake somewhere. Anywhere.

ITCHING to take a cake, I tell you. I was even wishing I had church to go to on Sunday just so I could take a cake for my fellow church-goers to enjoy (that urge passed).

Have cake, will travel.

Luckily, one of my co-workers up and quit and we threw her a going-away potluck yesterday! YAY, she's leaving, I can bring a cake! ... or something a little more sensitive and sorrowful.

The cake carrier was quite the conversation piece at the potluck. I'd hear people saying things like, "Reminds me of something my grandma would have!" It's not the first time someone's accused me of having the taste of a granny. I embrace it -- grannies lived in times of very good design.

I'd also hear: "Groovy!"

And: "Classy!"

People were even taking bets on when it was made. The 1940's? '50's? 60's? It has West Bend, Made in the USA etched on the bottom, but no date. There's also quite a few dents in it. I hope there wasn't a cake inside when they dropped it! I didn't mind the dents though -- I have a few dents and scratches in me too.

I suspected it was made in the 1970's (just like me), what with the harvest gold color and all. Sure enough, I found some more on ebay in avocado green. Mrs. Brady would have carried one just like this, with a cake baked by Alice inside.

You can get your own cake carrier right here on ebay. If that link has expired, as ebay links are bound to do, run a search on "west bend cake" and some should pop right up. I have my eye on a set of matching canisters for holding flour, sugar, tea, and coffee. The black knob on top is bakelite -- pretty cool.

And with all this talk about cake, why don't we talk about the real deal? I just baked a pineapple upside-down cake! But not for the potluck -- the potluck cake was chocolate-chocolate with strawberries on top.

This afternoon, it was all about the pineapples:

I've only ever made pineapple upside-down cakes in a Lodge cast iron skillet.  This one was made in a regular old 9-inch cake pan. I think I like it -- the non-stick coating released the cake easily and without a hitch when I turned it out onto a plate.

Come to think of it, I've only ever made this cake once or twice. Canned fruit isn't exactly my favorite thing and I wouldn't even go near a pineapple when I was little. It's the sugary sweetness. It's not my thing.

But I do enjoy an upside-down cake from time to time at this particular juncture of my life. I got the recipe from the same cookbook I got my zucchini bread recipe from, Mary Englebreit's Queen of the Kitchen Cookbook. Ever since I pulled it off the shelf and dusted it off, I've been flipping through it and marking one recipe after another to try out. 

My husband loves himself a pineapple upside-down cake. LOVES. So his eyes lit up when he learned I was making one. Once I'd fished seven perfect little pineapple rings out of the can, he polished off what was left, juice and all. Knocked it back in a few seconds flat.

I messed up right away when I was making this and I blame the person who wrote the recipe. In the ingredients list, it says a stick of butter. And what I didn't notice was that the butter is divided in the recipe instructions -- a half a stick at the beginning, a half a stick at the end. So I ended up putting an entire stick into the gooey syrup that you pour into the cake pan first. And so it didn't turn out too syrupy. It was good. Just not thick and sticky and syrupy.

For the love of god, recipe writers, if an ingredient is divided in the recipe, say so right there in the ingredients list. One stick of butter, divided. Gimme me a heads-up. 

I fixed it for you, dear reader, in the recipe as written below.

You're welcome.

I also didn't use the dark brown sugar called for in the recipe because I didn't feel like buying more brown sugar even though it was only $1.50 at the store because I already had plenty of light brown sugar at home. I'm like that.

We had this right out of the oven with a little whipped cream. So good. Oh, and a little something I liked about the ingredients is that they call for a pinch of pepper along with spices such as cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg -- I thought that was a nice touch.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Makes one nine inch cake

1/2 c (one stick) butter, divided

1/2 c packed dark brown sugar

8 slices canned pineapple (20 oz. can)

1 1/4 c all purpose flour

3/4 c sugar

2 t baking powder

1/4 t cinnamon

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t ginger

1/4 t salt

Pinch of finely ground pepper

1/2 c milk

1 egg

1 1/2 t vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small saucepan, melt 1/4 cup (half a stick! not the whole stick -- save the rest for later) of butter over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar until well mixed. Spread the butter-sugar mixture evenly in the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan. Place a pineapple ring in the center of the pan on top of the butter-sugar mixture, then arrange more pineapple rings in a circle around the center one.

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

In a small saucepan, melt the remaining half a stick of butter. Pour the milk into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the melted butter, egg, and vanilla and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Scrape batter gently over pineapple rings and gently smooth the top with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the cake cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Invert the cake onto a serving plate and let stand for 1 minute before lifting the cake pan (mine popped right out). Serve warm or at room temperature.

hutch heaven / salsa chicken

Here's one of my favorite thrift store scores yet:

It's an old light green hutch I found this weekend at a local thrift shop. It's revolutionized the kitchen / dining room / living room in the new house (you can see it from all rooms). As soon as I got it inside and in its corner, I packed it full of teacups and saucers and teapots and things. The drawers and cabinets are still empty but not for long.

Now to paint those matte white walls in a complementary color. Any suggestions?

I also got some wooden chairs to replace those metal ones you see above -- my husband has hated those metal chairs since the day I brought them home. The wooden ones need some work -- sanding, recovering the cushions, etc. I'll be sure to post a photo when they're done.

I had visitors today for lunch. LOOK:

That's Chai the beagle, totally focused on the Yummy Chummies being handed out by Angie to the pups in an effort to get them all to SIT for a split second, just long enough to take this photo:

For lunch, we (the people, not the dogs) had my favorite new easy dinner. Take some frozen chicken breast tenderloins, place them in a baking dish, pour a nice mango peach salsa over them (Costco has a nice one), and bake until the chicken is just cooked.

Once you're done digging into the chicken, you can scoop up the rest of the warm salsa with chips.

It's so good, and so easy you don't even need a recipe.

Thrift store scores, culinary and not-so culinary

On Saturday afternoon I wasn't planning on going on an extended thrift store jaunt. It just sort of happened that way. I went to one. And I found such good junk that the spirit moved me to go to another. And then another. I was snapping up the bargains left and right.

I got kitschy souvenir bamboo coasters from my home state...

...still in their kitschy packaging (mind you, I only paid 75 cents for these because everything in the store was half off):

I found a new-in-the-box circa 1991 Sassafras Superstone La Cloche baker!

Oh, the bread I'll bake in that baby.

Four tall and slim brown mugs (although they look more short and squat in my photo than they are in real life). They're some sort of restaurantware, sturdy with a caramel glaze. I think these would be the perfect thing to hold hot chocolate or some chocolate pudding with whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top:

A white teapot with an angular handle, made in Italy:

...to add to my collection of white stuff on top of one of the kitchen cupboards.

And I found this U.S. Senate lidded mug that tickles me silly for some reason, made of 100% corn plastic and advertising Uncle Ted:

I dropped it on the tile floor of the thrift store and both pieces went bouncing and spinning across the floor with nary a scratch. That corn plastic's some sturdy stuff.

And  I got a funny little painting (for a buck-fifty!) of a log cabin, birch trees, and an orange sky (sunrise or sunset?) just like the skies we see lots of this time of year.

I particularly like the glow of the cabin's window shining on the snowbank outside:

The first time I walked past the shelf where they keep all their framed 'art,' there was nothing of interest but when I wandered past again a few minutes later, there the painting was. And how lucky is it that the painting's sky perfectly matches the orange-y peachy-ness of my newly-sewn kitchen curtains? They were meant to be together.

Green tea in blue and white china

Just found a set of seven (how come seven?) of these cups and saucers at the thrift store.

Made in England. Blue and white. Sweet little birds. I love them. And I could be wrong, but I swear green tea tastes better when you drink it from a pretty cup like this one. Tea party, anyone?

I spotted the cups in the thrift store on the back side of one of the kitchen aisles, looking a bit lonely hanging on their little hooks. Great cups, I thought, but what are the chances that the saucers are here too? But there they were in a short stack mixed in with the plates.

I have a theory that the former owner had a set of eight, but when one cup and/or saucer broke, the person couldn't handle owning cups and saucers in an odd increment and so banished them to the thrift store. What do you think? Or maybe, like myself, they have a husband who complains about "all these damn dishes... who needs this many dishes?"

What does he know anyway?

I have to go make some room in the cupboards now.