Hot wheels

My poor car. It's falling apart more each day. I, well actually Mitchell, had to replace my brakes on one of my tires a couple months ago. And a few weeks ago the same tire locked up and wouldn't rotate. I had to get a new wheel cylinder and new hardware.

I fear she's nearing the end of her days. She's 11 years old now, we've had some great times together. Now it's looking into the next steps.

I really want a Ford Escape. I really want a larger vehicle. The escape has decent gas mileage for an suv. And it's bigger than my dodge neon, which is nice.

But THEN, Mitchell's roommate came home from the Auto show in Chicago. Dodge Dart. It's not an suv, but it's cool looking and has tons of customizable features. And it's not too high in price. AND it comes in an awesome grey color which I love.

It comes out this May, so feel free to send it to me for my birthday ;)

Who likes cake?

I know I do! I look forward to a good celebration for a nice slice, but why wait for a special occasion when you can bake one up today! That's exactly what I did a week or so ago. (Apologies for it taking me so long to post this.) I was looking up cakes to make for Mitchell's birthday, of course on Pinterest, and I stumbled across this beauty. I couldn't wait until Mitchell's birthday to bake this one up, so in the oven it went!

Nilla Wafer Banana Caramel Cake
adapted from seriouseats.com

What you'll need:

First, melt some butter in a pan,

Meanwhile, mash up the bananas,

Add the bananas to the pan with the butter along with some brown sugar. Cook for about 10 minutes until the bananas cook down to a paste. Set them aside and let it cool.

Meanwhile, crush up the Nilla wafers.

Mix the cookie crumbs together with flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

In another bowl, combine buttermilk, vanilla, and the bananas.

Now, with either a hand mixer or a stand mixer (I love any chance I get to use mine, even if it's not a KitchenAid...yet!), beat two sticks of butter and brown sugar together. Then add eggs, one at a time.

Then add about a third of the cookie crumb mixture to the mixer.

Then add a third of the banana mixture. Repeat until both mixtures are fully combined.

This is where I realized after the fact that I wanted to add caramel to the cake. Looking back I would have added more than I did. And I would have added it to the mixture to combine it more. You can add caramel now if you wish.

Then pour the batter into a greased cake pan. I used two 9" round pans so I could make a stacked cake. You can choose your preference, but the cook times will vary. (The times used in the recipe are for two round pans.)

I poured caramel over the top of the batter in the pans. I would use a lot more if I did this recipe again. You could use as much as you like, but the taste is very faint if you use just a little.

Use a knife to swirl the caramel throughout the cake batter (for full flavor enhancement!)

Then comes my favorite part, the taste test! Make sure you lick those beaters clean. ;)

Pardon my poor decorating skills, it's part I cut the whole in my "piping bag" (aka ziploc) way too big and part I just have no real experience decorating. That is soon to change though, I had some Amazon credit from trading in some text books and I ordered a decorating kit and a book with tips on how to improve. But anyways, behold the finished product! It tasted amazing!! Try it, I dare you!

Get the full recipe here. (Don't forget to add caramel, you won't regret it!)

Tuesday's are the worst

So I admit I have been less than awesome at keeping up my blog after my 30 days were over. I thought they said it was going to be easy?!? Oh well, I am still determined to blog regularly I just have so many things going on.
I think it was a good decision to start while I was on winter break because if I was to try and blog everyday I would fail for sure. The only reason I'm blogging today is because I have this completely unbearable night class that I'm struggling to stay awake in.
Let me just give you a snapshot of my day: I woke up at 6:45 to get ready for work. Walked out the door at 7:30 to get to work on time at 8am. I left work at 12:30pm and sped home because I had to meet a group for a project due today at 1pm. It takes a good 20-30 minutes to get from my work to my house and then 15 minutes to walk from my house to class. I got to campus at 1:04. Take that.
I'm currently running on a small bowl of oatmeal and a half baggie of pretzels at this point. So we have our group meeting and we manage to turn in our assignment at 1:29, the Dropbox closed at 1:30. Whew!
Then off to class. Scarf down a cereal bar and the rest of my bag of pretzels during class. We're supposed to have time to work on the next part of our group project at the end of class. Well she gave us like a half hour which was hardly enough. Class ends at 4:40 and were not done, not even close. So we stay to finish instead of getting everyone together again. We finished at 5:15pm.
That would be not so bad really, except that I have class at 5:30 and that was my dinner break. I gave up two meals today for this group project - we better get a good grade.
So here I am now sitting in my class that doesn't end until 8:10pm and I'm cursing Tuesday under my breath.
I can't wait to go home and sleep, oh wait I have homework that is still due in the morning.

Oh the joys of college... Have I mentioned I can't wait to graduate?