Atomic Tonic

The last couple of weeks I've been going through all the cookbooks I own. The many I never use and the few I do. I've been making weekly menus and shopping lists because taking care of two kids is ruining my ability to remember where I put my chapstick or if I put a diaper on the kid I just changed or what I should cook for dinner.

Two kids was making the idea of one trip a week to the grocery store daunting, nevermind the three or four it actually was. The first few times I even contemplated it I ended up on the couch in a cold sweat instead. Where does one even put an infant and a toddler in one grocery cart and also have room for any groceries? What do you do when the toddler wants to run down the aisles and bolt around the corner clear out of sight and the infant is in the cart? How can one person be in two places at once? How does one make dinner when the toddler puts you on the spot? Every single night with the requests to eat. Every night! "Mama! Eat!" Every night with this dinner thing.

So I'm going through all my cookbooks. I'm shopping once a week. I threw away the cookbook that turned out three mediocre to bad meals, the last of which Matilda scraped off her tongue. A few new recipes have made it onto the list of things I'll make again.

Tonight's dinner was crap. Needed oyster sauce. Lucky for us, Matilda and I had put a cake in the oven before I started chopping leeks.

The cake was alright.

(Fom Cooking Light Magazine)

1 2/3 cup flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup applesauce
1/2 cup plain soy milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the wet ingredients, the cranberries and nuts. Mix well. Pour into a greased 10-inch springform pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until edges begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool and sprinkle powdered sugar on top.