I Promise You.. Best Carrot Cake Ever!

"finished making carrot cake and time to snooze"

I promise you, this is the very best carrot cake you will ever make! I don't know where my mother got her recipe but I know she was making this when we lived in Girard, Ohio. That was early 1960's.  So this recipe is at least 50 years old.  Although I loved the sweetness and the moist texture of this cake, not to mention the cream cheese frosting that melted in your mouth, I used to come up with any excuses I could to leave the house whenever she mentioned baking this cake.  I was the designated carrot grater and really hated doing it.  After so many years, I made this cake in her memory and grated all the carrots myself with joy, and with thankfulness for her recipe.  I know I could have used a food processor, but it meant so much to do it by hand this time. So here you go:

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
3 cups grated raw carrots
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray either 3 round cake pans or 9x13 pan.
Cream sugar and oil until well blended. Add eggs one at a time and beat well.  Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon into separate bowl. Add the dry mixture to creamed mixture. Fold in carrots and nuts.  Pour into either 3 round cake pans or 9 x 13 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 75 or more minutes.  Insert toothpick to see if done.  (If it comes out clean, it's done)



Bad photo... actually looks much yummier than this!

Frosting
6oz cream cheese
1/2 stick butter (or margarine)
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups confectioner sugar

Beat all ingredients together.

Spread frosting on the cake once the cake is completely cool.

Enjoy!!!!  If you try this recipe, please comment here and let me know what you think.

TIN TIN BEEF - Very very good!

Whenever we went on a day trip, my mother packed "bento" for all of us who accompanied her. She always made rice balls (onigiri), pickled vegetables (otsukemon), and tin tin beef. It came to be called "tin tin beef" because there was no name for this dish as it was her unique creation. Whenever someone would say, "Mickey, this is so delicious. What's in it? How did you make it?" She would always say, "I make this with tin tin beef."  She meant, thin thin beef. 
It's a dish she made using thinly sliced shredded beef cooked with bamboo shoots, onions and ginger.  I don't know of anyone who did not go for seconds.  Great thing about this dish is that you can serve it hot with hot rice and some vegetables on the side, or you can serve it cold with cold rice. I'm so glad that she had me help her make this dish so I can continue the tradition.  I make it often when my brother comes home to visit, and make sure there's enough for him to take him just like my mother used to do. 
For some reason though, it never quite tastes like when mom used to make it.  It's good but misses her touch...

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon canola oil (don't use olive oil - it won't taste right. Italian-Japanese not good    combination)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
Fresh ginger root cut in 1" chunk and grated finely over skillet
1 Tablespoon butter
1/2 medium onion - sliced thin
1 lb. shredded beef (tin tin beef)
1  8oz. can bamboo shoots - drained
1/2" ginger root sliced and then minced
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. mirin (optional - Japanese sweet seasoning)
1 Tablespoon - sake (optional - Japanese wine - or any white wine)

 

 

Heat oil in medium to large skillet. Add minced garlic. Grate 1" ginger (skin removed) over the pan. Add butter and sliced onion.  Let it simmer until onions are translucent.

 

 



Add shredded beef small portions at a time making sure that they are not clumped together. Add bamboo shoots. Continue to cook.

Add soy sauce and sugar and ginger.  Season with salt and pepper to taste. You can also add mirin and/or wine at this point.  Let it all simmer until beef is completely cooked. You can keep tasting and adding more soy sauce or ginger or sugar to your liking.

 

Serve with hot rice and enjoy!  Serves 4.

Egg Rolls from Mr Walters

 It was some time in 1962, shortly after we moved to Girard, Ohio.  We have been in America for a little over 8 months.  We were the only Japanese in the entire Youngstown area including the suburbs.  My mother and I missed our Japanese foods. Unlike today where grocery stores are full of ethnic foods, we were lucky to find a can of Chow Mein in a grocery aisle (not that we would even have attempted to eat that).  We missed everything that was Japan, and felt very homesick.  We longed to find one Japanese person - just one.
 Dad came through! I don't know how he found her, but he did.  Her name was Fumiko and she was married to Mr. Walters.  I don't remember his first name. They didn't have any children, but had one of the ugliest little Pekinese I ever saw, and they babied her like their only child.  We quickly became very close friends.  Mr. Walters was a chef at a local hospital and knew how to cook, and he shared some of his recipes with my mother.  This egg roll recipe is one of them.  So for this week, Hideko and I recreated this recipe.  The recipe also included instructions for making egg roll skins, but we skipped that and bought ours from a store.

 

Egg Roll Filling                               makes 12 egg rolls 

1/2 cup finely chopped celery                                                   4 green onion, finely chopped

1 cup shredded cabbage                                                            1/2 cup water chestnuts, chopped

3 Tablespoons oil                                                                      1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup diced cooked shrimp                                                    1/8 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup diced cooked pork                                                        12 egg roll skins

 

**You can substitute shrimp and pork with any other meats or no meat at all.  Also, you can add mung bean sprouts and/or minced ginger root if you like**

 

Put celery and cabbage in water in a medium pan and bring to a boil then drain. Heat oil in a skillet, add shrimp and pork. Fry for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add remaining ingredient to the skillet and fry for 3 more minutes.

 



  

 
Place 4 tablespoons of filling in center of each egg roll skins; fold two sides over edges of filling and roll up the skin.  Seal the skin by dipping a brush into a bowl of cold water and brushing the edges of the skin. 



 

 

Fry in oil until golden brown.

 



 Enjoy!

 

7 Layer Bar

Decadent sweetness from 1970's

 

I think most of us had this luscious gooey treat if we lived in 1970's and 1980's.  I had to exercise extreme control not to eat the whole pan!  In today's standard, this is far from heart healthy, low sugar, low glycemic. gluten free food.  But as a rare treat, it's wonderful.  Great thing is, this freezes very well.  I'm going to cut them to bite size pieces and freeze them.  This way, I can take them out individually and eat them one at a time. 

1/4 lb Butter (one stick}

1 C graham cracker crumbs

1 C coconut flakes

1 C butterscotch chips

1 C chocolate chips

1 C Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 C chopped almonds

 

Melt butter and pour onto 7x11 pan. Layer each ingredient into the pan in order above. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool completely before cutting.