Happy Meals

Don't let the title of this blog fool you!  Happy Meals - I am sure people know about the infamous McDonald's happy meals.  There were no happy meals when I was a child (I'll be 47 this year) but my daughter (who is 24) loved them.

This is a different kind of happy meal.  This is a meal that makes you happy when you prepare as well as eat it.

I had a *happy* Independence Day!  The day was filled with grilled chicken, homemade barbecue sauce, my grandmother's potato salad, bleu cheese cole slaw, smoked pork loin stuffed with Andouille sausage (thanks to my friend Jerry), smoked chicken and a family recipe pound cake.   My neighbor, the Deej, came over and we ate and drank until we were full.

I can't share my bbq sauce recipe with you (I'm entering it in a contest) but I will share photos of the cake as well as the recipe.

This cake turned out to be amazing and I thought the frosting effects looked like a fireworks blast. Here's the recipe:

1/2 pound butter
1/2 cup crisco
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream butter and shortening together until pale yellow, light and fluffy. Add sugar, a half cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Sift dry ingredients together in a bowl and add to butter, sugar and egg mixture, alternating with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Add vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured tube pan and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean

Food should be fun...it should make you happy.