Sock it To Me

There's a reason why this blog is "stringplay" and not "stoveplay". I have a very shaky alliance with the stove. (You may have already noticed the burn rings on the cookbook!) I dislike cooking. My theory is a meal - any meal from a quick lunch to Thanksgiving - is usually eaten in 20 minutes and it shouldn't take longer to fix the meal than to eat it! A poor theory perhaps, but there you go. Sure the talk and laughter around the table can last longer and make the meal more enjoyable, but the food is secondary. And don't even get me started on clean-up. What a waste of stringplay time.

So it might be surprising to see I do, indeed, have a recipe box to link to Kay and Ann's Recipe Show 'n Tell contest.

I married in 1975 and this faux wood box was a shower present. Although the hinges are both broken and I practically never use any of the recipes inside, it has been a fixture on my limited-space counter top for 32 years. It was given to me by a childhood friend and we still see each other twice a year on our birthdays to stay in touch. That alone seems reason enough for me to keep it.

There isn't a single recipe of my mother's in there. She's a better cook than I am, but she is not overly enthusiastic about it either. She did once cut out a recipe from the newspaper for cornbread dressing because it was the closest she had ever seen to how she makes it. I may have made it once. She always makes the dressing.

Enough blather. I'm sure (given the above info) you must be eager to know my recipe. So here I share:

Sock-It-To-Me Cake*

1 box Betty Crocker Pound Cake Mix

1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup granulated sugar

3 or 4 eggs

1/2 or 3/4 cup buttery-flavored oil

1 8-oz. package sour cream

1/2 cup chopped pecans

[1] Combine cake mix, sugars, and oil with eggs, one at a time. Beat well and after each egg add some sour cream. [2] Pour half of batter into a greased and floured Bundt pan and sprinkle following mixture on top: 3 tsp. brown sugar - 1 tsp. ground cinnamon - chopped pecans [3]Pour in remaining batter and place in COLD oven. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour. Let cool in pan no longer than 5 minutes then turn out to cool.

*If you are anywhere close to my age, you've already associated the recipe's name to Rowan & Martin's "Laugh-In" TV show.