That's a lotta masa

Greg and I had the new teachers at ISU over for a barbeque at our place last Saturday night. I spent two days cooking in preparation for thirty guests...I had the brilliant idea of making homemade tortillas to go with BBQ chicken (tofu for the veg guests), whole pinto beans, rice and two salsas (picante and green). What was I thinking? It took about 8 hours (no joke) to pump out about eighty tortillas. While they are amazingly wonderful, I am glad that we have the extras in the freezer for easy use later. In fact, I made huevos rancheros Sunday morning...does life get any better than this?

I also made some shall we say, inventive cakes for the party as well. I decided that we needed 3 cakes for the number of people that we'd have. The first is pretty straight forward; chocolate cake with coconut-pecan frosting. Very respectable and Greg approved. The next two cakes were suppose to be white cake with the same frosting (just keeping it simple) but I realized too late that the pans were too big for just half a cake mix each. Sooooo......I decided to make a marble cake. You know, two cake flavors, one pan. I quickly mixed up a yellow cake (Greg's favorite) incorporating it into the first with broad strokes of butter knife. Looked pretty in the pan.

However, I failed to follow the high altitude directions (I did on the first) on the yellow cake mix because, well, I just didn't feel like playing those reindeer games anymore. UB sits at 4,500 feet. You can see the results yourself but I have to say that I heard zero complaints from our guests as they ate up. Greg thought the flavor combination was a little over the top but seemed to enjoy as well. Kim's philosophy: there are no rules when it comes to cooking

because it's okay to have a 'do over'.