I'm Back-- With Cake!

I'm here, can you believe it?! It's really me! Remember how I said I'd be back sometime in May? Wait, what? It's June already?! But where did the time go? All I remember is a blur of ballparks and end of the school year festivities.

Now, however, it's summer vacation. Life has slowed down. (Unfortunately, that means the kids now have ample opportunity to regale me with a constant chorus of "I'm sooooo bored...") Ben is still playing baseball-- he was invited to join a travel ball team!-- but practices so far are only one night a week. We have *gasp* free time. Well, "free" may be an exaggeration. Mostly, I've been using this time to pull my house of the pit of chaos it descended into over the past couple of months. But there have been pockets, here and there, where I've had honest-to-goodness, nothing-needs-my-immediate-attention time on my hands. (Random fact: Now isn't actually one of those times. I should be moving furniture out of the living room so I can shampoo the carpet, while the kids are swimming at their NaNa's house. But I've had this post prepared in my head for over a week, and if I don't do it now, I'm sure I'll forget by the next time I can sit down and relax.)

I decided my back-from-the-abyss post should be a combination of my two favorite types of post: Food, and Photography. So, without further ado, I give you Blueberry Cornmeal Cake!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup yellow cornmeal

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup shortening*

3/4 cup sugar

2 egg whites

1 whole egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract*

3/4 cup milk*

2 cups fresh blueberries

(Aren't they pretty?)

*Since when do I follow recipes exactly? I used 1/2 cup of coconut oil instead of shortening, partly because it's healthier, but mostly because I was out of shortening. I also used 3/4 cup almond milk instead of regular milk for the same reason. The almond milk was vanilla flavored, so I omitted the teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour your pan (the original recipe calls for a 9x5x3 loaf pan. I don't have one that size, so I used a glass baking dish that measures approximately 9x7x2-ish).

Stir together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the shortening (or coconut oil), then add the sugar; cream until fluffy. Beat in the egg whites, egg, and vanilla. Beat in the dry ingredients alternately with the milk.

Fold in the blueberries, then spread into prepared pan. Bake one hour, or until done.

Voila! Share with family, friends, and neighbors, or you will eat the whole thing yourself.

Enjoy!