Strawberry Lemon Bundt Cake

Fresh strawberries and lemon curd inside a jazzed up bundt cake, topped with strawberry jam.

I'll say it straight up in case you're wondering--this dessert is inspired by Cake Mix Doctor recipes and starts with a box of cake mix. [Whew, I'm glad I got that off my chest]. While I routinely whip up muffins, waffles, cookies, pizza dough, bread and spaghetti sauces without opening a box (other than the baking soda box) I'm not there yet with cakes. I may never be. I'm happy with the results I get adding a few things to a box of cake mix, so for now I'll keep on doing it.

Strawberry season is brief, and I want to make the most of the fresh berries while they last. Because I prefer the taste of local berries, I simply don't buy strawberries at the grocery store. I'll stock up like a squirrel at the farmer's market, but when my backyard patch and the markets are empty I'm done for the year. I wish I could spend my days dunking fresh berries in sour cream, then brown sugar, then popping them into my mouth--but sadly, I need to do other things as well. I put up local berries in jam, salsa (my cantina style recipe is here) and in bags in the freezer. We'll enjoy some fresh in treats, like my Strawberry Lemon Snack Cake and Strawberry Sour Cream Brown Sugar Muffins.

This cake is another, more falutin', way to enjoy fresh strawberry flavors. It will work with frozen berries as well. It won't taste as good with a box of berries who have crossed multiple state lines to make their way to you. Have a piece of chocolate instead. 

For other recipes using strawberries, please see my Strawberry Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other Cake Mix Doctor-inspired recipes, please see my Triple Chip Zucchini Spice Cake. I pin fruit recipes to my Pinterest Fruit Board. Wanna know how to Use This Blog? Click here.

Beef Tongue Enchiladas aka Enchiladas de Lengua

Spiced beef tongue with salsa verde and sharp cheddar rolled up in corn tortillas, covered with more cheese, crema, and salsa verde.

Getting dinner on the table when the family has been away from home all day long can be a family affair. [The dogs are not real helpful in this instance. Keeping squirrels on their toes in the back yard? They're on it.] Usually I'm the one with the dinner plan, and I call in the troops for reinforcement when I need help.

We like music while we work, so my spouse set up speakers in the kitchen that chat wirelessly with our computer. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the speakers are sick of my son putting his ear worms on continual play, or want to play something perkier at night when my spouse listens to his classical jams, but I like to mix it up.

After iTunes debuted their Radio component [and made it much more difficult to just play what I felt like listening to from my music collection] I discovered the Norteño radio station. What is Norteño? I haven't wikipedia'd it, but I would say you take the instruments from a German polka band and hand them to a group of Mexican musicians, stand back, and listen to the magic happen. I enjoy making dinner and dancing in the kitchen listening to Norteño, and it puts me in the mood to use a traditional meat, beef tongue, in my own way.

I'm all about using the whole Swiss chard and the whole cow, so here's another recipe using some of the parts we get when we buy a quarter cow. For another beef tongue recipe, please see my Beef Tongue Nachos recipe. Got ground beef? I've got 106 food blogger recipes using ground beef in my round up here. One of these days the Visual Recipe Index will have a category for Ground Beef and another for Beef Bits and Bobs, though that's not really search engine friendly. I'll probably throw a Pinterest board for all the random beef parts recipes on my Pinterest page. My darling daughter just suggested I call it Beef Undesirables, but I don't think she gets the idea of making it appealing.

Coconut Lime Cookies

Shredded coconut, fresh lime juice and lime zest bring a sunny tropical flavor to these white chip cookies.

This blog is where I share recipes that help me feed my family from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. Typically, I'm trying to find ways to deal with a glut of kohlrabi or turnips, tomatoes or greens. Each December I am voluntarily overwhelmed with oranges because I love my kid and he loves marching band and the band sells Florida citrus as a fundraiser.

And now, limes.

Why am I overwhelmed with limes? In a word-Corona. We hit Costco for a sled hockey team dinner during a tournament and picked up a bag of limes to go with the adult beverages. As we divided up the remnants, I offered to take the excess limes. There I was--overwhelmed with limes and not a beer in sight.

I had 2 sweet ideas for these limes--cookies and cupcakes. Later this summer you'll see my Zucchini Lime cupcakes, but for now, since I think they are seasonal for a Cinco de Mayo dessert, please enjoy these Coconut, Lime & White Chip Cookies.

Assembly line: salt, lime zest, cookie dough, cookie sheet, dog.

Since I had all these limes, I wanted to make a cookie that actually used the juice of a lime in the batter. Easier said than done! I looked on the internet but ended up adapting the recipe on the back of the white chip bag for my first attempt. The flavor was fine--but there were too many chips and the cookie was too flat. I opted to base off of my Sunflower Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookie and use a bit of shortening to make a cakier cookie. I also dropped the amount of chips down and boosted the coconut up. I like the result, so I'm sharing that recipe.

These are not piña colada cookies--there's no rum [why is all the rum gone?]--but the flavors are tropical. The white chips I used were not white chocolate chips. Not entirely sure what flavor "white" is, but they worked well in this cookie. I forgot to take a full on ingredient photo--but I used Nestle White Baking Chips in these cookies.

If you want a coconut lime cookie with actual lime juice and lime zest, here's your recipe!