Sick Day

My baby is sick, it has been a rough day!  The day started out beautifully, we headed out to the Richmond Country Club for brunch with Syd and had a great meal together.  On the way home, we stopped at Paul's Mom's house for a quick visit, Sydney really loves visiting with her Bubbie.  She is so funny the way she interacts with her, it's very sweet.  Bubbie's caretaker Emma made me a delicious lemon loaf today, she is very sweet and usually bakes with Bubbie and sends us home with something freshly baked every Sunday.  She knows I love lemon loaf, so she made this special for me!

For about the past forty years since first becoming a Grandmother, Paul's Mom has had a candy cupboard stocked with sweets in her living room.  For years and years every grandchild has known to hit up that candy cupboard when they visit Bubbie and it didn't take Sydney long to figure out that's where she had to go to get herself a little treat.  So every Sunday we usually let her have a little piece of red licorice while she's playing at Bubbie's.  Problem was, today she ate way more than just a little piece when we weren't looking and started complaining of an "owwweee tummy" just as we were leaving.

Well, about a half hour after getting home, as I was trying to get her down for her afternoon nap she barfed up the licorice all over me and the bed.  That was the first of about four barfing episodes, one of which landed up all over the inside of the dishwasher full of clean dishes while she was standing on a chair beside it.....gross!  I ran the sani-rinse cycle more times than you want to know after that!

I was starting to think that she was coming down with the flu, but with no fever or other symptoms, quickly realized that she had probably just made herself sick with too much candy.  One of those tough life lessons...no more licorice for her needless to say!

Her appetite came back with a vengeance around dinner time, I couldn't keep the food away from her, she woofed back yogurt, ravioli, crackers, a banana and some macaroni.  Poor kid was starving!  Let's hope that's it for this bout and that I have a puke-free night ahead of me!

During one of my quieter moments this afternoon, while Sydney was napping, I decided to whip up an apple cake, it turned out so well!  It is fragrant and delicious and so moist and yummy.  Next time I think I'll arrange the apple slices in a pattern just to make it a little more visually appealing.  Here's the recipe, it's super easy and requires very basic ingredients which you will likely have on hand!





Apple Cake

3 cups peeled and thinly sliced apples
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Grease and flour a 7 x 11" baking pan.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine apples, brown sugar and cinnamon, set aside.  Using electric mixer, beat eggs until light and fluffy.  Add sugar, oil and vanilla, continue beating until well combined.  Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.  Add to the egg mixture and mix at low speed until blended.  Pour half of the batter into prepared pan.  Add half of the apples, spreading evenly over the batter.  Top with the remaining batter.  Arrange remaining apples on top.  Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until cake tester inserted into center comes out clean.  Serve warm or cool, if desired dust with icing sugar prior to serving.