Music-Family-Music Sandwich, Part 2

There's been so much going on this past week that I'm still blogging about last weekend!

So back to my sandwich...how about curry chicken salad for the filling (otherwise known as "Coronation Chicken" in the UK)? We spent Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market, and then in the afternoon my sister, her husband, and my nephews arrived in Portland. We had a family dinner at my parents' house Saturday evening to celebrate my and Nadine's October birthdays (sister's was yesterday).

Here is my sweet nephew, Ryan, who is quite the renaissance man. He loves cooking and cleaning implements and power tools! Just call him Tim-the-Tool-Time Stewart! He is showing me a house he made for his baby and his kitty.



I just had to take a photo of his baby--take a look at the screwdriver in one hand and the saw in the other! And the overalls. Love it!



Ryan is a real collector. He loves to collect all manner of items, and the things in the bag are "what Baby and Kitty need for their house."



Here is Kitty riding on top of the car:

Later Nadine, who is an obsessive photographer, put the boys into adorable Indian suits that one of Nadine's Indian patients gave them. She tried valiantly to take a photo of Ryan; however, her camera has a red-eye reduction feature, which means that it flashes twice. Each time her camera would flash, Ryan would squint or cover his eyes. This caused me to dissolve into fits of laughter. I thought the whole thing was SO funny!!! Small thrills for small minds, I suppose...

Finally, a good one!

First-grader Ryan has become an AMAZING reader, and here he is reading the entire Little Engine That Could book to me (one of my personal favorites as a kid).

We had TWO cakes--one, the perennial family favorite, my mom's Tunnel of Fudge, and the other cake contributed by Kieran, who won big in the cake walk at the school carnival the night before. He was very proud of his cake!!

Here are my brother Stephen and his girlfriend Gina. (Yep, you probably didn't even know I had a brother, did ya?) :)

Garrett loving his cake and ice cream:

And Kieran:

And Daniel:

This is the famous "tunnel of fudge" cake:

And the recipe--try it, I guarantee you will like it!! For some reason, my text is running together and I can't fix...so apologies for the formatting!

Tunnel of Fudge Cake

2 cups sugar

1 cup cooking oil

2 eggs

3 cups flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup hot coffee or water

1 cup buttermilk or sour milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Filling:

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1/2 cup flaked coconut

1 cup (6-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet or milk chocolate pieces

Cake: Generously grease and lightly flour a 10-inch bundt pan. Prepare filling; set aside. Combine sugar, oil and eggs; beat 1 minute at high speed. Add remaining ingredients except filling and nuts; beat 3 minutes at medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally. By hand, stir in nuts. Pour 1/2 batter into prepared pan. Carefully spoon prepared filling over batter; top with remaining batter.

Filling: In small bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and egg until smooth. Stir in coconut and chocolate pieces.

Bake at 350 degrees for 70 to 75 minutes until top springs back when touched lightly in center. Cool upright in pan for 15 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely.

If desired, drizzle with glaze made by combining 1 cup powdered sugar, 3 tbsp. cocoa, 2 tbsp. butter, 2 tsp. vanilla, and 1 to 3 tbs. hot water.

Here is Mom cutting the cake:

And here are the photo attempts of the boys in their sweet Indian outfits--like trying to photograph puppies! They are laughing uproariously at their very silly Uncle Mike, who is trying to make them smile but instead sent them into hysterics!

And here are the October birthday sisters: