u/CiaoFrancesca

Grace Kelly's Pineapple Upside-Down Cake is a great one! It's essentially a traditional Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and pretty easy to make. My family's been asking me to make one for a while, so as soon as I had my hands on Grace's recipe, I was ready to try it.

• I used my 9" cast iron skillet, but any 9' cake pan would work. Just butter it really well on the sides.
• I had a can of pineapple rings, so I used that instead of the cubes and with the rings, you get that iconic Pineapple Upside-Down Cake look.
• Filled the centers of the pineapple rings with a maraschino cherry and added a few pecans to the empty spaces around the perimeter.
• Preheated oven to 350. This cake baked for exactly 30 minutes and was done, not the recommended 60 minutes!
• I let this cake cool completely until the pan felt cool and then carefully flipped it on to a large wooden board, but a large plate would work too.

Now to try a slice with a bit of whipped cream... dreamy! It's everything you'd want from a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. It's sweet, buttery, moist and the juicy fruits add the perfect flavors. The top is sublime with the melted brown sugar and butter combining into a lovely crusty top. This is one cake that everyone loved and disappeared quickly. I'd say it's 6-8 servings. Not a huge cake, but an easy one to make and an even easier one to eat.

Dolly Parton's "Five Layer Dinner" - With the very sad and untimely passing of Dolly yesterday, I felt the urge to cook one of her many, many recipes out of respect for the legend herself.

I happened to have all the ingredients needed and as I said this is a very easy recipe to make:

• I used 1 1/2 large potatoes, sliced thinly with a mandolin
• 1 pound of ground beef, cooked and seasoned with salt, pepper and a little Italian herb blend.
• 1 onion diced
• 2 heirloom tomatoes and a few cherry tomatoes from the garden, chopped (2 cups) left raw. If the onions can be raw, the tomatoes are raw ok too.
• 1 cup of a variety of red, yellow, orange mini bell peppers plus it jalapeno with ribs and seeds removed, all chopped (1 cup total)

I love chopping and plus I like the texture of smaller bites of food mingling together in a dish like this.

• Oiled the bottom of the 9 x 13 glass casserole dish with olive oil.
• Bottom layer is the thinly sliced potato, then beef, onion, tomato and peppers. Drizzled some olive oil on top. Use a slotted spoon when layering the beef on the potatoes so you don't get too much beef grease.
• The layers were all seasoned with salt and pepper. A little spice can be added, if you like.
• I baked this UNCOVERED like Dolly suggests for about 55-60 minutes, and ended up covering it loosely with foil for the last 10 minutes as it was browning a bit quickly.

Now for the taste, it's really good, healthy, down home cooking! Just grab a big bowl and pile it in. It's flavorful and fresh. Meat and potatoes with a nice dose of veg.

The potatoes at the bottom is brilliant, since they absorb all the flavor. I thought they might get crispy, and they didn't, but still were very good!

^(P.S. There are several other online recipe that have cooked this covered for 2 hours. I think that's a little much. It was really delicious the way Dolly wrote it here.)

Alan Thicke's Key Lime Pie - As I mentioned, my next door neighbor Janice brought over a dozen large limes from her tree and left them at my front door. It was such a nice surprise, because her lime tree is visible from my fence, and I've commented once or twice on how I'd love some, as she never really uses them.

So I woke up one morning, went out and there were the limes! Woohoo! My family loves key lime pie and I'm not sure I've ever made a home made one, so now was the time! Here are my notes:

• I guess Key Limes are the same as Mexican Limes, so we were in luck.
• This recipe was found in a Canadian TV Guide Cookbook, of all places, so the measurements are a little different, mostly just the condensed milk.
• I made this pie twice because the first one disappeared so fast and my family loved it so much, I made a second one.
• Canadian can of condensed milk is 300 ml, and American condensed milk is about 414 ml, so for the first pie I only added about 300ml from the American can.
• Before I juiced the limes, I zested about 3 and put that in the filling. (instead of food coloring)
• For the first pie I followed the instructions carefully, second pie, I used brown sugar for the crust and ended up using the whole can of condensed milk for the filling.
• I tried piping the meringue for the first pie, and you can see it was a fail. I ended up just swiping it all with a spatula. The second pie is the one in the first picture and I managed to get stiffer peaks and it browned nicely. The cooking times were spot on!

As for taste, both pies were very similar. So tart, but balance perfectly with the sweet. The meringue was also marvelously sweet and a nice topping instead of the whipped cream you sometimes get while dining out. This is a simple but truly delicious summer pie! Thank you , Janice!