Luscious Orange Cake

Recipe Courtesy Victoria Carlson
Photo and Cake Made by Samantha Lee

Some of you may remember I made this for Marci's birthday in April. This is where it came from. The pros aforementioned above.
Cake:

1 pkg yellow cake mix (I always use Duncan Hines)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 (11oz) can mandarin oranges, drained
1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp orange juice
1 tsp vanilla

Frosting:

2 (8 oz) cans crushed pineapple with juice
1 pkg vanilla instant pudding mix
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 (8 oz) tub Cool Whip

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three round 9 inch cake pans. Combine cake ingredients in bowl and mix with hand mixer for one minute on low and then three minutes on medium. Mixture should be smooth with small bits of mandarin orange. Pour equally into three pans. Bake for 25 minutes until cake is spongy to the touch or a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes IN PANS on wire rack. Then remove from pans and cool completely on wire rack.
While cake is cooling, make frosting. Drain pineapple juice, adding it to pudding mix and combining well. Add pineapple, powdered sugar and vanilla. Fold in cool whip.

To assemble cake, frost between each layer, then outside of cake. I added toasted coconut and a sugared orange slice to the top of my cake for display purposes only.

Summer Fruit Salsa & Homemade Cinnamon Chips

Recipe and Photo Courtesy Samantha Lee

Fruit Salsa

half of a fresh pineapple, coarsely chopped
one ripe mango, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp minced cilantro (don't be afraid of it - just embrace it)

Combine all three ingredients in a bowl one hour before serving time to let juices flow and flavors combine.

Cinnamon Chips

1/2 stick melted butter
4-8 6 inch flour tortillas (for this photo I used whole wheat)
cinnamon sugar (combine cinnamon to sugar at a 1-2 part ratio)

Brush melted butter on one side of flour tortilla. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Place on a cookie sheet and cut into triangles with a pizza cutter. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown and bubbly. Let cool, then remove with spatula.

Zesty Mexican Soup

by: Susan Bandel

2 cups cubed chicken (aprox. four breast. cook in pan before hand)
1 14.5 oz can chicken broth
1 11.52 oz can vegetable juice
1 can "mexi" corn (has green and red pepper already in it)
1 cup salsa
1 can chopped green chili's
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Simmer for 10-20 minutes. Serve topped with Monterrey Jack cheese and tortilla chips.

Audrey's Note: I usually double the recipe and use one can regular and one can zesty, you could just use half a can of each if you only did a single recipe.

Super easy and yummy. Good anytime of the year.