Cake Mix Cookies and some Patriotic Spaghetti

The Cake Mix Cookie

So it is Independence Day, you are chilling at home and your friend has just told you that she is coming over with her kids. Or your sister decides to drop by (unannounced!!!) for lunch. Or maybe you just want to make something different for the family since it is Independence day. I have got you totally covered. These dishes are bound to result in happy faces. The plus side is that your grocery list consists of only about 5 ingredients.

These are not just any spaghetti….Oh no! They are patriotic spaghetti. In less than 5 minutes you can have them ready. You definitely can’t beat that. I used a liquid green food colour to achieve our Nigerian colour.

Green Food Colour

I cooked the spaghetti as per the packs instructions. When it was done, I divided the spaghetti into two bowl. In one bowl, I added half a teaspoon of green food colouring (you can just eyeball it). In the other bowl, I added some olive oil and mixed through. The purpose of the olive oil is so that the green colour doesn’t rub off on the plain spaghetti once mixed together.

Our ‘Nigerian Colours’

Two minutes later, I combined them and got this lovely dish. I just used a simple white sauce but I am sure corned beef stew or any other stew would be as exciting as well.

Patriotic Spaghetti with White Sauce

I am guessing you can do this with Indomie noodles as well but I haven’t tried it. If you give it a go, let me know how it turns out.

For the cookies, there is no weighing and only 4 ingredients. You need any cake mix (preferably yellow or white cake mix), eggs, oil and green food color.

The Ingredients

Add the green colour to the eggs ( I love how this picture looks).

Get a big bowl, pour your cake mix, the oil and the eggs and mix everything together. Scoop unto a baking tray, then use the palm of your hand to flatten the dough a bit. Not too much though.

I scooped the mix with my 1/8 cup.
You can scoop directly on the baking pan. I tried it, it works.

Bake at 375 and you get these lovely babies

Hmmmm.
Lost for words

Now these look good and you can stop here. But why would you want to, when you can add canned frosting to your grocery list as well. I used the vanilla frosting because it was what I had but I like the cream cheese and whipped frosting. Something like this…

Any white canned frosting would do.
Cream Cheese, Vanilla, whichever

…and end up with something like this…

This is what I am talking about!

Go on, indulge a little…… we are celebrating the Nation’s birthday 😉

 As mentioned in a previous post, green food colour is available at Shoprite and Apongbon market in Marina. Cake Mix is now quite common in Nigeria. You can get them at most  regular grocery stores like Shoprite, Park n Shop, Spar, Ebeano, even in Apongbon market. The frosting is available in these places as well.