Mom and Dad are coming. COMING. To San Diego. For two weeks.
This is the first time they've visited since we moved to Miramar. Mom has seen photos. Dad has analyzed my tomato plants via FaceTime with the scrutiny of a botanist reviewing a thesis. But they haven't been HERE.
They arrive Thursday. I've been cleaning the house with the intensity of a person preparing for military inspection, which is exactly what this is — Donna Abernathy inspects every kitchen she enters. She doesn't say she's inspecting. She just opens cabinets and nods or doesn't nod. The nod means approval. The absence of nod means 'we'll talk about your spice organization later.'
Dad will go straight to the tomato plants. He will kneel in the dirt and examine the soil and the leaves and the stem structure and he will either say 'Good' or he will say 'You need more nitrogen,' and either response will make me feel like I'm eleven and showing him my report card.
Caleb is VIBRATING. 'GRANDMA AND GRANDPA ARE COMING! GRANDPA GROWS TOMATOES! DOES GRANDPA KNOW ABOUT SHARKS?'
Hazel knows Grandma and Grandpa from FaceTime. She recognizes their voices. But she's never met them in person — they came to Jacksonville when Caleb was born, but Hazel's been born and grown up entirely in California, and in-person grandparents are new.
Made Mom's pot roast tonight. The welcome food. The preparing-the-kitchen-for-Donna food. If the pot roast isn't perfect when she arrives, she'll know. She always knows.
Mom and Dad. Thursday. The kitchen is ready.
I needed a dessert that required almost no brainpower, because every ounce of brainpower I had was going toward pot roast timing and cabinet organization. This Cherry Dump Cake is exactly that — you dump it, you bake it, and it comes out looking like you planned something beautiful all along. Mom will open the oven door, nod, and I will feel like I aced the report card.
Cherry Dump Cake
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 50 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 12
Ingredients
- 2 cans (21 oz each) cherry pie filling
- 1 box (15.25 oz) yellow cake mix
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, thinly sliced
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
- Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- Add the cherries. Pour both cans of cherry pie filling into the prepared baking dish and spread into an even layer. Stir in almond extract if using.
- Add the cake mix. Sprinkle the dry cake mix evenly over the cherry filling. Do not stir — leave it as a dry layer on top.
- Add the butter. Arrange the thin slices of butter in a single layer over the top of the dry cake mix, covering as much of the surface as possible.
- Bake. Bake uncovered for 45–55 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the cherry filling is bubbling up around the edges.
- Rest and serve. Let the cake rest for 10 minutes before scooping. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 320 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 58g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 310mg
About the cook who shared this
Rachel Abernathy
Week 444 of Rachel’s 30-year story
· San Diego, California
Rachel is a twenty-eight-year-old Marine wife and mom of two who has moved five times in six years and learned to cook a Thanksgiving dinner with half her cookware still in boxes. She married young, survived postpartum depression, and feeds her family of four on a junior Marine's salary with a freezer full of pre-made meals and a crockpot that has never let her down. She writes for the military spouses who are cooking dinner alone in base housing and wondering if they're enough. You are.
