It's Time: Use Your Words

Today’s post is a monthly writing challenge. If you’re new here, this is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once. All of the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the recipient will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.
I'm using:  afghan ~ clock ~ forest ~ glassware ~ ring
They were submitted by Michele of Follow Me Home.

                          
The next step is looming large, making this such a bittersweet time. I sit and look around my home, the one where I mostly raised my boys (we moved here when they were in 2nd and 3rd grade), the one that I furnished completely on my own. I lived and loved in this home, but it has outgrown its use.

The boys are grown now, taking responsibility for themselves. There is no need for 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a 3 car garage. And other than this now scattered family, there has never been anything for me in this state.

I sit here, wrapped in my afghan, looking out the window at the forest. I have to laugh at that word, forest, because it's not. Yes, we back up to woods, I've always loved the peace of that and the privacy, but on the other side of the woods is the elementary school my boys attended, and more homes. The boys called it a forest, but it's not even close to that big an area.

I look at my kitchen and smile at the walk in pantry. What a luxury that has been. I'll have to give that up, I know and I'll miss it. I cooked and baked in that kitchen for my family, for my friends, for the boys' friends. So many memories. Kids piling in the door after school or, as the boys got older, at night and grabbing freshly baked sweets on their way down to the basement to play pool or video games or just to hang out. 

Hawaiian Rice

But the clock says it's now time. Time to let another young family laugh and smile and grow and thrive in this beautiful home. Not the clock on the wall, of course, a measurement not of hours in the day, but of the timeline of life.

I'll have to pare down. Way down. I want to live smaller, simpler. As much as I love my stuff, I have no need for it all. There will be a lot of culling through, donating, selling and throwing away in my future. I'm so stressed at the anticipation of it all that just thinking about it is overwhelming I know that some of it will make me cry and some will make me smile, but I fully believe that I will be relieved when it's done. 

Part of that very first step has already been taken. When PurDude moved out, he took some of my furniture with him. He also took towels, rugs, one set of my dishes, a set of glassware, and a set of silverware. I'm already back to using the tableware that had been on my registry when I got married.

I am planning to trade the forest for the beach, or at least that's my hope. I do know that I want to move to a warmer climate, someplace where I can be more comfortable year round, where I won't need my winter coat and snow boots. And I do hope to be close enough to walk a beach. Preferably daily. 

I'll be sad being so far from my boys, but I don't see them daily anymore anyway. And the truth is, my phone rings (text option works too), wherever I end up.

Here are links to all the other Use Your Words posts:

Wandering Web Designer 
Spatulas on Parade
On the Border
Follow Me Home 
Sarah Nolan 
Part-time Working Hockey Mom 
Climaxed 

Hawaiian Rice

                                               ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
3 TBSP butter
1/4 cup pignolis (can use chopped macadamia nuts)
1/4 cup dry vermicelli noodles, chopped
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp dried parsley
2 cups instant rice, uncooked
1/2 cup chopped cooked ham steak
1/4 cup chopped dried apricots (can use dried pineapple)

Directions:
*In a medium sized pot over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the pignolis (or macadamias) and vermicelli noodles. Cook and stir until the noodles and nuts start to brown. 
*Add the chicken broth, salt, pepper, ginger and parsley to the pot. Bring to a boil.
*Mix in the rice, ham and apricots (or pineapple). Cover, remove from heat and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Mix and serve.

Kindness of Strangers: World Kindness Day Poetry

A holiday worth note,

today's World Kindness Day.

Wish that everyday kindness

were here to stay.

Monthly Poetry Group

chose this as our theme.

Ironic, since my poetry

mostly makes people scream. 

But please bear with me

once again today.

As I try poetry again,

maybe make some headway?

Kindness of Strangers

It happens when 

you're preoccupied.

Bad situations,

into trouble you slide.

That's how it was

that fateful day.

I found bad luck

had come my way.

There I was

pretty much stuck.

And in that place . . .

it sure did suck.

Had plenty of time

for frustration, dismay.

To blame myself,

for ending up this way.

And so I stayed

there in a crouch.

Wishing I'd stayed home,

on the comfortable couch.

Would I be there,

in limbo for life?

Never again to bake,

cut veggies with a knife?

Orange Cranberry Cake

To me it felt,

been there for days.

With too few options,

eyes started to glaze.

It's then I heard her

next to me.

I'd call out to a stranger,

then . . . we'll see.

It's then she extended

her hand to me.

Tears in my eyes,

I accepted with glee.

It's true that sometimes
we might find.
Strangers extending kindness,
of the two-ply kind.

Before you go, click on these links to more poetry from some of my friends:
Diane of On the Border shares Be Kind. 
Dawn of Spatulas on Parade shares A Kinder Gentler World. 
Lydia of Cluttered Genius shares They Ain’t Your Friend.

Orange Cranberry Cake

                                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 can (15 oz) whole berry cranberry sauce
1 box (15.25 oz) orange cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup orange juice 
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 1/3 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
*Place the cranberry sauce in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 1 1/2 minutes. Place in a sieve over the bowl and gently stir until you have 3/4 cup of liquid in the bowl. Set the liquid aside for use in the frosting. You'll use the solid portion in the cake.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 X 13 baking pan.
*Beat the cake mix, eggs, oil and orange juice for 2 minutes. Mix in the cranberries (not the liquid in the bowl but the solids in the sieve) and the pecans. 
*Spread into the prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the center springs back to the touch. Cool completely.
*Beat the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Add the powdered sugar and reserved cranberry liquid and continue beating until stiff peaks hold. Spread onto the cooled cake.
*Store leftovers in the refrigerator, bring to room temperature for serving.

Kielbasa Soup, Crockpot or Not: Gratitude Blog With Friends

Today’s post is the next in our series of Blog With Friends themed collaborations. Each month a group of bloggers get together and each publish a project based on a theme. What I love about his partnership is that it's not bloggers with similar interests or strengths but a diverse group coming up with a variety of posts. In any given month we may a recipe, sewing tutorial, crocheting, crafts project, book review, and/or technology post all related to the theme of the month.

This month's theme is Gratitude.

There will be individual project pictures and links to what everyone else has to offer at the end of my post, but here's a peek at what we all came up with:

I made Kielbasa Soup, Crockpot or Not.

Kielbasa Soup, Crockpot or Not

I don't think it's a secret by now that I often express myself through food. I believe that the thought that goes into preparing meals for others, or baking with a loved one's favorite ingredient is not the only way but certainly one way to express love. 

The same applies to gratitude. Although we are all grateful for so many things through the year, and we often express it in a multitude of ways, this time of year, Thanksgiving, gratitude is traditionally expressed over a meal. At Thanksgiving time, my expression of love and gratitude falls in line with everyone else's. We all sit around a table, big or small, look at the faces of people we love and feel grateful that they are in our lives, that we are all warm and dry, and have hot food on our plated.

So for today's Gratitude themed Blog With Friends post, I've chosen to make Kielbasa Soup. And I make it for the people for whom I'm most grateful. 

Why do I choose to share this particular recipe at Thanksgiving time? Because Thanksgiving, when you have a family member living far away, isn't just one day. I'll be making this hot, hearty soup for dinner on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. And I'll keep it warm in the crockpot all night. Because my youngest son is flying in from cold, snowy Colorado that night and if he walks in the door hungry, I'll have a hot bowl of soup for him. I'll be grateful to have him home, and he'll be grateful for a hot meal.

I've included in the recipe directions (both below and on the printed recipe option) for making this soup in the slow cooker or on a stove top, your choice. For the pictured instructions I used my crockpot. 

I started by chopping my ingredients:

I immediately got all but the vegetables heating in the slow cooker:

I then softened the vegetables in a saute pan, stirred in the flour and added them to the slow cooker:

That's pretty much it. I left it on high for an hour, then cooked slowly on low for another 3 hours, adding the zucchini for the last hour.

I chose to serve with naan.

Oh, and the leftovers, if you have any, freeze well.
  

As always, any time you make one of my recipes, feel free to post a picture of it to my Baking In A Tornado Facebook Page. I'd love to see it!

Be sure to visit all of this month's other Blog With Friends projects:



 


Tamara of  Part-time Working Hockey Mom shares Thank God for Coffee - sometimes it's the little things.



 
 


Dawn of Spatulas on Parade shares Gratitude - the list is long AND a surprise. 

 



Melissa of My Heartfelt Sentiments shares Show Your Gratitude Through a Handmade Greeting Card. 


 




Lydia of Cluttered Genius shares Family Favorites, Fun Fall Festivities.

Kielbasa Soup, Crockpot or Not

                                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
2 TBSP olive oil
1/2 large onion, chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
1 lg carrot, chopped
2 TBSP flour
2 cans (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes
1 cup vegetable broth
1/4 cup white wine
4 new potatoes, cleaned and chopped
1 (14 oz) Kielbasa, sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 TBSP Italian seasoning blend
1 zucchini, shredded

Directions, Crockpot:
*Grease your slow cooker. Add the tomatoes with their juice, vegetable broth, white wine, chopped potatoes, Kielbasa, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning and turn on to high.
*Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Stir in the onion, garlic and carrot, and stir until the vegetables soften, about 7 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for one minute. Mix into the slow cooker.
*Add the chopped potatoes and Kielbasa to the slow cooker. Cook for 1 hour. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 2 hours. Add the zucchini and cook for one more hour.

Directions, Stove Top:
*Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the onion, garlic and carrot, and stir until the vegetables soften, about 7 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for one minute. 
*Next add the canned tomatoes with their juice, vegetable broth, white wine, chopped potatoes, Kielbasa, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning.
*Raise the heat to just a notch above medium and stir until the mixture comes to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes, add the zucchini and simmer for about 15 more minutes, until the potatoes are soft.