George Goes Fishing: Funny Friday

Today’s post is this month’s Funny Friday, a regular feature published on the last Friday of every month. Funny Friday is a collaborative project. Each month one of the participants submits a picture, then we all write 5 captions or thoughts inspired by that month’s picture. Links to the other bloggers’ posts are below, click on them and see what they’ve come up with. I hope we bring a smile to your face as you start your weekend.

Here's today's picture. It was submitted by Dawn of Spatulas on Parade.

1. George (a northerner visiting his cousin): I don't see the jetty, is it invisible?
Billy Bob (a local): You're in the south now, see that log? That IS the jetty.

2. George: That doesn't really look clean, and there's so much debris, is it really a problem, people swimming here?
Billy Bob: Oh cousin, on some of the hotter days we swim in puddles.

3. George: What are we fishing for? Fire wood?

4. George: That's not the correct way to write a letter, you have to address someone.
Billy Bob: Huh?
George: Like instead of saying:

No Swimming
From Fishing Jetty

it should say: 

Dear Aunt Mabel,
No swimming.
From, 
Fishing Jetty 

Billy Bob: That's what I get for inviting an English professor to come visit.


5. George's wife (when George returned from fishing): How'd you do? We having fish for dinner?
George: Lets just say I caught some invisible fish from an invisible jetty.


And now for something yummy (not fish, since none were caught): 

Apple Oatmeal Quick Bread

Click on the links below and let some other bloggers make you smile: 
Spatulas on Parade 
Follow Me Home 
Southern Belle Charm 

Apple Oatmeal Quick Bread

                                                         ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup quick oats
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp apple pie spice
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup applesauce
1 TBSP apple cider vinegar
1 egg
1/2 of an apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 X 5 loaf pan.
*Mix together the flour, quick oats, cinnamon, apple pie spice, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
*In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, maple syrup, honey, applesauce, apple cider vinegar and egg.
*Mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients just until incorporated, then fold in the chopped apple and walnuts. Pour evenly into the prepared pan.
*Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the center of the top springs back to the touch. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan before running a knife around the edges and removing to cool completely.
 

Corona Lessons

I've been schooled.

I haven't just been sitting home feeding my own anxiety, although I have to admit I've been doing plenty of that. I've also been learning and growing (stop looking at my belly). Like so many others, I've been held captive by the pandemic home tutorial. Apparently it's a course that's a requirement this term.

Corona Lessons. 

Not the beer kind, that may or may not have been in my college days. I can neither confirm nor deny. Probably because I can't really remember . . . but I digress.

To prove I've mastered the current Corona curriculum, I'm now prepared to submit my written final. In the name of documenting history, I hereby record for posterity some of the life lessons I never needed to learn and now will never forget:

~ I can't go two minutes without touching my face.

~ Not to get too excited just because I can still get my pants on. If I can't take so much as a single step in them, turns out it's not the accomplishment I'd thought.

~ Knit gloves can't work the ATM screen.

~ When you use google, you can get more than 2 answers to a yes/no question.

~ You can buy pretty much anything on the neighborhood black market for a roll of toilet paper. 

~ The barkingest dog on the planet lives somewhere on the street behind my house. 

~ Next time a pandemic is headed my way, I need to make sure my grill isn't low on propane. Or I'll be baking all those foods I'd normally grill (and cleaning many more pots and pans).

Balsamic Marinated Tuna Steak

~ I can scare the crap out of myself with a mere sneeze.

~ There are 700 things you can make with pasta. And I can name them all.


~ I can fly my son home from Boulder for $50 but can't because it's not safe for him to be in airports. And knowing that makes me absolutely crazy. 

~ As soon as I got comfortable laying in the sun on the deck, my phone dinged to tell me it was getting hot. I had no idea cell phones had hot flashes too.

~ I actually cannot be happy watching TV all day.

~ No matter how creative I think I am, or how well I'd convinced myself, there are certain ingredient substitutions that just do not work.

And one final lesson:

~ Just when I thought that we as a society had lost our humanity to narcissism, I've witnessed the re-emergence of selflessness, kindness, and compassion. 

I thank those who have lead with their values not just for their bravery and their service, but for gifting me the renewed ability to hope. 

Balsamic Marinated Tuna Steak      

                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 (about 6 oz) 1/2 inch thick fresh tuna steak
3 TBSP balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing 
1 TBSP lemon juice
1 TBSP maple syrup
1/2 tsp minced garlic

OPT: wedge of fresh lemon for serving

Directions:
*Whisk together the dressing, lemon juice, maple syrup and minced garlic.
*Pour the marinade into a flat plate with a lip (a pie plate works well). Add the fish, turning once to coat both sides, cover and marinate for 1 - 2 hours, turning once half way through.
*NOTE: This recipe lends itself well to grilling, just be sure not to overcook as the tuna will dry out.
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a shallow baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. 
*Remove the tuna steak from the marinade and place on the prepared tray. Cook for 8 minutes.
*Check for doneness. It should flake when a fork is inserted into the fish, but the center should still be red (for medium rare) or pink (for medium). Cook for another 2 - 4 minutes if necessary to achieve preferred level of doneness.

Free Pot, TV Woes, and Mountain Lions: Fly on the Wall

Welcome to a monthly Fly on the Wall group post. Today 4 bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes. Come on in and buzz around my house. At the end of my post you’ll find links to this month’s other participants’ posts.

Whenever I have leftovers that are just a single serving, I freeze them in a baggie. I'll pull them out when Hubs works late and I need to leave him a plate of food to microwave. Since I've head problems in the past identifying, for instance, what is rice, mashed potato or cauliflower, I write something on the baggie with a permanent marker.

College Boy (taking something out of the freezer): What do you mix your marijuana in when you freeze it?
Me: What?
College Boy: Your pot? I see the green in here but I don't know what else I see.
Me (looking at the baggie he's holding and rolling my eyes): That's mashed potato.
College Boy: Oh, edibles. Cool.

I had frozen a single serving of my French Onion Spinach Potato Casserole and just written "pot" on the bag so I'd know it was potato.

Edible? Yes. Pot? Not so much.

Speaking of pot, I came across an article called "Colorado Pot Companies Donating Free Weed to Those Impacted by Covid-19" I sent a link to the article in a PM to my younger son in Colorado:

Me: I'm sharing this with you because I thought it was interesting. Don't tell your older brother about it. I'm afraid he'll come to visit you and catch the virus on purpose.

If I have a quiet evening, I often like to check through the channels to see what I might want to watch on TV. I turned on the TV but the "guide" channel wasn't working. Every channel at every time slot said "to be announced."

Hubs went downstairs to the TV in the man cave and got the guide working down there so I went down to see what was on for the night. But his was working not with the cable remote, but with his TV remote. We couldn't figure out how to check the channels without going through them one by one. 

Me: Forget it.
Hubs: Why? You can just keep scrolling through.
Me: We're on channel 80 and I want to know what's on channel 1244. I'll be here the rest of my life.

I went back upstairs and Hubs came up a while later:

Hubs: Dateline is on channel 1244. Something about a husband being murdered with a knife in his home. And since I went to all the trouble of finding out, you better watch it.
Me: Well I guess I will. After all, it does sound informative . . .

Can flowers feel sick?

Among other issues besides being stuck in the house, we were also having incredibly cold weather for May. After a few days of waking up feeling like a popsicle, I finally gave in and put the heat back on.

I had planted flowers in my outdoor pots and I was worried about them. Not only was it getting down as low as 35 degrees at night, but they were newly transplanted, a time when they're not at their strongest. Hubs offered to cover them at night, but felt confident that without a frost, they'd be OK left alone. I hoped not to live to regret my decision, but I told him not to bother covering them.

On about the 3rd day of temps in the 30s overnight, Hubs asked me about the flowers.

Hubs: How are your flowers doing? We haven't had a frost, they should still be alive.
Me: Well, yeah, they're alive.
Hubs: You sound like there's a "but" coming . . .
Me: But they do look like they're not feeling all that well.

Whenever someone interacts with me on a thread on my Baking In A Tornado FB page or my private Baking In A Tornado FB group, I always respond to them. I was answering someone in the group when FB sent me this message: "You've been recognized as one of Baking In A Tornado's top fans. Get your badge now."

First time a social media platform commended me for liking myself. But for the record, I'd prefer a crown to a badge. Just sayin'.

Grilled Chickpea Burgers

When I develop new recipes, I get them down quickly before I forget how it had come together in my head. Then I go back to finesse it, and finally, once I've made it, I go back a third time just to edit and be sure it's correct.

I often, when editing, find errors that are just typos. Like yesterday when I was working on a new cookie recipe. Turns out, I'd recommending baking them for 14 to 116 minutes. I know all of our ovens are a little different so I often give a baking time range, but if your oven takes 116 minutes, chances are you forgot to turn it on.

PurDude called as he does every week or so. He calls my cell and I usually talk to him first, give my cell to Hubs, then when he's done I talk to him again.

I handed my cell to Hubs, and I hear him saying "hello" then again "hello", then again. 

Hubs: Something's wrong with your phone, I can't talk to him.
Me (taking the cell from him): Perhaps because you pressed mute?

But then I'm not much better. While he was talking, I took a book into the office to read. I wanted to keep track of the time because I had to start dinner. So I spent some time searching around the recliner I was in for my cell phone to check the time. Which I didn't find. Because, you know, Hubs was talking on it.

We're quite a pair, aren't we?

My family knows I hate when things that aren't being used are left on.

Recently our cable company upgraded their equipment. Hubs traded in our old boxes and got the new ones. Simple to set up, they said.

First one took quite a while and resulted in us having to call the company to get them to activate our new equipment.

The second one took even longer and Hubs was on the phone with a tech for about 20 minutes. 

The third one, in our bedroom, was even worse. Partly because it was a brand new TV that was being set up at the same time. Hubs went up after dinner to try again to get the cable box to sync with the TV and then spent even longer on the phone with the company. He finally came down to let me know he'd got the TV working.

I went up later and the TV was on. No one had been in the room in hours.

Me: You left the TV on?
Hubs: Hell yeah.
Me: Why? You know I hate wasting electricity.
Hubs: Hey, it took me forever to get that thing on. We're NEVER shutting it off.

Hubs had to call PurDude to discuss something having to do with PurDude's taxes. When he was done, he put his cell phone to my ear, mostly because he wants to live and if he'd hung up without me talking that wouldn't be guaranteed.

I finished talking, ended the call and OMG, my eyes felt like they'd been assaulted.

Me: How bright is your phone?
Hubs: I don't know, about like looking into the sun.

At least he's honest.

A coronavirus PM with Purdude:

Me: How are you today?
PurDude: I'm doing fine, how are you?
Me: We're fine. Yesterday afternoon there was a big red fox in our yard, that was kinda interesting. I wish I had gotten a picture but I could either go get my camera or go get dad and I knew he'd want to see it. The shocking thing is that I was just out the front door standing by the columns when I caught sight of it walking from the street and went right between our house and the one next door. It went into the woods but didn't look like it had come from the woods.
PurDude: That's really cool, we've been getting mountain lions around here.
Me: That's really dangerous. I had been encouraging you to go for walks but I changed my mind, don't go for any walks with them around.
PurDude: They seem pretty nice.
Me: Right up until they eat you for dinner.

Aaaaand, just like that I have something new to worry about.

Now click on the links below for a peek into some other homes:

Never Ever Give Up Hope  
Menopausal Mother 
Spatulas on Parade 

Grilled Chickpea Burgers

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients (makes 4):
1 can (15 ounces) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 carrot, grated
1 radish, grated
1/2 tsp minced garlic
2 green onions, chopped
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 slices whole wheat bread, broken into quarters
1/4 cup red pepper, chopped
1 egg
2 tsp stone ground mustard

3 TBSP olive oil

Rolls, lettuce, tomato, onion and/or condiments of your choice for serving

Directions:
*Place the chickpeas, carrot, radish, garlic, green onions, cumin, salt, pepper and bread in a food processor and pulse until it's all incorporated and well chopped but not smooth. Remove to a bowl and mix in the red pepper. Finally, mix in the egg and mustard.
*Divide the mixture into quarters and form 4 patties. Wrap each patty individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
*Heat your grill on high to about 400 degrees. Using a pastry brush, brush both sides of the burgers with the olive oil
*Place the patties on the grill and lower the heat to medium. Grill for 10 minutes. Gently, supporting top and bottom, turn the burger over and grill for another 10 minutes.

Runaway Millionaire: Word Counters

Counting my words again. 

Today my fellow Word Counters and I are sharing our monthly group post. The bloggers who are joining me this time all picked a number between 12 and 74 and sent it to me. I gave the numbers out as assignments to other bloggers who are then challenged to write something (or a few somethings, as the case may be) using that exact number of words. Today we all share what we came up with. 

I got the number 23. It was submitted by Dawn of Spatulas on Parade.

As I've been doing in these Word Counters posts, I've chosen a theme and am using my word count multiple times in keeping with the theme. This month the theme I chose is in honor of a celebration that's observed, National Be A Millionaire Day.

~ I just wrote about a fun May celebration, Eat What You Want Day, but tomorrow's National Be a Millionaire Day, sign me up!

~ Question: is it only for that day? 'Cause seems like the kinda thing, once you get there you don't want to go back.

~ 'Cause if it's just for a day I better stock up on Red Bull, I've got a lot to pack into one day. 

~ And where does the money come from? Is it deposited in my bank account? A prepaid credit card? Does someone hand me cash?

~ First thing I'm doing is running away from home. Okay, first I'm gonna buy a new car. No, a plane, I'm running far.

~ I may come back, just to invite my family to come visit me at my new beach house. I was busy while away.

~ I'm hiring a chef. No, not kidding. If I'm rich, every time I grab any ingredients will be purely for fun, not necessity.

Strawberry Half Moon Shortbreads

~ Everything's more fun when done with friends and Be a Millionaire Day's a national holiday for everyone. Where's my tribe? Who's with me?

~ Instead of having a specific day, if we could each choose our millionaire day, we could all take turns treating each other. Genius!

~ I know it's not until tomorrow, but best to be prepared, guess I'll head out now to buy new luggage, jewelry and outfits.
 
~ Post Script: Apart from this imaginary look at a nonsense "holiday", we've been living through a stark reality, so one more twenty three: 

~ I'd give this money away to have staved off this horrendous disease, the loss of life, to have had a competent federal government.

Here are links to the other Word Counters posts:
Spatulas on Parade 
Messymimi’s Meanderings 
On the Border 

Strawberry Half Moon Shortbreads        

                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

2 sticks butter, softened

2 tsp strawberry extract

1/4 cup Baileys Strawberries and Cream liqueur

1 cup powdered sugar

2 1/4 cups flour

1 1/4 cups white chocolate chips

1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Directions (makes about 3 1/2 dozen):

*Beat butter, strawberry extract and liqueur until smooth. Carefully beat in the powdered sugar and flour until just incorporated, then use your hands to bring the dough together. Roll into a log approximately 14 inches long, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper.

*Remove cookie dough from fridge,cut into 1/4 inch slices and bake for 14 - 16 minutes, until they just barely start to brown.

*Remove the cookies from the cookie sheets and allow to cool completely.

*Melt the white chocolate chips in the microwave until completely smooth when mixed. Dip half of each cookie in the white chocolate, gently scrape the back, then place on parchment paper to set. They will set faster in the refrigerator.

*Once the white chocolate has set, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave until completely smooth when mixed. Dip the other side of the cookies in the chocolate, gently scrape the back, and place on parchment paper to set.

True Colors: 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: surgery ~ hospital ~ needle ~ blood pressure ~ sleep
They were submitted by Sarah of My Life After.

                          
Well, I there's no question as to where Sarah's thoughts were when she came up with these words. 

Truth is, though, that she had every right to be thinking about medical issues, and I mean non Covid-19 medical issues. Because although the majority of the medical attention has been tirelessly focused on the devastation of the virus, the other health issues of the population didn't just stop. People didn't stop having chronic conditions that require medical attention and hospitalization. People didn't stop having heart attacks and strokes. People didn't stop having the flu and ear infections and myriad other issues. Elective surgeries could be put on hold, but other than that . . .

In March, Sarah had surgery. It had been scheduled for a while and it was fortunate that she had it at that point. Any later and it probably would have been postponed. And necessary surgeries postponed can, in many cases, result in life and death situations.

After surgery Sarah wasn't able to sleep, was having trouble breathing and ended up in the hospital again in the beginning of April. She was initially on a Covid-19 floor and saw the level of effort it took to care for these patients. Every needle prick, every interaction required suiting up, taking time consuming and exhausting precautions. Sarah didn't have coronavirus and fortunately is at home and much better now.

There are more stories as well, more personal ones, that taxed our medical system and caused the kind of fear that could easily result in avoiding getting the medical assistance that non-covid patients would need.

One day in April, Hubs was suddenly in a lot of pain, and how to deal with it raised my blood pressure. Should he go to the doctor? Initially he decided it wasn't worth the risk of possibly being exposed to covid, but eventually the pain was so excruciating that he had to. He needed medication. Should he go to the pharmacy? More exposure. He needed an x-ray. Going to a hospital for that was a terrifying thought.

Among other issues, some I'm terrified about because exploring them have been put off, he had an infection and an inflamed gallbladder. I would need to come up with new recipes to accommodate his needs. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but it would require me to go to the grocery store, something I wasn't going to do for another 2 weeks, to read labels and purchase the foods he needs to eat. Low fat and low sugar options to ingredients I use, lots of fruits and vegetables, grains, chicken and fish:

Almond Coated Honey Mustard Pollock

My older son had an ear infection. Again, this required taking the risk of going into a doctor's office (I told him to wear a mask and gloves, stand, not sit in the waiting room, touch nothing, and stay away from other patients). He required medication, so a trip to the pharmacy as well.

Here's a sobering fact: during this time a friend's elderly mother needed surgery. She was unable to get it and did end up dying. Just think about that for a minute. Devastating. How many more stories like this do you think there have been? These are the silent covid victims, the uncounted numbers.

Then there's my next door neighbor. He was taken away in an ambulance in April (non-covid related). Two days later he was back home and had a party. His daughters, sons in law, grandchildren, there was quite a group over there. I have to wonder, with all of the stress on our medical workers, and having just been in both an ambulance and a hospital environment, who doesn't take precautions? Who doesn't protect their own family? And who doesn't realize that the people who ignore guidelines are complicit in extending the havoc covid causes? Their apathy impacts not just the exhausted medical workers but the neighbors and community members who suffer from everyday issues and medical emergencies who just cannot be accommodated at this time? The price is high. It's the lengthening of the amount of time this crisis continues, the strain on our medical system, and can result in an increase in the number of people who will die.

There are so many people fighting tirelessly to take care of others. There are so many people giving up their daily freedoms to try to break the back of this pandemic. And then there are those who just don't get it, who put their own selfish wants above the greater good. 

One neighbor is putting people in jeopardy. Another is making masks, hundreds of them, for as long as she has supplies. She dropped some off outside our house for us. I stood 10 feet away from her on her front lawn as I thanked her. 

This has been a time of showing our true colors.

It has also been an eye opening time of seeing the true colors of those around us.

Here are links to all the other Use Your Words posts:
Spatulas on Parade 
Wandering Web Designer
On the Border  
Sparkly Poetic Weirdo 
Follow Me Home
Climaxed 
My Life After 
Southern Belle Charm 
Part-time Working Hockey Mom 

Almond Coated Honey Mustard Pollock

                                               ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2# pollock fillets, cut into individual portions
1/2 cup orange juice
salt and pepper to taste
2 TBSP stone ground mustard
2 TBSP honey 
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs 
1/2 cup sliced almonds, chopped

Directions:
*Place the orange juice in a resealable bag. Rinse and pat dry the fish and place in the bag in a single layer. Refrigerate for one hour, gently flip the bag over and refrigerate another hour.
*Take the fish out of the juice and discard the juice. Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper.
*Mix together the mustard and honey on a plate. Mix together the bread crumbs and almonds on a second plate. Spray a 9 X 13 baking pan with non-stick spray.
*One piece at a time, brush the fish on one side with the mustard and honey using a pastry brush. Gently press into the bread crumb mixture, then repeat on the other side and place in the prepared pan. Cover with tin foil and refrigerate for an hour.
*Move the baking pan to the counter, remove the tin foil, and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the fish for 20 to 35 minutes. How long you need to bake the fish will depend on the thickness of your fillets. The fish is cooked when it is no longer translucent and easily flakes with a fork.