Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Now You Don't

 

Layered Tropical Jello, a refreshing summer treat. Simple to assemble, but requires time for the layers to set so make this one a day ahead. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dessert

Now You Don't. 

As in "now you see me, now you don't." Also known as the disappearing act that cost me 24 hours of my life. Hours I'll never get back again. Hours I'd never want to repeat. And yet, this was not the first time . . . So you could also call my recent predicament "fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, learn your lesson, fool.

Let me just say here that I'm kinda used to things disappearing. You may be aware of the fact that I bake. A lot. If you didn't know that, you don't read this blog enough. 
 
But I do bake a lot. As I've said, it started when the boys were little. I'd bake snacks for them and whatever friends were coming home from school with them. It got to the point where an awful lot of kids were coming home from school with them, and even more in the neighborhood would find themselves here too. Coincidentally, right around snack time. I used to joke that when something chocolate was baking, I'd get overpowered somewhere between taking it out of the oven and attempting to get it onto the counter. Let baked goods cool? Who needs chocolate to be cool? 
 
I considered myself lucky if I got a picture for the blog and a taste to see if the recipe was a success. Or if I agreed that the recipe was a success. Turns out kids will eat anything baked. There were times when I wondered what they'd do if I put crickets in the batter. Or if they'd even know.
 
Friends would see the pictures of some of those baked treats and (jokingly) ask me to deliver. My answer was always that they were welcome to stop by the house when I was baking, but I also always suggested they wear a helmet.
 
Truth is, the safest way for me to even get a taste of a new dessert attempt, I'd learned, was to make something cold. Yes, they love the no bake treats, but I'd have a chance to at least get a taste while they were looking in the empty oven.
 
 
Layered Tropical Jello, a refreshing summer treat. Simple to assemble, but requires time for the layers to set so make this one a day ahead. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #dessert
Layered Tropical Jello



Now a blog post, for me, is very labor intensive. I write the post itself and I always design my own graphic to go with it. I develop a new recipe, try it out (sometimes more than once if it needs tweaking), take about 30 pictures, choose the best two, edit them, add the wording . . . it's a lengthy process. So there's a big difference between the food, once photographed, disappearing into mouths, and those pictures of the food disappearing.
 
Years ago, I looked at my Google pictures account and saw thousands of pics. For some reason, they were storing about 10 versions of each blog food pic, all of the graphics, as well as my personal pictures. I didn't need to keep anything but the personal pics, all the rest were already on my blog and I also keep a copy in a Word Picture file.
 
So I deleted many of them. And they deleted off of my blog. All over many of my blog posts were big white squares with a grey oval inside with a line through it in place of my pictures. I was freaked out, heartbroken, furious, and frustrated. I had to upload hundreds of pics back into my blog posts.
 
You'd think the trauma would stop me from ever deleting a picture from my Google account again. If only it had.
 
Google had stopped, back in 2019 when they closed down their Google + platform, storing all of my blog pictures in my Google photos account. So when Google announced that at the beginning of this month they would start charging for storage of photos over a certain amount, I went back into my Google photos. Nothing new was in there that I hadn't taken with my cell phone. But there were still thousands and thousands of old blog pics. Surely I could get rid of them now, Google doesn't seem to be backing up blog pics in this way anymore. Right? 

So I did. Delete them. I did a few, checked my blog, all looked well, so I went on, deleted tens of thousands of them before I got tired of doing it.

Guess what I saw when I went to my old blog posts the next day. Bet you know.
 
Now You Don't | graphic designed by and property of www.BakingInATornad.com | #MyGraphics

 
Act two of the great blog picture disappearing show. Now you see me, now you don't.

It took me 24 hours over 3 days to get all of the pictures back into my blog posts. Ten hours the first day, 9 hours the second day and 5 hours the third. That's about 23,040 breaths worth of time. It was grueling, frustrating, mind numbing work. And my ass is sore. Probably for life.

And I will never, I mean NEVER delete another picture from my Google photo account again. In fact, I'm having it put in my will, no one gets a penny unless they agree to leave my Google pics alone. 
 
In perpetuity.
 
Baking In A Tornado signature | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics



 
Layered Tropical Jello

                                                         ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 can (15 oz) mandarin oranges
1 can (8 oz) pineapple tidbits
1 box (about 3 oz) pineapple flavored gelatin
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 cup milk
6 TBSP sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup mini fruit flavored marshmallows
1 box (about 3 oz) tropical fruit flavored gelatin 
 
Directions:
*Drain the mandarin oranges, pat dry. Refrigerate 9 of them for garnish and chop the rest. Drain the pineapple 
tidbits. 
*Mix the unflavored gelatin into 1/4 cup of cold water and set aside to thicken.
*Boil 1 cup of water. Add the pineapple gelatin and stir until the gelatin dissolves. Add the cold water and mix well, then add the chopped mandarin oranges. Pour into a 8 inch square dish and refrigerate for 60 to 90 minutes, until set.
*While the first layer is in the refrigerator, place the milk in a pan on the stove at medium heat. Once it is hot (do not boil), reduce heat and add the sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, whisk in the unflavored gelatin and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
*Once the milk mixture has sat for 10 minutes, whisk in the sour cream and vanilla. Set aside.
*When the pineapple jello layer is set, mix the mini marshmallows into the saucepan with the milk mixture and gently spoon over the pineapple jello in the pan. Refrigerate for about an hour, until set.
*Boil 1 cup of water. Add the tropical fruit flavored gelatin and stir until the gelatin dissolves. Add the cold water and mix well, then add the pineapple tidbits. Once the milk layer is set, gently spoon the tropical fruit layer onto the milk layer and refrigerate for 60 to 90 minutes, until set. 
*To serve, slice and garnish with the reserved oranges. Cover any leftovers with plastic wrap and keep refrigerated.

 

 

19 comments:

  1. Never mess with Google or Karen!

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    Replies
    1. Well, Google sure can mess with me, and they do so on a pretty regular basis, unfortunately.

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  2. Wow. Good to know. There's nothing more horrible than blog mess-ups. They're soul-wrenching. Glad you got the pictures back.

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    1. It took a long, long, long time, and lots of work but I'm relieved to have them back. Good thing I keep them in a file.

      Delete
  3. Wow is all I can say. I have a lot of photos stored somewhere on Google over 11 years worth of blogging, although most were taken with an iPhone I back up onto my hard drive (and then something else) periodically. Still, maybe I should be concerned about that new limit. I never got an email about that so maybe I'm not affected (yet?). I've never deleted anything from where Blogger stores them BUT if I go over their limit, I suppose they will either delete or tell me I have to pay up. What a lot of work you put into this situation. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. You definitely should have gotten a few emails if you have Google photos, but you probably have nowhere near your limit. With all of my pics I am only at 1/4 of what they allow.

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  4. Wow. And I mean, WOW! This is horrifying! I am so grateful you were able to restore them. Albeit with a LOT of BST. Thank you for sharing the lesson learned. I vow to never delete a picture again...
    And thank you, too for the wonderful (cool) Jello recipe. We're desperately hunting down (served cold) recipes right now. It's supposed to reach +40C (104F) here today. We poor polar people don't know what to do! I feel as though I'm broiling in my own fat. I'm planning on hiding in my basement.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, it's broiling hot here too and Hubs just said he was planning on mowing the lawn today. What could possibly go wrong?

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  5. Oh no! You couldn't install a backup copy? That is awful. I've been doing a lot of work on TDAC lately and deleting. Time to freshen it up! I can't believe I forgot about FOTW! I swear I have Alzheimer's!

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    Replies
    1. No backup would have included the pictures, I don't think, once I'd deleted them from my google account. They were synced and deleted from everywhere.

      Delete
  6. OMG,Karen!!! That's awful! I'm so sorry. Thanks for the warning... and all the great recipes! Lynne

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  7. How awful! As if you didn't have anything else to do this week.

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    Replies
    1. Agreed, although I can't really think of any other time I'd have a spare 24 hours to do this kind of tedious blog post repair.

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  8. You'd think there'd be a better way, but i agree, those pictures need to stay put.

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    Replies
    1. I'd like to think I've learned my lesson. I certainly never want to go through that again.

      Delete

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