Friday, June 3, 2022

Fairest of All: Secret Subject Swap

 

Apple Pecan Monkey Bread, an ooey, gooey, apple pecan version of monkey bread is as delicious as it is pretty.  | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #breakfast

 

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. Read through mine and at the bottom you’ll find links to all of today’s other Secret Subject participants.


 

My subject is: What is your favorite flower, and why?
It was submitted by: Rena of The Diary of an Alzheimer's Caregiver.



I've talked about, and shared pictures of, flowers before. In Flower Power 2.0, I talk about how flowers can make me smile, their beauty can impact my mood. I've also mentioned, in the time of Covid, the lengths I went to in order to have them to plant in my outdoor pots. Some things, many things, changed when Covid hit, making the impact of an art show put on by nature even more significant.
 
I have not, however, in all the times I've mentioned flowers, picked a favorite. So I'm taking that on as my challenge for today.
 
There are so many kinds of flowers, so much to consider here. There are flowers you grow in the yard, flowers you plant in outdoor pots, and those you are gifted. That's a lot to choose from.
 
There's another kind of flower, the symbolic one, used in a truism that makes the rounds now and then, and is especially salient in this age of Covid. I may have added another line to the end there, not that I'm affected by the current political climate or anything . . .
 
 
Favorite Flower | graphic designed by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics #blogging
 
 
So back to actual flowers . . .
 
There is, when gifted flowers, the added value of them being a gift. Choosing a favorite, however, depends on the occasion, the meaning assigned to certain flowers, like roses, and even to the color of the roses.

My mom loves Alstroemerias. They're delicate, multicolored flowers that mom almost always has in a vase on her kitchen counter. I love them because of what they've come to represent: don't wait for others, surround yourself with beauty, make yourself smile, buy yourself flowers. Always.

Also because of their meaning, there are flowers that hold a special place in my heart. I grew up with a line of rhododendrons just outside our front door, irises by the back door, a few lilacs in the side yard, and forsythia along our property line. I remember, just at the very start of spring, when the forsythia were the first to bud, her trimming big stalks and putting them in a tall vase and watching over the next few days, those buds opening into delicate yellow flowers letting us know that winter is officially gone.

I tried growing many of those childhood favorites here in the Midwest without much success. In fact, it was soul crushing having to remove the dead plants from the yard. I did make some adaptations, though. I have lilac shrubs along one side of our house. Instead of iris, I have a plethera of day lillies, and in place of rhododendrons I have azaleas.
  

But if I had to choose, really had to sit down, think it through and make a choice? There's one that is a frequent companion of mine, keeps me busy, and nurtures my creativity. Although rarely seen outside (well, in its pre-arranged form), I brought it out to my back deck so I could take a picture for you. See it there, just below this year's pot of planted flowers?


Favorite Flower | picture taken by, featured on, and property of www.BakingInATornado.com | #blogging

 
Isn't it beautiful?
 
 
 Apple Pecan Monkey Bread this ooey, gooey, apple pecan version of monkey bread is as delicious as it is pretty.  | recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado
Apple Pecan Monkey Bread
 

 

Secret Subject Swap, a multi-blogger writing challenge | developed and run by www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver 

Climaxed

What TF Sarah

Part-time Working Hockey Mom





Baking In A Tornado signature | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics







Apple Pecan Monkey Bread       
                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
4 TBSP butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 TBSP apple juice
2 apples, peeled, cored, chopped
1/3 cup chopped pecans 
1 can (8 biscuits) refrigerator buttermilk biscuits
 
Directions:
*Grease a 10 inch deep dish pie plate. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
*Melt the butter. Whisk in the brown sugar, cinnamon, and apple juice. Mix in the chopped apples and chopped pecans.
*Peel the top half of the layers of the biscuits off so you have 16 biscuits, half the size of the originals. Cover the bottom of the baking dish with 6 of the biscuit halves. 
*Dollop 1/3 of the apple mixture onto the biscuits in the dish and spread around. Top with 5 more of the biscuit halves, another 1/3 of the apple mixture, then the remaining biscuits and the remaining apple mixture.
*Bake for 25 minutes. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.


20 comments:

  1. Love the flowers and the reminder to make appropriate efforts (growing things where they thrive, not where they're doomed to die).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, sometimes you have to learn that the hard way, or at least I did.

      Delete
  2. Your favorite flower is a boxed cake mix? ;-)))
    Which brings up a question: is there an equivalent to the green thumb that relates to baking? I'd definitely have more luck baking than growing flowers.
    I just had to google the name of one of my favorites, Strelitzia. I got to love them in Costa Rica. I would not want to purchase it here though. Maybe one day I get to admire it in its natural habitat again. My everyday flower would probably be the daisy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL, it's not a boxed cake mix, it's cake flower, I mean cake flour.

      Delete
  3. I whole-heartedly support this. I've personally witnessed the beautiful results of having that flower (flour)!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, the flowers of childhood. For me it is the red geraniums my mother grew on a west facing windowsill in the New York City apartment she grew up in. When she died, I managed to kill off every one of her plants. I honor her every year by growing geraniums in my front yard. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that your favorite "flower" is really a "flour"

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love it! Like the poor husband, asked his wife's favorite flower, did his best and said, "Gold Medal, I think."

    ReplyDelete
  7. If I had a garden or space outside I might try to grow something. I have some fake plants inside because I kill everything I've ever tried to grow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plants, just like any living thing, can be a commitment. I've definitely had my problems with keeping them alive.

      Delete
  8. Lots of flowers I never heard of before and great cake as usual. I recently took a ride-share client that made me think of you because she said her daughter is going to Milwaukee for college for Volleyball and I asked her if she thought she'd visit her a few times and she's like 'Oh, more than a few times!"

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love all kinds of flowers and I would have a difficult or impossible dilemma myself! I love all of the colors, shapes everything about them. Even a green bean plant!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Vegetables can be just as pretty plants as flower, in fact, many of them do flower.

      Delete

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