Only Loves: Word Counters

 

Counting my words again.

Today my fellow Word Counters and I are sharing our monthly group post. Each month one group member picks  a number between 12 and 50. All participating bloggers 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. 

This month's number is 24.  

It was chosen by Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings.

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 I've chosen the theme Only Loves.

 

~ Happy Valentine's Day! Taking a break from news (politics) to acknowledge loves, small and large. Looking for love in all the right places . . . everywhere.

~ My older son buys and sells limited edition and rare albums. I love seeing his face when he's scored at a limited edition drop.

~ And hearing the throaty growl of my younger son's car pulling into the driveway after a loooong drive home. And that very first hug.

~ An afternoon in the den with my family, hot drink in hand, a fire roaring in the fireplace, and whatever game in the background.

~ Hubs shoveling so I can grill in the winter. And just how delicious a grilled steak is when you haven't grilled in a while.

~ Those moments after the cleaners leave, before anyone else comes home. The house looks clean, smells clean, and I enjoy it in silent bliss.

~ Knowing I've made a favorite when I put dinner on the table and someone's eyes light up. Watching that meal disappear is validating, satisfying.

~ Talking recipes with my mom. Updating a recipe to make it easier. And one that's successful on the first try (and the pictures, too).

Sausage & Broccoli Penne

 

~ That first silent snow clinging to the tree branches, pristinely white. Those first flower buds in the spring. Catching sight of inchworms, praying mantis, hummingbirds.

 

~ Finding what I want on sale, hearing that certain song, snagging the cl0sest parking spot, a surprise visit, finding what I'd thought was lost.

~ An afternoon nap, a freshly washed sweatshirt, fuzzy socks, and all those little things that bring an unexpected smile to an otherwise ordinary day.

~The end of a productive day, meals served, dishes put away, coffee maker set up for morning, Kindle is loaded and warm bed awaits. 

 

Here are links to the other Word Counters posts:

On the Border 

Messymimi’s Meanderings 

Sausage & Broccoli Penne        
                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 box (12 oz) penne pasta

2 TBSP olive oil

1/2 onion, sliced

1/2 green pepper, sliced

4 oz mushrooms, sliced

3 cloves, garlic

5 oz smoked sausage: smoked links, kielbassa, linguica, andouille (I use the cajun style)

1 can (14.5 oz) Italian style stewed tomatoes with garlic, basil, and oregano

1/4 cup white wine

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1 cup broccoli florets

Directions:

*Cook the penne to al dente. Drain and keep warm.

*While the pasta is cooking. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the olive oil. Once hot, add the onion, green pepper, mushrooms, and garlic. Cook and stir for 5 minutes. 

*Slice the cooked sausage on the bias and add to the pan along with the stewed tomatoes, white wine, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring now and then.

*Stir in the broccoli and cook for 2 minutes. Add the warm penne to the pan, toss with the other ingredients for about a minute or two. Remove from the heat and serve.

 

Love and Smoothies: Poetry Monday

 

 

 

Poetry Monday's once a week.

I bet you know which day.

I don't participate every time,

But today I've come out to play.

My friends assign each week a theme,

Frozen Yogurt's, what they chose.

Now it's up to all of us,

to put our thoughts into prose.

 

 

Love and Smoothies

 

Valentine's Day rhyming,

I was all set.

But our theme's frozen yogurt?

So here's what you get . . .

 

Roses are red,

violets are blue.

I like frozen yogurt,

well, don't you? 

Roses are yellow,

and violets are purple.

Frozen yogurt in the blender,

I watch it circle.

 

Violets are lavender,

and roses can be pink.

Frozen yogurt can make,

such a yummy drink.

 

Violets are violet,

and roses are white.

A frozen yogurt smoothie,

for Valentine's night?

Pear Ginger Smoothie

 

Violets are mauve,

roses can be peach.

Made frozen yogurt smoothies,

one for us each.

 

Violets are amethyst,

roses can even be black.

If you don't drink that smoothie,

I may take it back. 

 

 

 

Wait!

Read more poetry, 

you're not through.

Some talented writers

are in this crew:

 

On the Border

Messymimi's Meanderings 

Mother Owl 

 

 

Pear Ginger Smoothie Smoothie         

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients: 

2 cups vanilla yogurt

2 medium sized ripe pears

1/2 cup spinach

1 tsp ginger paste

3 TBSP honey

Directions:

*At least 2 hours before blending, cover a small baking pan (toaster oven size) with a lip so the yogurt doesn't leak out, with parchment paper. Spread the yogurt onto the pan and lay flat in the freezer.

*Peel, core, and chop the pears.

*Clean the spinach and pat dry.
*Once the yogurt is frozen, remove from the parchment paper, chop,and place in a food processor with the chopped pear, spinach, ginger, and honey. Blend, then scrape the sides down, blend, scrape the sides down, and continue until smooth.

 

Sliding Past the Holidays

 

 

All upcoming holidays are canceled. For the foreseeable future. Yes, it pains me to say that.

And it's because of the food. Which hurts even more.

It all started with Thanksgiving. It was a traumatic experience fraught with illness, freezing cold, unexpected babysitting duties, and an almost dirty house. 

And although it all worked out in the end, that entire week was . . . a lot.

Then right around the corner came Christmas. Let me tell you about Christmas.

Why now? As an explanation of sorts, or a justification maybe, of that whole holiday cancellation thing.

As I explained in my Thanksgiving post, I'm a planner. The groceries are purchased and the tasks, what I need to defrost and when, which recipes I can make in advance, what time to take the turkey out, and what time it needs to be in the oven, all scheduled on my calendar to ensure optimal family time on the day of the holiday.

The problems started with the stuffing. I use a hot sausage in mind, and couldn't find any in the stores. I thought chorizo would be a great substitute and went with that. But 3 days before, when I went to cook the chorizo as I would the sausage, it wasn't cooking, but melting and burning. I googled and found that it comes precooked. So I just mixed it in with the rest of the stuffing ingredients.

The cleaners were scheduled that day. Since we had heat in the house, they actually did come on schedule this month, and I babysat no one.

But for the next few days, that stuffing was bothering me. It was niggling at my brain. I know what cooked sausage looks like, and that was not it. At 11 pm, on Christmas eve, after checking the description of the chorizo I bought on the website of the store I'd bought it in, and confirming it was uncooked, I was up throwing all of the stuffing in the trash.

The next morning, I frantically cobbled together a stuffing based on some leftovers I had from Thanksgiving and whatever ingredients I had on hand.

It was late morning when I realized that I usually have the turkey in the oven by now. I checked my calendar and noticed I'd planned on a 2 hour cooking time. For an 18 pound bird. Yikes.

I yanked the turkey out of the fridge, cleaned, stuffed, and slathered it, stuck it in a disposable tin roaster, stuck that in another roaster, just to be safe, folded the wing tips under so they wouldnt burn, and threw it in the upper oven. Second disaster averted. Phew.

Heading to the last hour before dinner, just before I was going to preheat the lower oven for the vegetable casseroles, I checked the turkey and decided to unfold the wings so the skin could brown. I pulled the oven shelf out as far as I dared, and grabbed my tongs. Reaching for the first wing, I somehow (talented, I guess) pierced not one, but both of the roasters. Grease gushed from the roasters onto the oven door, poured down into the second oven and the drawer below that, splattered all over the kitchen floor, up the side of the refrigerator and the kitchen island.

Did I mention my house had just been cleaned 3 days before?

Anyway . . .

screaming for Hubs, I grabbed another roaster, put the turkey and first 2 roasters into that, moved the turkey to the counter and shut off the oven.

Hubs and I cleaned up as best we could, and I got the turkey back in the oven. 

Anyone know how long you cook a turkey after it's been in the oven for 2 hours and then on the counter for 20 minutes? Me neither.

I went to the table, picked up my much needed glass of wine, and spilled it all over my travertine table. Note to self: when shaking that badly, wine is best consumed via IV.

Dinner was eventually served. As an added bonus, no matter what I tried, we did end up with a fun slip and slide across the kitchen floor. And no one broke a hip.

Oh, and the Pepper Jelly Knots were delish . . .

 

 

Pepper Jelly Knots

 

But here's the thing. Valentine's Day is right around the corner. Followed by St. Patrick's Day. Both holidays that are always marked with special foods.

But this year, I think I'm gonna have to take a pass. Yes, as I said, it pains me to say it, but we all know that bad luck comes in threes.

And I barely made it past bad luck holidays one and two. I'd like to keep my family healthy, my house standing, and my mental health on this side of a rubber room.

So, I think it's in everyone's best interest if, for now, I just put down the oven mitts, and slowly back away . . .

Pepper Jelly Knots         

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 can (8 oz) refrigerator crescent dough

3 oz cream cheese, room temperature

3 TBSP pepper jelly

Directions:
*Whisk together the cream cheese and pepper jelly. Set aside.

*Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

*Roll out the crescent dough on the parchment paper to about a 10 X 15 rectangle.

*Carefully spread the pepper jelly mixture onto the dough.

*Using the shorter side, fold in half so you have about a 5 X 15 rectangle.
*Cut the dough into 15 approximately 1 inch strips. Tie each strip into a loose knot and arrange the knots on the sheet so they are not touching. Bake for 15 minutes.

 

Words Without Letters

I wrote a blog post recently called Games Without Words. If I were writing a song, this would be the second verse, Words Without Letters.

 

It all started with a trip. No, not the vacation kind, the kind where you're walking out of a room, trip (over absolutely nothing, but we'll skip over that part), and smack the laptop you're holding in your hand into the door jam. Talented, I know.

 

I was fine, not even embarrassed because nobody saw, and everyone knows if no one witnesses you doing something embarrassing, it's the same as it never having happened. Well, unless you admit it publicly . . . like on your blog.

Anyway . . .

I did see a couple of cracks in the bottom and on the side of the keyboard (superglue doesn't work on laptops, FYI), but the laptop was working fine, so I went on my merry way.

Until a few weeks later. 

I was siin on he couch, ypin away, poaly wokin on a lo pos and makin los o poess. I don' look a wha I'm ypin when I ype, los in my own wold o houh, u I suppose you can imaine my supise when I looked up and saw, well, oledyook.

Ummm . . . seems some of my keys were not working. 

So I started banging on them. Because everyone knows that banging is always the solution when something doesn't work.

And it worked. I could bang on the keys when they didn't work and abracadabra.

Sadly, abracadabra solutions are, apparently, temporary.

Once it was clear that banging wasn't going to work forever, superglue had already failed, and the clip I'd attached to the broken side of the keyboard kept popping off and smacking me in the head, I knew I was in trouble.

And then I posted a recipe pic to my blog, not realizing that one of the letters not working had been left out of the recipe name. It said "ceam cheese." Ugh, had to delete the pic from my blog and all social media, fix it, and repost it everywhere. I was not amused.

As I looked into getting the keyboard fixed, I was both writing blog posts and responding to posts on my Baking In A Tornado FB page by typing what I wanted to say, going to a document where I'd stored the alphabet to copy the letters I needed, one by one, and pasting them into the sentences.

So, using just the short example from above, this is the amount of copying and pasting I had to do:

I was sitting on the couch, typing away, probably working on a blog post and making lots of progress. I don't look at what I'm typing when I type, lost in my own world of thought, but I suppose you can imagine my surprise when I looked up and saw, well, gobbledygook.

Let me tell you, that is an exhausting way to communicate. Do you have any idea how often you use "r," "t," "f," "g," "b," and "v"? 

 

I do.

I could temporarily do some of my writing on my cell and on my tablet, but those weren't going to be long term solutions. I needed my laptop for longer pieces, and was getting nowhere in finding a way to get it fixed.

But the straw that broke the blogger's back? I'd worked out a recipe for a post and could not figure out what some of it said.

No bueno. BIG no bueno.

 

Mini Heart Cakes

 

 

Fast forward a long week of copying and pasting letters, partially writing blog posts in 3 different places, and one afternoon I was sitting on the couch, banging on the letter "t," and possibly muttering some not very nice words.

Hubs and my son asked what in the world I was doing. I explained.

"Be back in a minute," they said, walked out the door, came back about 1/2 hour later with a wireless keyboard.

Let me tell you, folks, Pat Sajak has been ripping people off for years. Wheel of Fortune charges $250 to buy a vowel? I got the whole damn alphabet. 

For 20 bucks.

Mini Heart Cakes         

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 box (15.25 oz) white cake mix

1/2 cup oil

1 1/4 cups milk

1/4 cup sour cream

1 egg

3 egg whites

1 1/4 cups white chocolate chips, choppd

1/3 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

OPT: decorations of choice: colord sanding sugar, multicolored sprinkles or nonpareils, heart shaped candies, red hots

Directions:

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a jellyroll baking pan.

*Mix together the cake mix, oil, milk, sour cream, egg, and egg whites. Once incorporated, beat for 2 minutes.

*Spread into the prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the center springs back to the touch. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for 10 minutes.

*Crush the white chocolate chips in a food processor or a clean coffee grinder. Place them with the heavy cream in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds at 50% power. Mix well. Continue to microwave at 10 second intervals until completely smooth.

*Whisk in the powdered sugar. Immediately pour over the cake and quickly spread evenly. Sprinkle with decorative topping of choice and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

*Using a medium sized heart shaped cookie cutter, cut hearts out of the cake. Use a spatula to move to a serving dish.

*Note: form the remaining cake in the pan into 1 inch balls and freeze to coat and make cake balls later.

Four Twenty: Word Counters

  

 

 

Counting my words again. 

Today my fellow Word Counters and I are sharing our monthly group post. Each month one group member picks  a number between 12 and 50. All participating bloggers 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.

 

This month's number is 42. 

It was chosen by Diane of On the Border.

 

 

 

~ This month, I'm talking about today's number. Sort of. But switching it up adding a zero, to be exact. Inspired by the number Diane chose, I'd like to discuss 420. No, not blackbirds, that's four and twenty. I love pie, but blackbirdless.

~ And I'm not talking about my anniversary, (though it is 4/20) nor how I celebrate (although spoiler alert: I don't bake bird pies and I only once spent it searching for pot, and found it, but, that's a story for another day).

 

~ You may have guessed, what I'm talking about is 420 in the context of World Weed Day. I was set on this path by two diametrically opposite political attitudes. First, Biden commuted the sentences of 75 Americans convicted of nonviolent drug crimes.

~ The other is Nebraska's governor attempting to sue Colorado over Colorado's marijuana legalization. Talk about sticking your nose in your neighbor's business. Nebraska's Ricketts has (yes, fairly recently) said that cannabis is a gateway drug, and legalization "is gonna kill your kids." 

 

 

~All of this is easily paralleled to the Covid situation. Ignorance should not trump (yes, pun intended) science, and yet it does. In both instances. There are also parallels to prohibition, which didn't end alcohol use, just made the distilling unregulated, unsafe.

 

~Fun 4/20 story: Back in the 1970s a group of California high school kids (called themselves "the Waldos") used to meet after school at 4:20 to smoke pot together. Later, according to urban legend, they'd search for a rumored deserted marijuana patch.

~ The Waldos never found it (ha, Waldo humor), but 420 became their secret code. Not for long (after all, there are no secrets in high school). AND, the brother of one of the kids in the group was friends with a musician.

~ That musician's band? The Grateful Dead. The boys shared with the band, their secret code for getting high (I can imagine the conversation, over heart shaped munchies, I'm sure). The band began using it and sharing it, and the rest is history.

 

 

 

 

Peppermint Heart Meringues

 

 

~ Like alcohol, marijuana is here to stay. The schedule one status is obsolescent, the punishment associated with it, abusively severe. Legalizing it, acknowledging this drug's therapeutic value ensures its properties can be appropriately studied, dosages scientifically developed, and medical use sales regulated.

 

~ I don't advocate everyone smoke pot. I believe that pot, including recreational, should be legal. But let's at least start with compassion, for those with chronic pain, glaucoma, anxiety . . . we cannot continue to allow an archaic unscientific stance to usurp their relief.

 

Here are links to the other Word Counters posts:

On the Border 

Messymimi’s Meanderings 

Peppermint Heart Meringues

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients: 

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup finely crushed candy canes or starlight mint candies

3 TBSP multicolored nonpareils

Directions:

*Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.

*Beat the egg whites, on high speed until they get foamy. Add the cream of tartar and salt, and continue to beat until soft peaks form. 

*Add the peppermint extract and, 1/4 cup at a time, at about 30 second intervals, add the sugar and the finely crushed mints. Continue to bear at high speed until stiff peaks hold.

*Using a pencil, draw 15 hearts on the parchment paper, about 3 inches tall each. Turn the parchment paper over. This is important, do not pipe your hearts onto the side with the pencil on it.

*Spoon about half of the meringue into a piping bag or a gallon sized plastic bag with the tip cut off. Following the lines on the other side of the parchment paper, pipe the outline of the hearts.

*Using a knife, scoop the remaining meringue into the hearts and spread to fill them. Sprinkle with the nonpareils.

*Bake for 15 minutes. Turn the oven off, leaving the meringues inside for another 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow to sit for 10 minutes, then and carefully peel off of the parchment paper.

Basket Blues: 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: sympathetic ~ clergy ~ hot air balloon ~ air fryer
They were submitted by Rena of The Diary of an Alzheimer's Caregiver.

                           

Confession time: when I first saw my word prompts included clergy, and since we're so close to St. Valentine's Day, I thought I'd take my post in that direction. Turns out that was a mistake. That's what happens when the Jewish girl gets the clergy prompts.

 

Googling to be sure I had my facts straight, I ended up more confused than when I started. Seems there were a plethora of St. Valentines, and even one pope. I started to rethink where I'd take this post when I read that although the St. Valentine we all think of, the patron saint of epilepsy and beekeepers (isn't that an esoteric pairing) is still recognized as a saint, but is no longer on the General Catholic Calendar of Saints.

 

But I put the brakes on hard when I went on to read that the skull of St. Valentine is adorned with flowers and on display in Rome (with other parts of his skeleton in churches in other countries). Time to pick a new direction. 

 

Maybe I could see if I can use all my words in one sentence. Or one story. Or one story using all of my words in each sentence.

 

Or maybe I need a nice long rest in a peaceful monochromatic rubber room.

But until then . . .

 

If ever there was a time to be sympathetic, it's when one of the local clergy tossed his cookies air fryer hot wings, in the basket of the hot air balloon. 

But being sympathetic was not on the hot air balloon owner's agenda, even if it was a member of the clergy, and it was he who had actually offered his guests pre-flight appetizers, including the air fryer hot wings.

The (decidedly unsympathetic) hot air ballooner committed then and there that since he couldn't (and wouldn't) ban the clergy from rides (since it's his business), he'd skip the air fryer hors d'oeurves, offering only (oven baked) snacks from now on.

 

Strawberry Creme Blondies

Fellow hot air ballooners, having had similar issues with clients before (although admittedly involving neither clergy nor air fryers), laughed quite unsympathetically at their friend's afternoon basket clean up {{ewww}}.

But while cleaning out the hot air balloon basket, the owner, feeling badly about his unsympathetic attitude, decided that he would later drop by the church with a gift for the clergy: his (barely used but no longer wanted) air fryer.

And maybe a free pass to the local hot air balloon festival, where the clergy (along the rest of the attendees) could watch from the ground, eating air fryer hot wings to their hearts' content, while the owners (their sympathetic tendencies, or lack thereof, now immaterial) float happily above.

 

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

On the Border

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver 

Climaxed

Part-time Working Hockey Mom

 

Strawberry Creme Blondies

                                               ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 stick butter

1 1/4 cups brown sugar

1/3 cup plus 2 TBSP strawberry jam, divided

3/4 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

24 Hershey's strawberry creme hearts

Directions:

*Grease a 9 X 13 baking dish. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

*Melt the butter in the microwave. Whisk in the brown sugar, 1/3 cup of the strawberry jam, and the vanilla. One at a time, whisk in the eggs.

*Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl. Make sure it's all well incorporated.

*Spread evenly into the prepared baking dish.
*Whisk the remaining 2 TBSP strawberry jam to loosen it up a bit. Drizzle over the batter. Drag a toothpick gently through the jam to spread over the top of the batter.

*Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the edges are brown and the center is set.

*Cool on the counter for 30 minutes. While the blondies are cooling, unwrap the candies. After 30 minutes, place the candies onto the brownies in 6 rows of 4. Place the blondies into the fridge and cool completely before removing to slice. Store, covered, at room temperature.