Hurricane Hope

 

Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida a month ago. For most of us, it's difficult to watch the path of the storm as it sets its eye on land. Those of us with a heart and the capability to feel compassion, that is. For me, the dread was mixed with deja vu.

 

I think you all know by now that my mom's winter home is on Marco Island. Hurricane Irma put Marco in the bullseye back in 2017, which was the last time I'd seen a CNN news story focused on the tiny Island.

In the end of September, it happened once again. Ian's bullseye was confirmed to be Naples. And Marco is just off of Naples.

That night was the second time I'd seen a CNN news story focused on Marco.

After the initial devastation, as the storm worked its way up the coast, weakening along the way, and we were able to assess the damage in general (my cousin was on the island and kept us informed), we waited to hear about the condition of mom's home. And I got to thinking.

Relief that it was over mixed with heartbreak at the loss of life. And there was empathy for all of those who had to deal with the aftermath, the clean up, the loss, the trauma. Millions were without electricity, their streets were flooded hampering even local travel, and something as simple and life sustaining as food was an issue. Where would their next meal come from?

 

 

 

Wild Mushroom & Smoked Salmon Rotini

 

I remembered the devastation Puerto Rico suffered in 2017 and how the trump administration did not provide the humanitarian support those citizens needed. Not a hurricane, but I remembered Texas's winter storm last year, when Ted Cruz called his friends, gathered his family, and went off on vacation.

And I thought about DeSantis, and what he had just done to target and harm people taking refuge in his state.

All of which, believe it or not, brought me to hope.

Because despite DeSantis's cruelty, my home state of Massachusetts rose honorably to the challenge.

 

 

 

And it made me realize that the tide has started to turn, no matter the level of cruelty by the local administration of the exact state that was now in such a desperate situation, we no longer, at the federal level, reward or punish states based on their local politics. 

We have far to go as a country, just to get back to square one when it comes to how we treat each other. It was a relief to know that under this administration, desperation would once again be met with support, compassion, and collaborative assistance. 

 

Whichever way the wind blows.

And that gives me hope.

Wild Mushroom & Smoked Salmon Rotini

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients: 

2 cups vegetable broth, divided

1 package (.5 oz) dried wild mushrooms

1 box (16 oz) vegetable rotini 

4 - 5 oz smoked salmon, sliced

1 TBSP butter

1 TBSP olive oil

1/2 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced 

6 oz portobello mushroom caps, cleaned, stem stub removed, sliced

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 tsp dried dill

1 TBSP cooking sherry

1 TBSP lemon juice

1 green onion, sliced

Directions:

*Boil 1 cup of the vegetable broth. Add the mushrooms and set aside for 15 minutes.
*Cook the pasta to al dente. Place the salmon in the pot with the pasta and cover to keep warm.

*In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter with the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, and portobellos. Cook and stir for 3 minutes. Add the wild mushrooms with the broth, the additional broth, salt, pepper, dill, and sherry.

*Bring to a boil, reduce heat, add the lemon juice, and simmer 3 minutes. Mix in the pasta with the salmon. Top with the green onions.

 

Be Sure to Lick the Door: 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.

I had made a new recipe, my Blue Razz Holiday Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. I was getting ready to take a pic for the blog post when I turned around and found that College Boy was standing behind me.

College Boy: What flavor?
Me: Blue Raspberry.
College Boy: You know I love Blue Raspberry hard candies.
Me: Yes, I do.
College Boy: Can I try the cake?
Me: Yup, just finishing the pic.

College Boy loves to torture me so he takes a bite, looks like he's thinking, takes another bite . . .

Me: Well?
College Boy: That's one of the top 10 Blue Raspberry Cakes I've had.
Me: Wait, I thought this was a unique idea. How many have you had?
College Boy: Including yours? One.

I've mentioned many times that my boys don't cook, which makes me less than happy as they don't eat as healthy as I'd like. The other thing that's disappointing is that they always ask what's for dinner before committing to coming over. Guess it's not my beauty and charm they miss. So this was a recent conversation:

College Boy: Hi Mom, what's for dinner.
Me: I don't know what are you making me?
College Boy: McDonald's.
Me: Very funny.
College Boy: Mom?
Me: Yeah, honey.
College Boy: Would you like fries with that?

I was talking to PurDude on the phone and I kept thinking his TV was on kinda loud. 

Me: Is that your TV? That's loud.
PurDude: I don't have anything on.
Me: You have to, I can hear a show.
PurDude: I don't have anything on and I don't hear anything.

We continued to talk but his TV that wasn't on was distracting.

Me: You don't hear that? It sounds like a TV show.
PurDude: No, I don't hear it. 

When we hung up I went to put my phone down when I looked and saw that somehow (who knows what I press and when) there was a video playing on my cell. Sorta sounded like a sitcom . . .

Yeah, I'm a technological genius, I know.

Sometimes, when Hubs gets really tired, he doesn't reason all that well.

Me: There's good news and bad news.
Hubs: What's the good news?
Me: We got College Boy's phone to sync with the car bluetooth.
Hubs: And the bad news?
Me: I think it's your phone we deleted from the system to make room for his. 
Hubs: OK. So when I call you in the car you'll just have to answer on your phone instead of bluetooth.
Me: Ummm . . . think that through again . . .

College Boy was going out with friends and was planning to come home afterwards. Part way through the night he texted me:

College Boy: I just realized I don't have my key. Can you unlock the door between the garage and the house? I'll come in using the garage door keypad.
Me: OK, I'll unlock that door but when you come in, be sure you put the garage door back down and lick the door to the house.
College Boy: Well, that sounds pretty unhealthy but if licking the door is the price I have to pay to get in, I guess so.
Me: LOCK. Dammit. Lock the door.
College Boy: Do I still need to lick it? Or can I just lock it?
Me: Smart ass.

Taco Chicken Stuffed Mushrooms

I was working in the kitchen and I had some walnuts in the oven so I could toast them. I didn't realize I'd forgotten them until I could smell my mistake.

Me (just talking out loud): Oh, crap.
Hubs (just walking into the room): What's wrong?
Me: I burned my nuts.
Hubs: Do we need to have the birds and the bees talk again . . .

Yeah, I'm surrounded by smart asses.

I totally won Black Friday. I stayed home, Hubs and PurDude went out shopping and the next day I was driving a new car. SCORE!

The next day Hubs was at work and I guess he was talking about the car. He texted me asking me to text him a pic of the car, which I did.

That night at dinner, Hubs confirmed that he got the text but says the pic is now gone.

Me: Gone? What do you mean? It's in your texts.
Hubs: No, it's gone. I made it go away somehow.

I get up and grab his phone.

Hubs: Is that my phone? What are you doing?
Me: Looking for the pic.
Hubs: Don't you believe me?
Me: Of course not.

And it's gone. He had deleted all of our text conversations. 
So from his phone I text myself "hi".
I respond to him: Stop deleting me.

I guess it took him a while to see the text, but later he comes up from downstairs.

Hubs: I got your text to stop deleting you.
Me: Yeah, that was a while ago.
Hubs: If you were going to text me, you could have sent me the pic again.
Me: You'd just delete it again.
Hubs: Well I wasn't going to, but I am now.
Me: You can't. You lost the pic.

Hubs walks away in a huff. And that, my friends, is what over 20 years of marriage looks like.

It was the first night of Hanukkah and PurDude was coming to dinner. It was snowing so Hubs and I decided that I would move my new car over to the side of the 2-car part of our garage so when PurDude came he could just pull into the garage. I moved my car over but as I was getting out, the snowblower was too close to my door.

Me (calling out my car window to Hubs): Hey, can you move the snow blower so I don't hit it with the car door?
Hubs (moving the snow blower): It's no big deal, you wouldn't hurt the snow blower.
Me (incredulously): Snow blower? Screw the snow blower, I don't want to ding my new car.
Hubs: Oh yeah. Right. What you said.
{{smh}}

 

I mentioned that PurDude moved into an apartment downtown near work and I furnished it for him. Having seen the house (and I use that term loosely) that he had rented with a few friends at school, I was worried about what he'd be eating and if he'd be cleaning or would just emerge in a year with some kind of plague. 

Anyway, one chair I gave him for the living room, which we love, is a rocker recliner. It's so comfortable and he loves sitting in it watching TV. He came for dinner recently and told me he'd be getting rid of that chair.

PurDude: I have to replace the chair in the living room. I love it but it's peeling.
Me: Peeling?
PurDude: I guess it had been sitting in the sun in the guest room before we moved it to my house and the entire thing is peeling.
Me: I'm sorry to hear that, it's a great chair.
PurDude: I know, so comfortable, but it's making a mess. I have to vacuum every day.
{{big smile on my face}}
PurDude: What are you smiling about?
Me: You vacuum!!
PurDude (shaking his head and rolling his eyes): The things that make you happy . . .

When the boys were little, before school I would be in the kitchen, they and Hubs would sit at the counter in the morning and have breakfast together before they went to school, Hubs to work and me off to do errands. 

Last week I had gone to the grocery store and came back to find everyone here, a rare thing these days. Once the groceries were in, I ran into the mud room to start a load of laundry before putting the food away. 

I came back to find the box of 6 donuts was now a box of 3 donuts. PurDude, College Boy and Hubs were all sitting in their seats at the counter eating together.

It's been a while since I've smiled ear to ear like that. It's the little things, friends.

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

Menopausal Mother 
Never Ever Give Up Hope 
Spatulas on Parade

Taco Chicken Stuffed Mushrooms

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
8 oz button or baby bella mushrooms (approximately 20 mushrooms)
4 slices sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded cooked chicken
1/4 cup salsa
1/4 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
2 TBSP chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp taco seasoning

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a baking sheet.
*Gently wipe the mushrooms to remove any dirt. Carefully remove the stem leaving the mushroom intact. Place on the baking sheet with the hole facing up.
*Cut the slices of cheddar into about 6 pieces each. Gently push the center of each cheese slice into the center of each mushroom hole. It will drape over the side.
*Mix the chicken, salsa, jalapeno and cilantro. Place about a TBSP of this mixture on top of the cheese slices. Sprinkle with the taco seasoning.
*Bake for 20 minutes.

White Rabbit and Me: A Be Late for Something Day Poem

It's monthly poetry time again and as I look through all of my past posts, I realize that this is our 24th group theme based posts. Two years. Amazing.

In those years I've taken this challenge, this opportunity to many different levels. I've written all kinds of poems from thoughtful to silly, from haiku to limerick. I tend to fall back, most often, to silly rhymes. They tend to be the most fun to write and I hope you find reading them to be amusing. 

If not, there's always a recipe in my posts. Think of it as a consolation prize. Thanks for playing reading, here's a consolation prize recipe.

On to the show. This month we've chosen the theme National Be Late for Something Day, a holiday started by The Procrastinators' Club of America. 

White Rabbit and Me

White Rabbit has nothing on me,
always late is what we be,
sometimes it's even hard to see,
when I'll even have a minute to . . .
                            . . . {{well, you know}}.

Start each day so full of hope,
with today's schedule I can cope.
Being on time would be so dope, {{cool, aren't I?}}
Can do it, can't I? Answer's "nope".

Procrastination may be the case . . .
one quick phone call to touch base,
blogging's a time-suck I embrace,
and oops, got lost on book-of-face.

I swear I try to be on time,
but it's a mountain just can't climb.
Coffee spills, mystery laundry slime,
then boom, before you know it, bedtime.

Racing through town is just no fun,
Kids' appointment is at 2:00 . . . no 1.
Grocery shopping must get done,
Seems I'm always under the gun.

Not surprised that dinner's late,
around here it's a frequent fate,
so it's your choice . . . you can wait
or just have nothing on your plate.

Orzo Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

So, Be Late for Something Day,

I'm not on time, but here to say,
good to see my normal delay
once each year is A- OK.

Before you go, click on these links to more poetry by some of my friends: 

Dawn of Cognitive Script shares Better Late Than Never, Right?

Lydia of Cluttered Genius shares Better Late than Never. 

Diane of On the Border shares On Being Late.

Orzo Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

                                                     ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe


Ingredients (makes 3):

2 TBSP butter

1 clove garlic, minced

1 green onion, sliced

3 TBSP pignolis

2 cups vegetable broth
salt and pepper
1 cup orzo
1/4 cup grated parmesan
3 Portobello Mushroom Caps
2 TBSP olive oil

Directions:

*NOTE: I prefer make the orzo a day ahead but you can make it the same day if you prefer.
*Melt the butter in a pot on the stove over medium heat. Add the garlic, green onion, pignolis and orzo. Cook and stir for 3 minutes. 

*Add the vegetable broth, salt and pepper and immediately raise the heat to high to bring to a boil, stirring now and then. Once boiling, lower the heat and simmer, still stirring now and then, until the orzo is al dente, about 7 minutes.

*Drain the excess vegetable broth. Mix in the grated parmesan. Cool, then place in a sealed bag in the fridge until the next day.
*The next day, bring the orzo to room temperature

*Using a paper towel, gently brush any dirt off of the mushroom caps. If there is a stem stump, carefully remove it without breaking the mushroom cap.

*Grease a baking sheet. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place the mushroom caps onto the baking sheet, gills side down. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, turn over.

*Spoon the orzo mixture into the mushroom caps. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until the mushrooms are cooked and the stuffing is hot.