Feast for the Senses: Secret Subject Swap

 

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 3 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: Spring is in the air. What is your favorite spring time activity?

It was submitted by: Rena of The Diary of an Alzheimer's Caregiver.

 

 

 

Actually, that's a difficult question. Much more difficult than it would have been when I was living on the East Coast. Much more difficult even, than it would have been living away from the East Coast in the years before 2020. Much more difficult than it should be.

 

Growing up on the East Coast meant varying between two really fun activities, walking the beach, and spring skiing. Walking the beach required dressing a little warmer, but it was so worth it, feeling the sun on your skin for the first time in months, and smelling that salt air. Spring skiing, on the other hand, required less clothes than winter skiing, easier movement, and warmer trips up the lifts. Ahhh, spring.

 

Living here in the beachless {{sob}}, mountainless {{sigh}} Midwest, especially since 2020, has necessitated that my main spring activity be playing a robust game of "avoid the Covid spreaders." As activities go, not something that's going to make it onto my favorites list. Necessary? Yes. Fun? Not so much.

The downside of spring, rubbing my eyes and stocking up on tissues and allergy medicine isn't exactly a fun activity either.

But I do love spring, it's my favorite season. I get to move away from the heartier "warm you from the inside" meals I cook over the winter months to lighter meals. Like breakfast for dinner.

Key Lime Pancakes

(with my Blueberry Maple Syrup)

And although I know this is a lame answer to your question, since I'm really not sure what activities I'll be able to enjoy in the coming days, I can tell you what I love about spring. It's the waking up, the emergence from the long winter hibernation, the exercising of all of my senses.

Spring is a feast, and it's not just about taste. Spring is a for all of the senses. 

Sight: There is beauty in snowfall, a feel of peace as the first flakes cling, pristinely white, to the branches of the bare trees. But even then, it's brown and white.

In the spring, dark afternoons are banned and daylight replaces the dreariness of winter. Daylight in which to enjoy the colors with which Mother Nature paints the outdoors. Grass, leaves, flowers, beautiful color emerging everywhere. 

And the wildlife comes back.   

Sound: The chirping of the birds, even the sound of lawnmowers, car windows down and radios turned up, spring has its own unique sounds.

Smell: Flowers, especially the lilacs, and food cooking on grills throughout the neighborhood. Even the smell of freshly cut grass brings a smile.

Touch: It's not spring until I've got my hands deep in the dirt of my outdoor pots, and standing on the back deck, feeling the sun on my face.

Taste: Key Lime Pancakes with Blueberry Maple Syrup, anyone?

 

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:

Climaxed

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver 

 

Key Lime Pancakes         
                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 stick butter

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup key lime juice

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 TBSP sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp lime zest

OPT: 1 - 2 tsp green food coloring

4 - 5 TBSP butter

Directions:

*Melt the 1/2 stick butter, set aside.

*Place the milk and key lime juice in a small bowl and allow to sit for 10 minutes. 

*In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, and lime zest.

*After 10 minutes, whisk the melted butter, egg, and food coloring (if using) into the milk and key lime juice mixture, then mix into the dry ingredients, just until incorporated.

*Over medium heat in a small skillet, melt 1/2 TBSP of the remaining butter until hot. Add about 1/3 cup pancake mix and swirl around to form approximately a 5 inch pancake.

*Once the center starts to bubble and the edges are browning, flip the pancake over, reduce the heat slightly, and cook the other side until browned.

*Remove, keep warm, and repeat with the remaining butter and pancake batter.

Team Summer: Secret Subject Swap

Welcome a Secret Subject Swap. This month 7 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: Some of us hate winter and live as far south as we can go. Some of us love winter and enjoy the cold and snow. Which one are you? What do you do to enjoy it?
It was submitted by: Minette of Southern Belle Charm.

It's a barometer, when I get prompts like this one, of how much things have changed. At heart, I'm a summer girl. All things considered, I much prefer the heat to the cold, not to mention driving with the windows open as opposed to skidding on ice and snow. Truth is, not just because of where I live (and I'll explain that in a minute) but because the older I get the less tolerant I seem to be of the cold, as it stands right now I would love to move south. Permanently.

There was a time, though, when I would tell you that I love both seasons, all four, really. I would have thought, long ago, that much of the way I felt was a product of having grown up with the four distinct seasons. I now know it's more involved than that. I didn't just grow up with both winter and summer, but I grew up in an environment where you can make the most of both. 

I lived a little over an hour from amazing beaches. Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket to the south. Plum Island, Gloucester and Rockport to the north. Lakes for boating and my love of water skiing, and pools for raft floating. I adored having sun kissed skin and being brown as a berry (well, once I burned and peeled a few times).

I also lived just a couple of hours drive from some pretty great ski mountains, large and small. There were many times we'd spend the day floating downhill on white powder, and picking myself up, laughing, after a patch of ice got the best of me. But that's OK, the day always ended with a cocktail (hot cocoa when younger) and something sweet served beside a fire roaring in the fireplace. Thoroughly exhausted but nonetheless invigorated best described those days.

Mocha Cinnamon Cake

I now live in the Midwest. Still a part of the country with the same four seasons but, I'd argue, no way to enjoy them. I have told this story about finding myself landlocked before, but I'll tell you again today. When I first moved here, I was distressed by not having access to what, to me, represented the fun of the seasons. Knowing there were no oceans (duh), I decided I'd just have to get used to beaching it on lakes. I could find lakes on the map but no indication of where beaches were. I knew I was in trouble when I called the Parks Department to ask which lakes had beaches and they laughed. They laughed!

Winter came and, of course, I knew I was out of luck with a mountain but, desperate, I asked a neighbor if maybe there was a local ski hill. And there was. I got a little glassy-eyed and tuned out when she was explaining something about snow-making on a garbage dump. Nope. I'm out.

In order to raise our boys to appreciate the joys that the seasons hold for us, we had to fly with them to the ocean. Learning to ski took a 10 hour drive to a neighboring state with ski mountains. The fact that both of the boys love lobster and searching for sand dollars, know how to ski and snowboard, makes me happy. But it required an extraordinary amount of effort and was only for planned and extended vacations, not part of daily life.

I remember, years ago, an enterprising young real estate agent going door to door in our neighborhood. "I have a home for sale in this area," he said, "do you have any friends or family who might be interested in living in your neighborhood?"

"Sure," I answered, "put in an ocean, a nice ski mountain and we'll talk."


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:

Climaxed
Wandering Web Designer 
Cognitive Script 
Southern Belle Charm
The Bergham Chronicles 
Part-time Working Hockey Mom

Mocha Cinnamon Cake

                                                              ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe


Ingredients:

Box white cake mix and the ingredients specified in the package directions

2 TBSP instant coffee granules
3 TBSP baking cocoa
1/2 tsp cinnamon

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 TBSP cinnamon flavored creamer
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar

3 TBSP chocolate syrup

Directions:
*Preheat oven according to cake package directions. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans. 
*Prepare the cake batter and divide into the 3 prepared pans. Bake for about 20 minutes or until the cake springs back to the touch.
*While the cake is baking, make sure your coffee granules are finely grated. Mix them with the baking cocoa and cinnamon and set aside.
*Once baked, cool the cakes in their pans for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely.
*Beat cream cheese, 1/2 cup of the powdered sugar and the flavored creamer until smooth.
*In a separate bowl, beat heavy cream until soft peaks form. Add the 1/3 cup powdered sugar and beat until stiff peaks hold, then fold into the cream cheese mixture. Set aside 1/2 cup of this frosting.
*Place one cake layer onto your serving plate. Spread with approximately 1/4 of the frosting mixture. Sprinkle with about 1/3 of the coffee/cocoa/cinnamon and cover with the second cake layer. Repeat with another 1/4 of the frosting, then another 1/3 of the coffee/cocoa/cinnamon. Top with the third cake layer and frost the top and sides with the remaining frosting. Sprinkle with the remaining coffee/cocoa/cinnamon.
*Mix the chocolate syrup into the 1/2 cup of frosting that had been set aside. Pipe along the bottom of the cake. Store in the refrigerator.