Holiday Amnesia: Secret Subject Swap

 

 

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 4 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 motto to stay calm as we approach the holidays?
It was submitted by: Tamara of Part-time Working Hockey Mom.

 

My motto? People have mottos? And those mottos have a magical calming effect?

Is "oh, shit" a motto? Because a few short weeks ago, that's what I'd been saying most. Well, that and a few other choice words I won't mention, you can use your imagination. End result, didn't calm me at all. None. But then I'd had a horrendous time just before Thanksgiving. Which, for all intents and purposes was my entire holiday season.

 

And "tomorrow's another day," wasn't going to do anything but bring more dread. What next?

You see, with PurDude only able to come home for a few weeks this year, we would pack College Boy's birthday, Thanksgiving, and an early Hanukkah into those 2 weeks.

I'm a planner, down to the last detail. OK, you may say anal, but I'm going with planner. I buy for and prepare all of PurDude's favorite meals, sides, and desserts, along with College Boy's favorite birthday meal, our traditional family Thanksgiving meal, and our Hanukkah dinner. It takes a lot of planning, all worked out on my calendar, down to what needs to be done each day. Mostly I do it because if I can cut the whole couple of weeks worth of meals into bite sized (pun intended) work load pieces, the organization allows for me to spend as much time with my family as possible.

 

 

 

What is it they say about the best laid plans? Yeah, whatever. Because one week before Thanksgiving, it all went to shit. All of it. Day after day of one disaster after another. Compounding. And no amount of planning could fix it. Crying wasn't helping much either.

It's a story, a long story, and I'll tell it. Eventually. Right now I'm still too traumatized.

 

As far as mottos go, let me just say this: if you even think of bringing up "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," you better do it from far away because you're sorely underestimating the proximity that had existed between me and my breaking point. 

 

My best chance at comfort this holiday season would be amnesia. 

 

Not even comfort food was providing comfort. Now that's dire.

 

Root Vegetable Soup

 

 

Although our major Hanukkah celebration is now in the record books, we'll still do something (less elaborate) to celebrate. And I'll do my normal Prosecco and appetizers New Year's Eve buffet. 

But now that I know there are mottos to help stay calm during the lead up to these celebrations, I'll have to try one out, see how it goes.

I'm thinking something along the lines of "when the going gets tough, the tough open the Prosecco early."

 

A self imposed amnesia of sorts.

Don't judge.

 

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

Part-time Working Hockey Mom

Root Vegetable Soup         

                                                                                 ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
2 TBSP olive oil

3/4 cup frozen chopped onion, thawed

1 tsp minced garlic

3 cups chicken broth

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

20 oz bag frozen root vegetables

2 cups half and half

OPT: seasoned croutons for garnish

Directions:
*Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat until hot. Add the onion and garlic. Cook and stir for about 3 minutes.

*Add the chicken broth, cumin, thyme, salt and pepper to the pot. Bring to a boil, stirring now and then. 

*Add the frozen root vegetables, bring back to a boil, lower heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the vegetables are fork tender. 

*Carefully pour the soup into a blender or food processor. If needed, work in batches.

*Blend or process until the soup is smooth. Add the soup back into the pot over medium low heat, stir in the half and half. Cook until hot.

*OPT: garnish with seasoned croutons for serving.

Games Without Words

 

 I cheated. Well, not so much cheated really, but screwed up.

 

The difference? Intent. And although there was no intent, there was a screw up.

 

And the screw up? Inevitable. How far it went, though, now that's a story!

Listen. I'm human on my best day, so making mistakes isn't really noteworthy. But I am also two other things: an extremely organized over thinker, and I'm aging. Resulting in a bit of a mental tug of war. Previously, the extremely organized over thinker went for the most part unchallenged. That progressed to there mostly being a precarious balance maintained. But more and more the fuzzy aging brain is becoming a bit more . . . assertive. Tipping the scales in my favor isn't that hard, Googling words, and proofreading posts and recipes the day after I write them.

 

So, on to that story I promised you. It's about a personal Wordle game I host on my Baking In A Tornado facebook page. I've talked about it in a few different blog posts (Wordle, Nerdle, Curdle) so I won't go into it again, I will say that it's gone on SO much longer than I could have expected.

Each week, Monday through Friday, I post the link to a Wordle game, the results of which are a word I've chosen for that day. All of the words are food, cooking, and baking based, of course.

 Gingered Squash & Apples

 

I thought it might last a week or two, maybe a month, and people would lose interest. That's not what happened. Today I posted the link to our 212th game, and people are still playing.

Which is kinda shocking, considering what happened last month.

Now, as I said, I knew I'd screw up at some point. And I did. In a moment of . . . I don't know what . . . in October, I posted a link to that day's game, AND the answer. Ooops, sort of takes away the challenge of playing.

Fortunately, I caught it immediately, deleted the post, moved that word to another day in the future and chose a different word for that day.

Inevitable screw up under my belt, I went happily along posting daily links to games. And those who play went happily along posting their daily results. Fun for them to play, fun for me to see how they all did.

Until one month ago. I announced the day's game and went along my merry way.

When I had a chance, I went back to my page to see the results being posted, and whether I'd stumped anyone (insert evil laugh here). Yes, lots of people played, each one showed their results, but they all also made the same comment: this word is spelled wrong.

Huh?

I went to play the game myself, putting in the correct answer as my first guess.

Umm, stupid game, trying to tell me the last 2 letters needed to be switched. Which I did, and which won me the game.

OK, that's embarrassing, I SO wish this was April 1st, I could have tried to sell it as a (deliberate) joke. No such luck. But when I went back to my FB page to fess up and delete the game, I noticed something. More and more people were playing, and enjoying it, finding the whole thing funny.

 

I learned two things from that screw up. 

 

First, my friends all have a good sense of humor (phew).

 

Second, that word games are fun. Even when you're playing a word game . . . with a word . . . that isn't a word.

        Gingered Squash & Apples               

            ©www.BakingInATornado.com 

 

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1 acorn squash

1 large Honeycrisp apple (can substitute apple of your choice)

1/2 cup ginger ale, warm

1/2 tsp minced ginger

1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 TBSP brown sugar

1 tsp orange zest

Directions:
*Grease an 8 X 11 baking dish. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

*Slice the squash in half, clean out the seeds, and slice each half into 8ths.

*Peel and core the apple. Cut into 16 slices.

*Place the squash slices into the prepared pan. Top with the apples.

*Whisk together the ginger ale, ginger, cinnamon, brown sugar, and orange zest. Slowly pour into the pan.

*Bake for 50 minutes. Spoon the squash and apple slices into a bowl, top with the sauce from the baking dish, stir gently.

Upside Down with Purpose

 

Upside Down. 

 

Sometimes, upside down is OK. 

 

Not, of course, if you're stuck at the top of a Ferris Wheel, but maybe just in the course of day to day life.

 

Because sometimes you do just feel upside down. Not really wrong exactly, but not quite right.

 

It happens to me a lot in the fall. I love the hot summer days of flip flops and short sleeved shirts, longer brighter days of not always being chilled to the bone.

 

I hadn't seen my younger son in almost a year, it was getting darker earlier, I'd had a birthday and was getting . . . you know . . . older, prices were through the roof, our politics were in shambles, and the upcoming holiday season whirlwind has a tendency to be hectic.

So I was OK, just a little upside down. 

I walked out front one day a few weeks ago, and saw this little oak leaf on my walkway. We don't have oak or maple trees but, whatever, I'm sure the wind blew it here from somewhere.

As I walked past the leaf, I saw that it was upside down and, without really thinking about it, said under my breath "I know how you feel, buddy."

 

 

It was a dreary, cloudy day, in keeping with my mood, I guess. And it doesn't help that there's so little color mother nature shares with us this time of year, in contrast to the bright hues of spring and summer. I suppose that might be why, coming back into the house, I turned the leaf over saying (well, I said it in my head, I don't want you to think I was standing outside my house talking out loud to a leaf) "don't hide, show those pretty yellows and browns and greens." 

Sometimes, we need a little encouragement to show our colors to the world.

 

 

The next day, I'd been working in the kitchen and, as you might imagine, wasn't giving any thought to the leaf on the walkway.

Banana Spice Cake

(an upside down dessert)

 

When I went out to get the mail, I noticed that leaf, still there, right in the middle of my walkway.

 

Upside down.

 

And a little worse for wear. Curled in at the edges. 

 

I left it like that. Because sometimes you just have to feel your upside down for a while, keep your colors to yourself, and block out the world.

 

I get it.

Now, I'm sure you're thinking that I'm reading a whole lot into a biodegrading leaf on the sidewalk, and you could very well be right.

But I happen to believe that you take your life lessons from wherever they're presented to you.

"Tomorrow," I thought, "if that leaf is still there, and still upside down, I'll turn it over again."

Because sometimes you're just not ready the first time. But maybe, just maybe, it'll be ready to shine.

Banana Spice Cake         

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
about 1 1/2 bananas

2 TBSP butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tsp cinnamon, divided

1 box yellow cake mix

3/4 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup speculoos (cookie butter)

4 eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 cup sour cream

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bundt pan.

*Slice the bananas into approximately 1/4 - 1/3 inch rounds.

*Melt the butter, mix in the brown sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and spread into the bottom of the pan. Place the banana slices into the butter mixture, singly, in two rows along the bottom and barely up the side of the pan.

*Whisk together the cake mix, remaining cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg. Separately, whisk together the oil and speculoos. Add to the cake mix, along with the eggs, milk, and sour cream. Beat for 2 minutes.

*Slowly pour the batter into the pan with the bananas, trying to keep the bananas in place as much as possible.

*Bake for 40 - 45 minutes, until the center of the cake springs back to the touch. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before running a knife around the edge and inverting onto a serving plate.