August 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 and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s the fun twist: no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer 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: stage lights ~ tacos ~ teeth ~ magic ~ “I told you so!” They were submitted by Follow me home . . .

I wrote last month’s Use Your Words post with some riddles I’d made up including, of course, an obligatory “why did the chicken cross the road” one.

My friend Tamara left me a comment saying “Love me some chicken crossing the road jokes! Did you know they exist featuring other animals too?”

You know how someone can say something and it just gets into your head? Well I didn’t really want to write the same kind of post twice but once the thought of the chicken jokes with other animals got into my head I knew I was gonna have to at least start there.

So hold onto your teeth folks, here we go again:

Hey, open the curtains, turn down the music, cue the stage lights. It’s show time.

Hello and welcome. I’m Karen and I’ll be your entertainment this evening. Let me just say that you are in for a whole lot of fun. My teenager, who was treated to my practicing of this routine, thinks you’re in for a whole lot of eye rolling, but what does he know? Grab a cocktail and see who you think is right, me or the dreaded teenager (it’s me).

Why did the horse cross the road?
          He thought he heard someone yell “hey”.

Why did the hyena cross the road?
          Just for a laugh.

Why did the bat cross the road?
          Hard to say, he was flying blind.

Why did the cow cross the road?
          His wife told him to moooooove.

Why did the little boy cross the road?
          His mom told him not to.

Why did the clock cross the road?
          It had a little extra time.

Why did the rock cross the road?
          It wasn’t trying to but it was on a roll.

Why did the teenager cross the road?
         Who knows, it’s not like he’ll ever tell.

What did the chef say to the chicken?
          Get out of my coat. Those aren’t the pockets I’m putting you in:

Warm Chicken Pockets

 

What did the assistant say to the magician?

          Magic my a$$, how about I cut YOU in half?

What did the tutu say to the ballerina?

          Lay off the tacos or I’m gonna split.

What did the jester say to the king?

          If you’re taking me to court I demand an attorney.

What did the angry knife say to the spoon?

          Who the fork invited you?

What did the blender say to the ice?

          Come on honey, let me take you for a spin. What could it hurt?

Why wouldn’t the pretty baguette go out with the handsome cake?

          He didn’t have any dough.

What did the tornado say to the baker?

          Do you know how to make Funnel Cakes?

That’s the show, friends. Fun wasn’t it?

I told you so!

{{damn teenagers}}

Links to the other Use Your Words posts:

Spatulas on Parade

The Momisodes

Confessions of a part-time working mom

Juicebox Confession

Evil Joy Speaks

Follow me home . . .

Someone Else's Genius

Crumpets and Bollocks

The Bergham's Life Chronicles

The Sadder But Wiser Girl

PS: My friend Stacy Sews and Schools has been a member of all 4 of the blog challenge communities I run since the beginning. She was supposed to participate in this challenge today but she lost her father this week. My ❤ goes out to her.

Warm Chicken Pockets

                                                ©www.BakingInATornado.com
 
Printable Recipe
 
NOTE: I often marinate and cook the chicken and serve it for dinner. I’ll warm up the leftover chicken cubes another night to make these Warm Chicken Pockets
Ingredients:
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1 cup Karen’s Poppy Dressing (recipe is here: Karen's Poppy Dressing)
2 cups spinach leaves
¾ cup fruit of your choice (preferably fresh but drained canned mandarin orange slices work too)
2 scallions, sliced
½ red pepper, chopped
¼ cup shelled, unsalted sunflower seeds
1/3 cup mayonnaise
6 - 8 Pita pocket halves
 
Directions:
*Marinate the chicken cubes in the dressing in the fridge for 2 hours (or up to a day).
*Thread the chicken onto metal skewers (or wood skewers that have been soaked in water so they don’t burn) and cook on your grill (or in your broiler), turning a few times, until chicken is cooked through.
*Remove the chicken from the skewers into a bowl.
*Slice or chop fruit if needed and add, along with the scallions, red pepper, sunflower seeds and mayonnaise to the bowl with the chicken. Mix gently.
*Wrap each Pita pocket half in a paper towel and microwave for 15 seconds or until just warm.
*Gently open the pockets and place a handful of spinach inside. Fill the rest of the pocket with the chicken mixture. Drizzle with more Karen’s Poppy Dressing, if desired.

Say What?

It happened on a dark stormy afternoon. Hubs was at work and the boys and I were stuck in the house. There was the possibility of severe weather, including hail. My younger sons’ beloved BMW had already been pummeled in the last storm. Lesson learned, all the cars currently at home were staying in the garage.

In retrospect I should have known. Honestly, when the boys have all the freedom in the world, PurDude will often spend hours on his gigantic computer with the 3 (not a typo, he has 3) screens. Yes, the kid who always walked into walls and fell down stairs is quite a multi-tasker when it comes to computers. College Boy has a turntable, old records, a laptop and all kinds of recording and mixing thing-a-ma-jiggies and he will play with music for hours.

But all that is when they CAN leave, when they’re able to make a choice. But if boxed in, unable to leave and left to their own devices, the boys were bound to amuse themselves by doing what they do best; thinking up devious ways to torture me.

I know I tend to be wordy. I’m the one who always makes a short story long. I got to wondering if the challenge was just their way of saying “shut up” without actually saying the words. Either way, challenge issued, challenge grudgingly (very grudgingly) accepted: could I last the day without saying a word?

Sure I could.
I know some sign language.
I can write notes.
I can work on my blog and my recipes and my graphics.
Easy Peasy.

 White Chocolate Pistachio Brownies

Not so much.

There were times during the day when they deliberately bated me. I swear I don’t know how I raised such sadistic devious kids. They’d ask me questions and then stand there and smile evilly as I opened my mouth, closed my mouth and stood there blinking rapidly.

They’d play music so loud my ears were almost bleeding and smile evilly as I opened my mouth, closed my mouth and stood there blinking rapidly.

I couldn’t answer any phones. Of course, as usual, neither did anyone else. When their dad called and I held up the phone gesturing manically at the called ID, they smiled evilly as I opened my mouth, closed my mouth and stood there blinking rapidly.

There may have been a little gesturing of another kind going on as well. And some foot stomping and door banging.

No, I’m not talking about the boys. That was me.

But don’t worry about me. I always get even.

True story: The young boys next door once pulled a prank on us. We had mowed our lawn and put the grass clippings into the woods. The neighbors took the grass clippings out of the woods and spread them back over our lawn. Their mom actually found out and brought them over to apologize and clean it up. No harm done but, as you can tell from the whole silence thing, I can’t pass up a challenge. And that grass prank seemed like a challenge to me.

Somehow that night, in the middle of the night, their house ended up on the market. “For Sale” sign with their phone number on it right there in the middle of their front yard. The attached acrylic box even held little professional looking (if I do say so myself) pamphlets with a picture of their house, a description of their property, an absurdly low asking price, agreement by the sellers to continue paying taxes on the property for the next ten years and a special request that all inquiries be made to the home by phone after 2:00 am only.

So I may not have done much (any) talking that stormy afternoon. I have to admit that I didn’t get any baking or blogging or graphics done either. But I sure did have a lot of time to plot my revenge . . .

 

White Chocolate Pistachio Brownies

                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com
 
Printable Recipe
 
Ingredients:

1 1/2 sticks margarine
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
2/3 cup unsalted pistachios: shelled, skins removed as much as possible, processed to a fairly fine consistency. 

 
Directions:
*Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Spray a glass 9 X 13 pan.
*Melt the margarine in the microwave for about 2 minutes. Stir to be sure it's completely melted.
*Add the white chocolate chips. Stir until completely smooth. If the white chocolate chips don't melt completely you may need to return the bowl to the microwave for 20 seconds.
*Whisk in the sugar. Once incorporated, whisk in the eggs and vanilla and finally the flour. Mix in the pistachios.
*Pour into prepared pan. Bake for approximately 35 minutes. Cool before cutting.
*Note: I like my brownies thin and chewy, which is what this one is. It's not a thick cake-like brownie.
 

Secret Subject Swap, August 2014

Welcome to another Secret Subject Swap. This week 14 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.

My subject is: Write a poem using exactly 14 words (“the”, “a”, “I”, “is”, “and”, “or”, “if”, “are”, “it”, “so”, “because”, “you”, “me”, “my”, “but”, & “an” don’t count towards the 14 words). It was submitted by The Bergham's Life Chronicles.

When I first saw this prompt I knew I was in big trouble. I mean I’ve written poems before for this blog and let me just say that . . . well . . . I suck at it. Words I Never Want To Say Again, Ode To A Reader, It's Been Quite A Ride, and Things To Do On A Rainy Day (written “Cat in the Hat” style) are more apt to make it into my Hall of Shame than any Hall of Fame.

So I knew the poem part would be a challenge, but the number of words? Holy bang-your-head-up-against-the-wall hell, that was hard. First I had to decide what I wanted the poem to be about and write it. Then I had to count the words and subtract for the allowed words, then edit, count words, subtract, edit, count, subtract, edit, count, add more words ‘cause I edited too much. This went on for quite some time. Longer than I’d like to admit, actually. It’s possible I’m not the brightest bulb.

Sadly, ultimately, all I could come up with was something like this (I know you’re counting words so I highlighted the “free” ones in color):

The fourteen

is thirteen

if twelve

are eleven,

so ten

is nine

because eight

and seven

are six

or five.

I four

my three,

if you two

a one.

Unfortunately that’s really not much of a poem. Evidence of those deceased brain cells maybe, but not really a poem.

One Strawberry Lemonade Cheesecake Square later and there’s a little sugar running through my veins. Let’s give this another try.

Strawberry Lemonade Cheesecake Squares

Apparently there was a brain cell or two left getting lonely up there in my skull because I actually wrote another one. And don’t look now (well, go ahead, I’ll let you look) it actually makes sense. No more though, I think ALL of those pesky brain cells are officially deceased. Rest in peace.

Take two:

When I look into their eyes,

even a passing glimpse,

I see:

My past.

Our present.

Their future.

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 Momisodes

Spatulas on Parade

Confessions of a part-time working mom

Juicebox Confession

Evil Joy Speaks

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

Follow me home . . .

Someone Else's Genius

Crumpets and Bollocks

Stacy Sews and Schools

Climaxed

The Bergham's Life Chronicles
Dinosaur Superhero Mommy 

Strawberry Lemonade Cheesecake Squares 

                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com
 
Printable Recipe
 
Ingredients:
1 sugar cookie dough: you can use a packet mix, your own recipe, or use this recipe: http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2012/09/read-this_3.html
3 oz LemonHead candies, crushed
OPT: yellow food coloring
 
12 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup Strawberry Lemonade Powdered Drink Mix (sugar added)
1 ½ cups heavy cream
3 TBSP powdered sugar
½ # strawberries, rinsed, hulled and chopped
 
½ cup heavy cream
1 TBSP powdered sugar
 
Directions:
*Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9 X 13 pan.
*Make the sugar cookie dough. Mix in the crushed candy and food coloring (if using).
*Press the dough into the bottom and part way up the sides of your greased pan.
*Bake for approximately 12 minutes or until it’s just starting to brown. Cool on the counter for ½ hour, then move to fridge and cool completely.
*Beat cream cheese with Strawberry Lemonade Drink Mix.
*In another bowl, beat 1 ½ cups heavy cream and powdered sugar until soft peaks form.  Beat in cream cheese mixture. Mix in the fresh strawberries and pour into the crust.
*Beat ½ cup heavy cream with 1 TBSP powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Pipe onto the Strawberry Lemonade Squares.
*Refrigerate at least an hour before slicing and serving.