Darkness Calls Me: January Poetry

January is that time of year,
in between, not there nor here.
Holiday season over and done,
the winter lull from fun's begun.

Hibernation's my first thought.
Big vat of soup simmering in a pot.
Hide inside til the dreary darkness goes.
(which is the theme Monthly Poetry Group chose).

Darkness Calls Me

"Change your clothes, then brush and floss." 
"I'm not tired, I'll turn and toss,
and darkness scares me," little girl said.
"I don't want to go to bed."

"What I told your sister, do the same."
"Just one more hour and I'll beat this game,
and darkness comes too early," little boy said. 
"I don't want to go to bed."

"You have tests tomorrow, it's already late."
"But I'm going out Mom, I have a date, 
darkness is for parties," teenager said. 
"I don't want to go to bed."

But for mom there is no break,
"pay the bills and then I'll bake."
"Darkness calls me," tired mom said.
"Oh how I want to go to bed."

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

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

Dawn of Spatulas on Parade shares Darkness. 
Lydia of Cluttered Genius shares The Darkness Fades.
Diane of On the Border shares Light in the Darkness.

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

                                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com



Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
12 chocolate graham cracker sheets
1/4 cup powdered sugar
6 TBSP butter, melted

1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
1/2 tsp instant coffee powder

1 1/2 packages (8 oz) cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs, room temperature


Directions
*Wrap a sheet of tin foil around the bottom and partially up the sides of a 9 inch springform pan. Lightly grease the inside of the pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
*Melt the dark chocolate chips in the milk in the microwave until smooth. Add the coffee powder and set aside.
*In a food processor, crush the chocolate graham crackers to fine crumbs. Set aside about 1/2 cup for garnish. Mix the remaining crumbs with the powdered sugar and melted butter and press into and partially up the sides of the prepared pan.
*Beat the cream cheese, sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the sour cream, heavy cream and vanilla, then the eggs, one at a time. Last, beat in the melted chocolate.
*Pour the batter into the prepared crust. Bake for 60 - 75 minutes, until the center is just set.
*Remove from oven, sprinkle with the reserved graham cracker crumbs and allow to cool to room temperature. 
*Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before gently running a knife around the cheesecake and removing the side of the pan. Store leftovers in refrigerator.

Butternut, Carrot and Gingersnap Casserole: New Year Blog With Friends

Today’s post is the next in our series of Blog With Friends themed collaborations. Each month a group of bloggers get together and each publish a project based on a theme. What I love about his partnership is that it's not bloggers with similar interests or strengths but a diverse group coming up with a variety of posts. In any given month we may a recipe, sewing tutorial, crocheting, crafts project, book review, and/or technology post all related to the theme of the month.

This month's theme is New Year.

There will be individual project pictures and links to what everyone else has to offer at the end of my post, but here's a peek at what we all came up with:

 

I made Butternut, Carrot and Gingersnap Casserole.

 Butternut, Carrot and Gingersnap Casserole

I know, I know, I'm supposed to make changes to myself in the new year. Well, commit to doing it anyway, we all know that by mid February most of those resolutions are heaped onto the junk pile with all of the well intentioned commitments of years gone by. Not for me though, I've never really been one for New Year's resolutions. If you don't make them you don't break them, after all.

But I'm not going into 2020 without an eye towards thoughtfulness and growth however. I guess I'm just viewing life through the lens of compromise. Think less drastic change and more intentional balance. 

Along those lines, for today's New Year themed recipe, I've decided to update a longstanding holiday favorite. You know the one, a sweet potato casserole with big melty marshmallows on top. College Boy loves it, I like it, PurDude will only eat the marshmallows off of the top and Hubs won't touch it. But there it is on the table every year.

I actually changed it up a lot, deciding to make it a little healthier, less sweet, and more reminiscent of those favorite winter spice flavors.

Of course, I started by making crumbs from cookies. Don't roll your eyes, they actually aren't sweet and add so much of the flavor profile I was going for. I used ginger snaps, but Biscoff would be delicious too.

This comes together in the microwave and food processor. The vegetables (I changed it up here too and used carrots and a butternut squash) cook in the microwave. They are then blended with the spices, some of the cookie crumbs and some cream cheese to add a creamy element.

I bake it covered until hot, uncover and sprinkle with the rest of the cookie crumbs and bake just 10 more minutes.

This casserole just smells like holiday while it's cooking. And the results, College Boy and I both really liked it. PurDude, who loves those holiday spice flavors did too, and Hubs asked for more. 

Ah, gotta love compromise.

As always, any time you make one of my recipes, feel free to post a picture of it to my Baking In A Tornado Facebook Page. I'd love to see it!

Be sure to visit all of this month's other Blog With Friends projects:

 



Dawn of Spatulas on Parade shares the recipe for her Damaged vs Broken, How to See the New Year in a Fruit Cup.
 


 


Tamara of Part-time Working Hockey Mom shares How to Create a Vision Board. 


 



Lydia of Cluttered Genius shares how to Reset Your Classroom for the New Year (or Semester). 

 



Melissa of Heartfelt Sentiments shares Value Relationships in 2020. 
 
 






Jules of The Bergham Chronicles shares 2020.

Butternut, Carrot and Gingersnap Casserole

                                                                 ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
about 6 oz Gingersnap cookies (can substitute Biscoff cookies or, for a less ginger flavor, Vanilla Wafers)
1 large butternut squash
4 large carrots
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup brown sugar
4 oz cream cheese, room temperature

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 8 X 8 baking pan.
*Meanwhile, place the cookies in a food processor until fine crumbs. You will need one cup. Due to the size of your cookies, you may need to add more. If you have more than a cup, seal any extra in a plastic bag and freeze for another time.
*Remove from the processor (you don't need to clean it before using again in a later step) and set aside 1/4 cup of the crumbs for later use.
 *Cut the ends off of the squash, peel, discard seeds, chop and place in a large microwavable bowl. Cut the ends off of the carrots, peel, cut into chunks and place in the bowl with the squash. Microwave for 4 minutes. Pierce with a fork. If the vegetables aren't soft, continue at 1 minute intervals until they are. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
*Move the squash and carrots to the food processor with 3/4 cup of the cookie crumbs, the salt, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and brown sugar. Pulse until it starts to smooth. Chop the cream cheese, add to the processor and pulse until smooth. Spread into the prepared pan.
*Bake for 25 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining cookie crumbs and bake for another 10 minutes.

Nailed the Fail: 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: Nailed it.
It was submitted by: Tamara of Part-time Working Hockey Mom.

You'd think this would be a pretty easy prompt, wouldn't you? Not at all restrictive but wide open, I could write this one with my eyes closed.

Or could I?

Seems even with my eyes open this one gave me trouble.

Because, honestly, I don't feel like I've been nailing anything lately. 

The end of 2019 kicked my butt. And the end of the year festivities are a favorite. I love playing with my food, so Halloween is my spirit animal. I was sick. Thanksgiving is a lot of work, but I get to have my whole family home. Which I did, but I was sick. Chanukah is a favorite holiday and we all love the traditions, the Crusted Prime Rib, latkes and roasted asparagus. Which I made, but I was sick. On Christmas I always roast a turkey and we sit by the fire, mouths watering. Which we did, but I was very unhappy with the turkey and will never buy that brand again. Can't say I nailed anything these past few months.

Even my favorite things let me down. I have a Sudoku app and I play the game-of-the-day every day. It's my down time, my chance to use my brain and be challenged and have some fun. From easy through expert I conquer them all. But the whole time I was sick I could not finish a game. I didn't nail Sudoku, Sudoku nailed me.

I've always prided myself on my memory. If you said something to me 10 years ago, I could remember it. But lately I've found my memory has been letting me down. More times than I'd like to admit I've had to google "what's the word for . . ."

OK, now I'm getting desperate, so let's break it all the way down basics, shall we? Like breathing. I mean, breathing is an involuntary function, you basically don't need to put any effort into it, it just happens. If I'm alive I must be nailing breathing. Or not. Since I've been waking up wheezing every night for the past 3 weeks. 

Now if you want to talk about taking some bright green liquid medication and not making it from my bed to the bathroom (did I mention my bedroom carpet is white?) well, that I nailed.

But "nailed it" infers an accomplishment and, honestly, no one's gonna call what I did to that carpet an accomplishment. 

And it was Hubs who nailed getting the stains out of the carpet. Only took him 3 days, poor guy. 

Before the December flu phase, when I was in my October and November shingles period, I probably was eligible for the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of saying "ouch" the most times in a two month period but, again, not really a boast worthy achievement.


Seems all I can nail is the epic fail.
 

But then there's this: last week, when I finally stuck my big toe into the recovery segment of our program, I came up with the idea for these French Vanilla Butterscotch Refrigerator Bars. I couldn't do anything about them at the time, but now that I've been healthy (knock wood) for a hot minute, and I even remembered how I'd envisioned making it (well, mostly) while I was delusional, I finally got a chance to give it a try.

French Vanilla Butterscotch Refrigerator Bars

Nailed it! 

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:

Spatulas on Parade 
Wandering Web Designer 
Southern Belle Charm 
Part-time Working Hockey Mom 
Climaxed 
Medicated Musings 

French Vanilla Butterscotch Refrigerator Bars

                                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

11 oz box of Vanilla Wafers
5 TBSP butter, melted
1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 box (3.9 oz) French vanilla pudding mix
3 1/2 cups milk, divided
1 (12 oz) cool whip, defrosted
1 box (3.9 oz) butterscotch pudding mix

Directions:
*Grease a 9 X 11 baking dish.
*In a food processor, pulse the cookies until they are crumbs. Set aside 1 cup of the crumbs for later use. Mix the remaining crumbs with the melted butter and press into the bottom of the baking dish.
*Whisk the French vanilla pudding mix with 1 3/4 cups milk for 2 minutes. Set aside.
*Beat the cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth. Beat in 1 1/4 cups of the pudding mix until incorporated. Fold in 1 cup of the cool whip. Carefully spread onto the crust and refrigerate for 5 minutes.
*Whisk the butterscotch pudding and 1 3/4 cups milk for 2 minutes. Carefully spread onto the cream cheese layer, sprinkle with 3/4 cup of the reserved cookie crumbs and refrigerate for 5 minutes.
*Fold the remaining cool whip into the remaining French vanilla pudding. Carefully spread onto the butterscotch pudding and sprinkle with the last of the reserved cookie crumbs. Refrigerate for at least a few hours or overnight until set. Store in the refrigerator.