I’ve been MIA for a couple weeks. I had to take a step back as the world of negativity was creeping into my life. Thank goodness all I have to do is turn the channel, not visit news websites, and simply let it go. Not always easy to do, but at the end of the day it is that simple. Once this COVID thing started being a ginormous pain in the butt I started to cook/bake things simply to see if I could do it. I love to challenge myself by doing things I’ve never done before. The first item was an apple pie from scratch. I love apple pie so it just made sense. I learned to make pie dough from scratch which is way easier than I thought it would be. Time consuming, but easy. Then I found a recipe online I liked and went after it. I did burn my mouth licking the whisk which I managed to record and then put on FB. Hey if you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re doing life completely wrong. I believe the link below will take you to Bucky burn land. You’re sick in the head if you want to see me in pain!! Haha
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0ngpkL8zNKAhKvZD5_cvVU4kw
Once I knew how to make pie dough I realized I can use it to make my own chicken pot pies. I bought the mini pie pans and boom this turned out super well also. I always chop up fresh veggies like carrots, onions, and celery to put in whatever I’m making. I have the time and it just makes everything taste better. Here I am now an Apple pie champ, mini pot pies in my freezer ready to go anytime, and I need a new project. A neighbor girl mentioned she likes cheesecake. Hmmm I like cheesecake too, so here we go. Find recipe…
My first attempt was blueberry cheesecake. When I was getting ready to put the mixture in the pie pan, I remembered my mini pans. Mini cheesecakes. Genius. I went this route. There is an overall point to this blog today and I’m about to get to it. I made blueberry, raspberry, and Oreo cookie cheesecakes now and once again they taste awesome. Somewhere along the way I wanted to learn how to make caramel as well which turned out to not be that hard. You need to stay focused and pay attention to it, but not difficult once you understand how sugar melts. Very similar to heroin if you are an intravenous drug user. I made that up. Just making sure you are still paying attention.
If you have read my blog before you know I encourage people to do random acts of kindness. It is something I strive to do every day of my life while never expecting anything in return. A kind word or a thank you is more than enough. Over the weekend I made blueberry & raspberry cheesecakes. An idea I had a while ago was to use the homemade caramel and put it on the bottom of the cheesecake so it will cook into the graham crackers making a caramel crust. It worked. I also put a ring of caramel around the top crust that would melt down the sides giving all the crust a caramel flavor. That worked also. They are stupid good.
I also make a chicken tortilla soup from scratch that is very popular with my friends and family. I made a ginormous batch of it over the weekend for a purpose. On Monday I was going to the VA Hospital for an eval with a Veteran. Eval just means we look at his challenges, lifestyle, and environment so we can get him the correct equipment for his life. I do this a lot with my work and I love it. Knowing I was going to be there on Monday I thought it would be cool to take a bunch of soup and cheesecakes for the staff. All that practice now had a purpose.
All those pots are filled with soup. The Copper one has tofu instead of chicken for my Vegan friends. No one asked me to do this. Certainly no one expected me to show up with a ton of homemade food. I just like to challenge myself making things that are on my list of favorite foods and then share them. So that is what I did. I did get some very kind messages back today which again make it all worth it.
Examples:
- OH MY!!!! LOVED IT!!! I am not there today and I was thinking it would be worth it to go in so I can have some more of the soup! It was absolutely wonderful- the flavor was magnifico! Thank you so much and the avocado was so good with it. Oh and yes the cheese cake – well that was just evil because I am really trying not to have sugar and sweets and I couldn’t resist it and that just blew that! Thank you!
- Oh my Goodness! I planned my response in my head, but I forgot to send it. It was wonderful. I mean simply wonderful-as in you have a gift!!! Oh my God!
If you are not purposely working to send out good vibes on a daily basis then you are part of team negative. I’m by no means a perfect human. I’m very far from it, but I have learned in my 42 years that I feel better about myself the more positive things I do. Allowing myself get caught up with the negative BS that is on the news everyday, listening to people complain all day, and letting stress to dictate my mood make me feel like crap. So at this point in my life I can only think “Why in the ____ would I want to choose the feel like crap lane??? No thank you. I’m going to live my best life, keep doing random kind things, and actively work to make my world a better place which will by default make the entire world a better place.
What lane are you in??? What lane do you want to be in?? No blinkers needed, no jerk calling your Mom names, and most importantly no matter how long you’ve been in the wrong lane, the right one has unlimited space and you can go as fast as you want!!!!
Choose positive my friends and lets change the world one act of kindness at a time.
FknBucky
P.S. There in free pie and cheesecake in the Bucky lane. Just stop on by anytime!!
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FknBucky 