Lemon Cream pie filling? Angel food cake? Together?

Ok.. I know.. I don't usually post about cooking and recipes and all that... But, I’ve been having fun with a recipe I found a while ago on Pinterest.. The original recipe called for a box of Angel Food cake mix and a 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple. It’s got to be one of the easiest recipes ever. Just mix the two together and it does something startling.. It foams up! lol.. Anyway, once it’s all mixed together, just pour the mix into an ungreased baking pan.. I used loaf pans so I could share with my daughter and her in-laws easier. Anyway, the cake(s) turned out delicious.. 

Here's a "before and after" shot that I put on Facebook the
day I baked the pineapple cake..

I had read that other types of canned fruit would work as well as the crushed pineapple, so the next experiment used peach pie filling. Again, a winner! My house smelled so good while these cakes were baking, it was sheer torture to wait until the cakes were cool! The two cakes I kept ended up looking a little bit mangled because I had to fight to get them out of the little loaf pans.. lol.. I took the "pretty" ones to my daughter and her mother-in-law.

Yeah, I know.. I didn't get a good before and after shot of the peach cakes.. lol..
I nearly forgot to take any pictures at all! 

Last week, my friend (and my daughter's mother-in-law!) brought over a bag containing 2 angel food cake mixes, a can of lemon cream pie filling and a can of apple pie filling. So, today I decided to do the lemon cream pie filling.  And, this time, I decided to "document" the whole thing.. Here we go.. First of all, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.. Then get a large mixing bowl down and mix together the cake mix and the pie filling...

This shot is after it sat a few minutes while I went and got my camera..
The batter has started foaming up..

Then, divide the mixture into whatever baking pans you've decided to use..9x13, regular size loaf pans or the individual loaf pans like I used.  Do not grease the pans!  The original recipe I read emphasized that, so I figured I'd add in the caution here too...

Batter in the pans and pans in the oven ready to go!

Bake the cake(s) for 25 to 35 minutes... (If you use different pans from what I used, use the instructions on the back of the cake mix box..)  They're done when they're a golden brown on top..  The other cakes (the pineapple and the peach) cracked a bit on top like normal angel food cakes do, but for some reason, the lemon didn't crack.

Fresh out of the oven.  The instructions on the box say to put loaf pans
on their sides to cool off, but I just turned them upside down..

When the cake pans were cool enough to handle, I turned them back over so I could get the cakes out of the pans..  One of them dropped out all by itself! I just ran a knife around the sides of the others and then used a small spatula to break them loose and put them on the cooling rack.

All done and ready to taste and to take across the street..

Next time, it'll be apple pie filling.  Then, maybe I'll go back to the pineapple one and add some shredded coconut to the mix..

Recipe:
1 Angel Food cake mix 
1 20 oz can of fruit or pie filling

How easy is that? lol

Bad Words... Again!

A friend on Facebook messaged me and told me that she was reading the blog.. She asked why I had stopped posting and my answer was that life had sort of gotten in the way.  A poor excuse, I know, but that's all I've got right now.  I promised her that I would do some thinking and see what I could come up with to post about..

I'm still watching trials, but I'm trying not to get completely tied up with them, so at this point I'm only and observer of what is happening with a couple cases.  I'm not completely up to speed with the evidence for either one, so I don't feel qualified to post a lot about either case.. Or even some of the other ones I see in the newspapers around here. I'll keep the blog in my mind if I feel like ranting about any of the cases..

I'm not traveling as much nowadays, so there haven't been a lot of spiffy photos from places other than my own home.  But, my friend on Facebook told me to just post whatever about the area I live in. She's on the East coast and has never been to California, so she enjoys seeing the flora and fauna from here.  I might have to see what I can do about that.. Maybe I can enlist my 9 year old grandson in a photo project of some kind.. Or maybe I'll dig around in my photo files and see what kinds of things I've shot and think about what I could write about them..

Anyway, when I got on the blogger dashboard, I discovered a couple posts still in draft form. This one and another one that has the pictures missing. I'll have to do some snooping around on my computers to see if I can locate the missing pictures for the other one.  So, this one will get published.. Only 8 months after I started it...

Bad words and some groans?

I have a feeling the crane operator had a few bad words.. Or his boss did. I'm sure neither one of them said "oops!"..

Who do you think had the most bad words? The fellow we see talking on the phone?  Or maybe the person on the other side of that call...

Lets see... I think the guy in the cab of that pickup truck is praying that the trailer hitch holds until they get him back up on flat ground!  He'll have the bad words when he gets the repair bills..

Uhh.. Oops?  Wonder if his insurance went up.. lol

Ok, now... I don't know about you, but if I opened a bag of bread and saw this, I'd have a LOT to say.. Some of it might be "bad" if my grandson wasn't in the same room... I probably wouldn't be buying that brand of bread again!!  Ewwww!!!

Now this guy is probably holding his breath if he's watching that wheel fly away.. The bad words will come after he hits the ground, I'm sure...

More Bad Words?

Happy Saturday! Here's a few more of the "bad word" pictures...  A couple of them, I'm sure were worth a lot of "bad words".. lol

 I see what looks like one lone person standing there looking at this ship that capsized with all the cargo still aboard... I'm sure this is one of those events that earned a lot of bad words... lol

Lets see... The driver of the pickup would have had a few bad words for the driver of the dump truck.. Whoever owns the pickup (if it wasn't the driver) might have had a few choice words.. Hmm.. What about the driver of the dump truck?  Think  he might have had a few once he realized what that "bump" was?

 Oops! Mechanical failure!  I'm pretty sure there were a few bad words floating about after this failure..

 Mama duck wouldn't be expressing any bad words, but I'm sure if she could talk, she'd voice a few...

 Another one of those pesky cargo container failures... Bad words all around here.. The crane operator that knocked things over, the owners of the cargo in the containers, the guys who are going to have to spend hours and hours trying to fix the mess... Yup. Bad words....

Someone forgot to put the wet cement signs out?  Oops..

~~~
Enjoy!

Bad Words...

I'm sure we've all used a few here and there.. Some more than others, I'll bet... Just reading the newspaper or watching the latest news on your favorite channel on TV can sometimes give you a reason to use a few bad words... Right?  A friend sent me an email with some pictures of some very good reasons to use a few bad words... I'll share a few today, just to let everyone know that I'm still alive and kicking.. I'm still paying attention to live trials and following current crimes but I just haven't felt compelled to blog about them.. Yet. I'm sure something will come along one of these days that I'll blog about.. But for now... Here's a few examples of times when "bad words" would be very much excusable..

Now, I'm not a drinker, but I'm sure there are a few folks out there that would think this "tragedy" is worthy of a few "bad words"...

I'm sure the owner of the boat had a few "bad words" once he sobered up or got out out of the hospital.  How'd he manage to hit that post dead on like that? LOL

Do you think the home owner had a few "bad words" to say?

The farmer probably had a few choice words... Either for the employee to sunk the tractor or for himself while he dug the thing out..

Lets see... Lots of possibilities here for "bad words" here.. The crew in the plane.  The guys in the trucks and tractor.  The boots on the ground... RUN!

I've got questions about this one.. Did a worker back the thing into the mud hole?  Or did it just sit there and sink when the water level came up?  Either way, I'm sure there were plenty of "bad words" spoken about this situation.

I have more of these and will probably post a few more in the next few days... Have a great day, all!

The Water is Still High…

Just sharing some pictures we took today... Click the pictures to see an enlarged version....

My Mom came by this morning to visit and drop off some things that I’m borrowing for a bit to help me with a move I'm making.  After showing her the place I'm planning on moving to we decided to take a drive up the river to see how some of the marinas are faring with the high water. My daughter and grandson decided to come along too, so we all piled into my car and headed up river on the levee road.  The first marina upriver from Meridian is Lovey’s Landing.   All that area you see under water is normally filled with trailers and campers.  Fishermen and women usually live there year round to be close to the fishing.  One of the folks who has been living at Lovey’s is now staying with a friend across the street from me here in Meridian.  From what he told me and another friend, he's planning on renting a house here in town rather than moving his trailer back up to Lovey's when the river goes down.

One of the trailers didn’t make it out of the low area before the water level came up...

Most of the rest of the RVs and trailers got pulled out of  the low area to the levee road.. They'll sit there until the water goes back down and the ground dries a bit..

The next marina upriver is Ward's Landing, and as you can see from the picture, they've got the river in their yard too.

 Check out the angle the ramp to the dock is at.. The ramp normally follows the slope of the levee down and across to where the docks usually are, but with the high water, the ramp goes up, bends in the middle and then down again to the dock which is almost at the same level as the higher part of the parking lot.

Just upriver from Ward's is what is usually a dirt parking lot where folks store their boats, RV's and other equipment... All we saw was one lonely sunken boat trailer.

As we drove up the levee road, we looked out across some of the farmland that is underwater... It's not deep, but there are acres and acres under water right now.

The water fowl in the area are loving the high water.  We saw dozens and dozens of snowy egrets wading in the shallow water or flying away from the noise of my 4x4 on the road.  My daughter got a few really nice shots of the birds out the passenger side window.

The trees in this orchard must be terribly confused.  They're in full bloom and absolutely flooded by the Sacramento River.

See that long black thing out beyond the small trees on the "shore"?  It was rushing downriver with the current.. Tree?  Long support beam from something?  We don't know, but after seeing lots of trees, limbs along with that thing floating down the river, no one needed to wonder why there aren't any boats in the river.

The next marina (and the last one we drove past today) is the Colusa Landing.. Just a couple weeks ago, my Mom,  my granddaughter from Utah and  I were there for lunch.  They had sandbags at that time, but not like they have now.  And there wasn't water in the parking lot beyond the restaurant then, either.

I walked down near the water to get a picture of the deck on the river side of the restaurant so my granddaughter can see what it looks like now... When we were there, the water wasn't even close to the restaurant.  Today, however it's close.. And there's evidence that the water has been even higher.  The spot I was standing to take this picture was under water just a day or two ago.

 There's no access to the docks at Colusa Landing right now.. The water is just a wee bit deep...

Well, that's the end of the "tour" for today... After leaving Colusa Landing and the Steelhead Lodge, we headed on in to Colusa in search of a late lunch, which we found... And then back home for all of us...  Hope you've enjoyed the tour of our flooded river!  I may have to do another tour once the water goes down and life returns to normal... Hmm.. Yeah, that might be a nice thing to do with my granddaughters when the granddaughter from Utah comes back to visit this summer.

The Water is High………

Living alongside the Sacramento River is pretty good most of the time.  Until we get a wet winter like this one.  The streams and rivers are all running high right now..  Today, I took advantage of a break between storms to walk over to the levee to see how high the water is with my own eyes.  And to take a few pictures.. Of course.

And.. Yeah.  The water level is pretty high.  Flood stage on the Sacramento River in this area is at 70’ and according to the California Department of Water Resources website, right now the river level is about 67’.   Thankfully, the water levels are supposed to drop a little on Monday or Tuesday..  So far, from all reports that I’ve heard and read, the levees along the Sacramento River are holding up pretty well.  When the water is high like it is now, the levee districts have people patrolling the levees looking for any problem spots..  The reason the river is running so high right now is that Shasta Dam is dumping lots of water because Shasta Lake is uncomfortably close to capacity and the snow melt hasn't even begun yet.  It's the same situation on the other rivers in the area.  The Feather River is running high because Oroville is dumping water.  The American River is running high as well because the dams upstream are also making room for the snow melt.  Last week I read in one of the Sacramento papers that the summit of the Sierras had received something like 57 feet of snow and it was still snowing.. Hard.  Well, it's still snowing up there today and has been almost constantly for the past week.

Anyway, I thought I’d give you a couple pictures to compare.  Keep in mind that the photos are taken from opposite sides of the bridge and during different seasons…   The first picture was taken this afternoon and the second one was taken last June when CalTrans did a test of the mechanism that opens the bridge.  (Yes, it's a "draw" bridge, it just happens to be on a turntable.)

 As you can see from the pictures, the water level is pretty different between the two.. Be sure to note the difference on the bridge support below the up-rights on the structure.  (Sorry about not getting a shot from the same side of the bridge today.  I tried to go up on the South side of the bridge, but it was too muddy and too slick.  I didn't really feel like crawling up the side of the levee on my hands and knees.. So I used the access road on the North Side of the bridge.. You can see it in the picture below that shows both the river and the road.)

As I stood there watching the water flow past, I spotted a tree (Or the remains of a tree that fell in the river somewhere upstream.) coming down towards the bridge so I waited a bit to see where it was going to go... Under the bridge or get caught on the bridge supports.  This one went under the center span, but it's common for trees, limbs and other debris to get caught on the supports.

It's hard to tell in this image how much higher the water is than the road.  My estimate is that it's about 10 to 12 feet above the road surface.  All over town, the low areas have become pools of water that are seeping in from the river.  Including my own yard.  The back yard is mushy and I don't live right next to the levee.  The "joy" comes this coming week.  The sun is supposed to be out and the weather is going to warm up.  The river level will go down a foot or so, but the seepage puddles are still going to be there.  What does that mean for the little town of Meridian?  Mosquitoes!  It only takes a few nice days to hatch out scads of the pesky insects.  Oh "joy".

Ostrich Races Anyone? Or Maybe Camel Races?

I’m sitting out a “no internet” break because of the weather, so I thought I’d share a few more pictures from the visit to Southern California..  While we were down there, the Riverside County Fair and Indio Date Festival opened.  My Aunt, Uncle, a cousin and her husband, my Mom and I decided to go check it out.  The palm trees that you see behind the magic lamp are date palms and are all that's left of a huge grove of date palms that used to be there.  The groves of date palms are "moving" out of the town of Indio into the desert surrounding the city. 
 

Of course, while there we just had to watch the races.  It’s been a tradition at the Date Festival for many years to have the ostrich and camel races.  I can remember watching them as a kid when the family went to the fair and I can also remember how funny the guys looked mounted on those big birds..  Well, I have to tell you.  The guys still looked funny on those big birds.  As you can see from the picture to the left, the race guys have a nice little flock of birds.  They also had a few emus in a pen in the back, but I couldn’t get into a good position to get a good picture of them.

Here’s a view of the ostriches and their riders getting ready to race.  If you look close, you can see 2 of the riders getting mounted on their birds.  The 3 guys at the gates are actually trying to keep the gates closed as the birds were bumping hard against the enclosures.


 

 And... They're off!

About halfway around the track, the ostrich that was carrying the fellow in the white shirt decided it didn't want to run for the finish line.  It stopped dead, nearly throwing the rider off.  Then it started to spin and that did throw the rider off..

It took the rider and two other guys to get the ostrich back under control and headed towards the finish line and the pens.

The ostrich race was followed by a zebra race...

 Then we watched another ostrich race, only this time the birds were pulling chariots.  The fellow in red won the race followed by the one in white that you can see just exiting the starting gate.  The fellow in blue brought up the rear.

Then the race people brought 6 young boys down out of the stands.  Volunteers.  The older boys got to "race" the emus.  No riding, they just chased the birds towards the finish line.  All 3 boys were grinning from ear to ear at the end...  

The 3 littlest boys got to "race" chickens.  They had a much shorter distance to chase the chickens overall, but their race took the longest because the chickens ran every which way and most of the time, not towards the finish line.

The final race was the camel race.  As you can see from the picture, the fellow in yellow had a bit of trouble controlling which direction his camel ran.

 And at the halfway point, the fellow in red was in the  lead with the one in green following in second place.

 And the fellow in yellow brought up the rear. LOL! 









After the races were over, we wandered the fairgrounds viewing the arts and crafts that were entered in the competitions and of course, we had to have a "date shake".  We bought some fresh dates to bring home with us, as well.  We all had a great time at the fair and were ready for some serious sitting down when we left.

And, I see now that I have internet again... Hurray!  One disadvantage to living in a small town that isn't terribly close to a larger city is the fact that we are limited in our choices for "entertainment".  We have no option of cable TV, we are limited to satellites.  We don't have fiber optic cables for our telephones, so we are unable to get DSL for our internet.   The choices for internet are pretty limited.  Dial-up, satellite or wireless broadband.  I tried the satellite route and was very dissatisfied with the service.  It was barely better than dial-up which I wasn't going back to.  So, wireless broadband it is.  Until the weather knocks out the power to the town.  Oh well.  We got our power back yesterday midday and internet came back this morning.  Yay!  Enjoy the pictures!