Wednesday Hodgepodge

I was surprised and excited when I checked my email and saw that the Wednesday Hodgepodge is back! I've missed it. Its creator, Joyce, has supplied a new list of questions this week for anyone who wants to answer.

1. Howdy Hodgepodgers. It's kind of fun to be back, isn't it?  Last time we met was September, 2018. Tell me something big-important-happy-or sad that's happened in your life since that date. Just one thing. We don't know how long this current isolation situation is going to last and we might need to dole out our news bit by bit.

I mentioned this only a few posts ago, but the bridal shower for our soon to be daughter-in-law was a big-important-and happy event!

2. Might as well get this out of the way early on...COVID-19. On a scale of 1-5 how serious are you about keeping your distance? Explain. fyi-I didn't create the scale but have seen it several places online. Also fyi-we won't only have virus related questions each week, but for this first one it feels right.

1-Not at all, living normally
2-Cautious but still going out
3-Going out as needed, mostly home or working from home, still seeing friends/family
4-Extremely limited, only going out when unavoidable, minimal contact with people
5-Full lockdown, no one in or out

Kind of between a three and a four. Those of us who can, stay home and don't see friends/family. But the rest of our immediate family has work that is considered essential, so they're still busy. It's straight to and from work now, though. No business lunches or enjoyable outside of the home activities.

3. Raise your hand if you think you might run out of steam in the cooking department before it's all said and done? What's something delcious you've cooked or eaten in your own kitchen in the past week?

Cooking hasn't changed that much for me. I was used to creating menus and cooking all our food anyway, so as long as I can find ingredients it's normal to me.

Recently we had two delicious things that had not made an appearance on any of my menus previously. I had been organizing the freezer and found a forgotten box of puff pastry dough that I decided needed to be used that very day. Because of all the salmon we had on hand (due to doctor's orders for LV's eye) I discovered I have all the ingredients needed to make Salmon Wellingtons. They turned out absolutely delicious.

The second delicious treat happened to be Chocolate Gobs. I have made gobs before, but was never really happy with the filling. I stumbled across a recipe for gob filling that was different, and it sounded really good so I decided to give it a try. It really was so, so good! I'll be sharing the recipe in the next couple of days.

4. What's a television show or movie you've seen recently (it could be an oldie) that you really liked?

We recorded and have been watching Seven Worlds One Planet. It's excellent. We love seeing all the animals and nature, and the narrator's voice is the best!

5. Share something funny you've seen or heard this week.

I enjoy corny puns, so when I saw this it made me smile.

6. Insert your own random thought here

I discovered an extremely easy and yet effective way to clean the vent in the stove hood. I should have done a before and after of it. I could hardly believe my eyes when the dirty gunky thing turned into sparkling clean with zero scrubbing effort on my part.

All I did was bring a big pot of water to a boil. Set a bowl in the kitchen sink and place the dirty vent into it. Once my water was boiling I poured it over the vent and added a scoop of OxiClean powder. As it bubbled and dissolved it lifted all that caked on gunk right off the vent and left it sparkling.

Easy Peasy! And super satisfying!