New Toys ... YAHOO!!

It's another THANK A VETERAN DAY!!  Although yesterday was the official day to shake hands with every veteran you know, TODAY is the real celebration.  Our little town is having a parade in spite of the city wanting to kibosh the entire event.  The Elks Lodge will have their truck and trailer gussied up with our Veterans loaded on back.  

There is a slight glitch ... the High School Band Review people scheduled their central area competition on this same day.  What were they thinking???  So the parade guys said we aren't giving up ... our parade will be at 3:00 this afternoon, followed by free dinner for every Veteran that walks in the door.  Pretty cool in my book.

Just one more word about the CHP offices here.  They used to be the absolute best in the country.  They were just a phone call away and the office would do anything to help you out.  I don't know what happened.  I hear it's budget cuts ... but why would you cut the budget of the people that are saving lives on the crazy freeways of California?

Then I hear rumors of "it's racist to stop people on the highways".  Are you kidding me?  Yes,  it's also racist to let you have an appointment at the DMV when the next guy did NOT make an appointment, which is why an appointment only gets you in the door ... then you wait like everyone else.  The thinking in the world today has gone CUCKOO and I don't see it ever changing.  So sad to see such a great state going down the rabbit hole.

Anyway .... on to happier things.  I GOT A NEW TOY!!!  Yessirree ... anything to help me with my cooking woes.  Let's face it ... there are two kinds of food I love.  FRIED and SUGAR LOADED.  I have a huge air fryer in my kitchen here, but nothing in my rig.  There's no way I can carry that heavy fryer that makes perfect bacon every time.

So I bought this.  It's an Instant Pot air fryer.  There are so many makes and models out there, I didn't know which to try until this one went on sale.  It's a fraction of the size of the big one.  Let's try it out.  I "fried" up one of my wonderful chicken corn dogs.  It came out perfectly, except for the smell.  Oooweee Mama ... that thing smelled liked hot melting plastic ... for TWO DAYS!

I was getting rather tired of corn dogs for every meal, so I decided to try chicken tenders.  Having no idea what I was doing AT ALL, mostly because there's no cookbook with this model, I sliced up chicken breasts and breaded them to perfection.  I heard the trick was to let them sit in the fridge for a time before cooking.  Yes you can spritz them with oil, but I did not.  If I'm going to have calories, it's going to come from sugar.

It took some time to do ten pieces since the basket is pretty small, so next time I'll only slice up one chicken breast.  Not bad, right?  I really didn't have a clue how long to cook them, so I went with ten minutes.  They were delicious!!  Cooked through, not the least bit dry and tender as could be.  Woohoo!!!  And I think it uses less power than the big one.  It's a winner winner chicken dinner.

I spent some time .. a couple hours actually .. working on the Golden Spike RV Group slate of officers voting memo that needed to go out as soon as possible.  That's because it will take my name off the President's line.  The voting is going extremely well and everyone is happy the club is going to keep going.  I'm extremely happy my name is disappearing from all the duties required of that office.  

I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up the binding on this quilt.  It's my all time favorite.  Instead of a big heavy quilt rack, I picked up two long drapery rods and lots of little clips.  This one will hang on the wall front and center.  

As you know, food doesn't get very far from my thoughts.  I keep thinking I can get better if I just cook more.  Ha!!!!  So far that hasn't worked out so well.  This day was no exception.  Looks good, right?  It's banana bread ... Jonathan's favorite snack.  

Someone brought around the same thing, but with chocolate chips in it.  Weird, but it was quite tasty.  My last trip to Wally World, I picked up a couple bags.   Wasn't I surprised when I discovered it was MINI chocolate chips.  Well RATS!!!  That is NOT what I wanted.  

Wow ... there was a LOT in that little bag.  Much more than I ever wanted ... especially when the bag broke open and the entire package went in the bowl.  Big sigh ... I don't think this is going to turn out well.

So here it is ... mini chocolate chip banana bread.  You can't taste ANY banana ... just chocolate.  I can't say it's bad, because it's actually delicious ... just not at all what I had in mind.  PLUS ... Jonathan cannot have chocolate.  Better luck next time Jon ..........

As you can tell, all that work tuckered out my Cooper kid.  The bad news is we seem to be bleeding into the time change.  When it gets dark at 5:00, you never really know exactly when it's bed time.  Seems like we are up until midnight, then awake at 3:00 am.

Today I'm getting into accountant mode.  I'm off to do bookkeepinging work for a couple of people, which will be followed by chicken tenders and chocolate banana bread.  Doesn't get any better than that!!!