Not Word Salad...

I promised you a recipe... The other day, after having to scrounge for lunch for the 3rd or 4th day in a row (I just need to do a grocery run and plan better), I decided to make a Dump Salad. This was a recipe that I adapted from my Vegan Kid. 

DUMP SALAD

1 cup Wild Rice

3 cups water

1 Knorr Vegetarian Cube

1 (8 oz) container mixed mushrooms (can omit or use your favorite)

1 T. avocado or other neutral oil

1 c. frozen corn

1 can beans, drained (your favorite: garbanzo, kidney, black)

3 radishes, sliced thin

2 carrots, cut into 1/4" slices (If they're thick, cut in half first)

2 celery sticks, diced

6 spring onions, sliced - both green & white parts

1 navel orange, peeled and cut into portions (see directions)

1 bottle Farm + Field Basil Vinaigrette (oryour favorite recipe/bottle)

Put the water in a saucepan, add the Knorr cube and the wild rice. Bring to a boil, turn to a "strong simmer" and cover with a lid. Cook for 40 minutes.  In last 5 minutes, add the frozen corn to the rice and put the lid back on. When time is up, drain if there's still water left (I check after 20 minutes, just to see what's going on). 

In a saute pan, add the oil, heat to high. Add mushrooms (cleaned by removing root ends, chop if they're big mushrooms). Saute till cooked through, set aside. Add more oil if needed, sautee carrots and celery for about 5 mintues on medium-high. Then add the white part of the onion, and the sliced radishes. Cook for about 3 min. more, don't let them get too brown. Drain and set aside. 

When the rice + corn is done, dump it into a large bowl (I use a covered bowl so I mix & store in the same container). Add the mushrooms, beans, green part of the onion. Add about 1/3 of the bottle of the vinaigrette and stir together. Season with salt & pepper if desired, and you can add more vinaigrette. I tend to like mine a little on the "dry" side, but you do you. 

Pull the orange apart into sections and cut each section into 3 pieces; add, along with any juice off the cutting board, to the rice mixture. Chill or eat at room temperature. 

THIS CAN BE AS-IS. Or if you want more protein, add some chicken, chicken sausage, or low-fat kielbasa. 

This serves 6 people as a side salad or 4 people as a main dish salad. 

I love this because you can add whatever you have: broccoli, green beans, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, you get the idea. 

The Knitting...

Porch knitting tonight! I've figured out (with the help of the FB Shawl Knitting group) the one instruction that I was definitely over-thinking. I ran it past Hubby and we were both thinking along the same lines. I could've asked my knitting friend, but she's out of town, so there's that. 

I thought I'd get out there while it was nice, shady and before the pyromaniacs get started. It has been (dare I even jinx it??) quiet here for Memorial Day. 

I'm literally zipping along with this. Which means I may be wearing it by Fall, but hey - at least it'll be done, right? 

Next up will probably be a singleton sock that has the mate already done; I have to dig them out. And the Copland shawl, which is a WIP that I'm looking forward to finishing as a gift, hopefully for Christmas, but that could be a stretch. We'll have to see on that one. 

Postcard Project...

I'm back with the postcards again... Is it "doing something"? Who knows? It's something that's being done, that's for sure. I can't march, and I don't have the money to influence politicians, so I do what I can do. 

My friend came up with a pretty brilliant idea - she gathered up all the postcards she got from her own travels and those that people gave her from theirs. I have a bunch of them, and they mean nothing to anyone else. I may as well put them to good use. So she addressed them and shared them with us. I find it ironic that a few of them were buildings that meant a lot: for example, a picture of the historic Supreme Court building for Mitch McConnell and the stained glass for Ted Cruz. 

I wrote what I wanted them to do to curb gun violence. (Well, their JOB would be a start) And then I wrote a small prayer asking God to grant them the courage to DO their job. 

Hey, they're all professing to be Christians, right? So prayer shouldn't bother them. And I don't care if they ARE bothered. 

Random Picture... 

This is the garden as of today. It's been super windy (it's been like that since January...I'd swear my sister was coming back to try to tell me something...) and the middle cover is a bit twisted. 

Soon, we'll be putting on the tomato cages, and the racks for the bush cucumbers. I know - bush means not climbing, but so far, every time I've planted them (this will be my 4th go-round with them), I've needed to give them something to climb on. 

One of our tomato plants (in the far left bed) already has blossoms on it, so we should see something nice soon. 

Gardening is nature's prozac. If you have the space for even a couple pots on the patio, try it. You'll feel good getting your hands dirty and you'll have flowers or veggies. Win/win!

Just. So. Much...

There's just so much. Too much. Where to begin??

At first, I thought I'd blog when the "leak-that's-not-a-leak" broke with Justice Alito's "triumph" -- a decision which would render Roe v. Wade deader than Marley's ghost. 

Then, I thought I'd blog after the Brooklyn shooting. 

Then, Uvalde happened. 

With all that, stuff like the latest book I'm reading, my knitting and my garden seem so...quaint. Provincial, even. Stuff of fluff and nonsense. 

But maybe we need fluff and nonsense right now because the weight is there and it's getting heavier. 

So let's get to it, kids. What shall we tackle first? 

Let's go with Amy Coathanger Barrett's comment about the "domestic supply of infants," because it correlates pretty closely with school shootings. I guess we need a "domestic supply of infants," so that, if they manage to grow up and get to school, they'll be targets. 

Yes, I said what I said. Kids these days (and their teachers) are targets. Every parent, lately, especially in the Bible Belt (an irony that's almost laughable because there's nothing Biblical about them or their attitudes), seems to think that they can teach better than teachers. They know more than librarians, and they're more heavily armed than the cops. 

And still, kids die. 

And our government has neither the will nor the inclination to change any of that. 

I almost hesitate to say it, but this time, it feels a little different. I can't put my finger on it, but the reactions are different, in places where it just might finally matter. 

We can only hope. I wish I could provide you with a Grade-A, Twitter-worthy rant, but you know what? It's too heavy a load and I just can't right now. 

The Knitting...

The Long Sands Tee goes on. I had to decrease after the lace pattern to get to the correct amount of stitches, once I went down a needle size. And then it turns out I'm going to be doing dolman shaping, with some increases! Yikes. 

The linen yarn is interesting. I'm not sure how this thing is supposed to block out; it's the first "one piece" sweater I've ever knit, and I can see how it's going to be quite "draggy" -- I mean, as you wear it, the weight of the linen will make it hang differently. I saw one picture where it looked quite like a crop top, which isn't the effect I'm going for. I'm hoping it's like on the model, where it hits around the hips. 

I'm sort of -- well, not "sort of," but actually QUITE annoyed at the lack of support for this pattern. I've reached out to the Ravelry page, and I've put things out on social media and...crickets. Now, either I'm just being a dunce, or it's not a pattern that a lot of people have done. So I have no questions answered, and just a few pictures are on the pattern's Ravelry page. 

I've managed to place the markers for each side, and I'm doing the 1 1/2" of stockinette before the dolman increases. Then, the front and back get separated and we don't worry about them till later on. 

I try to read a pattern all the way through at least once, and then I start it. I used to just plow into the project, but that didn't work out so well. So I figured that I should probably do what everyone suggests: Read the blasted thing through first, so at least I have some idea of what I'm getting myself into!

Honestly, I thought I'd be farther along on this, but some things have been happening, so I haven't had the needles flying like they ought to be. 

The Yoga...

Yeah, I went ahead and signed up for an online Prenatal Yoga class. Yeah, I'm the oldest student in the class...we talk about birthing and thankfully, THAT hasn't changed. But some things I experienced in "the 'way back times" as we say? That's changed a bit. 

My hip, by the way, has NOT been cooperating. I am sorely tried by this hip. It's a balance between "moving to keep moving," and then "paying for moving." I may have to have a second cortisone shot, which I'm not looking forward to. 

And as long as we're here, I have to tell you that I'm having an ICM implanted. We joke that it's my "pet finder chip." It's an internal cardiac monitor - not a pacemaker or the like. It just monitors. I'm going to be laid up just temporarily - a few days. But then I'll be back to "normal" - whatever that is!

Anyway, the prenatal stuff should be completed by August, and we do move at quite a clip. It's an 85-hour program: weekend intensives, and lectures every Wednesday from now till July. 

I'm looking forward to teaching this population. It's something I've wanted to do for a long, long time. And it's about time - I don't want to regret not ever trying. 

The Garden...

The twirly-birds are INSANE this year. I'm not quite sure what's going on, and they're just nuts. The garden is quite a bit smaller. We're not doing carrots this year; it's the first year for asparagus, and we've got romaine, radishes, cucumbers and tomatoes. I've put in some parsley and some dill, but we have a ton of basil and rosemary in the freezer. 

This is the first year in about a decade that I haven't had a Rosemary plant. But I do have a new experiment: The Great Compost Project. Yes, kids, finally...my own compost bin. We shall see. 

A student gave me a small compost bin that she was no longer using. I thought about it for a while, and figured out where to put it. Let's just say there was a bit of a discussion about it, but my main thing is this: It's small enough for me to manage, and while I can't do the garden as easily as I would normally do, I can manage to fork over a bit of food scraps with the "brown matter" (shredded newspaper, coffee filters, some lawn clippings...). The bin isn't huge, and I'm not compelled to fill it. 

I know it will be at least a year, but it's something I can try. If it flops (draws critters or starts to stink), then I can just trash the whole thing. This is a nice netting contraption with a lid. I've staked it to the ground, which enables the worms and the "good bugs" to start working on the contents. 

I keep it moist, and flip it every couple of days. We'll see how this all works out. 

Maybe I'm totally naive, but I think at least it's my small bit to recycle and do my bit for the planet. Crazy? Yeah. But if it all works, then we get free fertilizer and we can help the ecosystem just a tiny bit. It's up to us to do what we can, right?

The bird feeders are back up; the hummingbird feeders are stocked, and the bird bath is back in action. We were on a "Do not" request from the state because of a strain of Avian Flu. It was mainy going after aquatic birds, but they weren't certain that it would affect songbirds, so they asked folks to not fill feeders for a while. The birds were grumpy. But everyone seems happy now. 

Random Picture...

Husky On Patrol. Raisa has decided that she's a part of the Neighborhood Watch. She rarely barks at anyone unless Quinn starts it first, and then it's her signature "song of her people." 

The neighbors across the street had a big "First Birthday" celebration yesterday so she was watching the cars park along the street. 

I promise I have more. I have at least one recipe to share with you, a post card project that you too can commit to do, and some more pictures. 

Just for now, though, I'm headed off to bed. My latest bedtime reading is "Wednesday The Rabbi Got Wet," by Harry Kemelman. I got it off a pile that my friend was "culling," and of course I decided to order the rest of the series on Kindle. My poor Kindle -- when I first got it, I thought, "I'll never fill this thing up" and now? I think I'm near capacity on it. 

More tomorrow. Rest well, everyone!