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Cooking from the garden week 3: Bok choy!

Week 3: spinach, spring greens, red leaf lettuce, scallions, cilantro & bok choy!

Bok choy is the new kid on the block this week. I am fairly new to bok choy also. My folks have been using it for some time and I finally gave it a try a month or so ago and love it.

Bok choy is typically used in a stir fry but my folks (and now me, too!) like it in salad, used like celery with a veggie dip, on a sandwich for some crunch…it is very versatile with great texture and taste.

As I keep cooked brown rice at the ready and I had a last bit of cooked chicken – a stir fry with some of the bok choy was in order. I mixed a little sesame oil and sunflower oil until hot – threw the bok choy and some mini sweet peppers in for a minute, then the rice and chicken. I added a wee bit of Oy Vay’s veri veri teriyaki (another great recommendation and gift from my folks!!). Top with some cashews and cilantro. Fresh pineapple on the side. A very good, very quick, very healthy, supper from the garden.

I’ve been keeping a bowl of pickled cucumber and onion going. This week, I added some of the bok choy and grated beets. That worked! The vinegar with just a bit of sugar and whatever herbs sound good – soften, “pickle” and enhance the texture of the raw vegetables. It makes a light and refreshing slaw kind of salad.

More spinach so I bought more mushrooms. I LOVE spinach and mushrooms sauteed in butter. I add the mix to rice, with cheese and mashed avocado to make a quesadilla, to a grilled cheese sandwich, or just on the plate with a poached egg on top.

Due to the schedule this past week, grilled cheese hit the supper table a few times…mostly with pesto.

The pesto did double duty also as the “sauce” for english muffin pizzas. These pizzas and the grilled cheese had pesto made with spring greens, cilantro, a little basil, garlic, salt, olive oil, parmesan and sunflower seeds. I am very much liking the sunflower seeds in place of the spendy pine nuts.

In a search for ideas for the scallions, I saw a recipe for scallion pesto. This was also in the middle of my “what constitutes pesto?” search. I was a bit taken aback by the scallion pesto as I thought: “Wow…this isn’t even green?” …but it is because the onion tops are used along with the white part.

Bottom line, it is a pale green, and I subbed sunflower seeds again, but all else the usual pesto ingredients. It was so good that the photo is the bit I froze as I ate all that I put in the cute mason jar before I got around to taking a photo :) ! The dark green package is the spring green/cilantro pesto.

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One of those days

Actually, it has been one of those weeks :) !

The work days were very long: combination of a short week and the first week post install of new software so lots of minor tweaks that we strive to take care of ASAP. Change is hard and frustrating for most, so the faster we are at accomodating requests, the easier it is for all to accept that which they cannot change…new software.

In a burst of optomism last week – optomism that this week would be normally paced work-wise, I made an appointment for the motorhome for service. At any rate, the week was rather full and except for the mad dash to take the motorhome to the shop, Bear and I had not been off the property for any variety of smells and experience the entire week.

So…Saturday morning: overcast and raining – even though going back to bed with a book sounded wonderful, I loaded Bear in the Jeep and off we went to town.

I should have listened to that voice about going back to bed…

It is not unusual to get a rock thrown from passing cars and trucks. Most “highways” are two lane. They are very good two lane roads with normal width lanes and good shoulders, but no dividers. And the speed limit is generally 70 mph.

Two objects in opposing directions going 70 mph and colliding….WHAMMMM!! I never saw the object but it had to have been fairly large. The impact shook the Jeep and made my teeth rattle. I’d had a good grip on the steering wheel as there was enough water on the road for the occasional hydroplaning action. The vibration and jerk gave me a good jerk as well. AND, although whatever the object was, it had not come through the windshield, the glass was broken clear through and the front passenger seat was covered with small bits of glass.

I pulled over to check on Bear and collect myself. Bear was a bit wide-eyed but no glass went to his area. He’d slid a bit into the front seat but was none the worse for anything. No glass came my way but I felt the afteraffect of the collision in my arms and chest and that disconcerting feeling of trying to run through in my mind exactly what had happened.

An auto glass place that I’d gone to 5 years ago – the last time I took a rock – was near. I stopped there and ordered a new windshield. Then I drove home, took an aspirin and went to bed … call me in the morning :)!

The remainder of the day was spent in laziness. It poured as hard as I have ever seen it pour here – a good day to be lazy and inside. By evening, the sun came out and there was a breeze in the trees that made it feel like Fall: clear, crisp and cool.

I walked around the woods with a comforting cup of hot tea, watching Bear enjoy the cool and being grateful that the worst thing from the day was a broken windshield…minor. Bear obviously had no lingering effects as when I opened the Jeep to really make sure there were no glass shards in the back, he hopped right in, ready to go again.

Writing this on Sunday morning…I had no lingering effects either – no soreness, bumps or bruises. Still, I think we will spend the day at home and I do not expect we’ll be doing much – one of those days!

Motorhome mileage at oil change 5/30: 44709
Motorhome gen hours at gen oil change 5/30: 538

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Lazy livin’

The livin’s been a bit lazy these last rainy days.

It was a perfect weekend for doing not much and that’s what we did.

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Indian Paintbrush in the woods

Saturday had that gorgeous morning light and then a sunbreak here and there. Sunday, was overcast, cool at 43F and it rained most of the day. The rain was a gentle, easy rain – the kind of rain that allows everything to get a long, cool drink. The woods floor glows with the color of Spring green.

I was out with Bear. He was preoccupied with a squirrel so I puttered about pulling noxious weeds and digging up thistles…you can not pull thistles unless you are my friend Hal who apparently has VERY tough skin. (a shout out to friends Kris, Hal and Magic: their amazing Samoyed puppy!)

Wandering here and there – amongst the lupins, I found a lone bloom of Indian Paintbrush.

Indian Paintbrush in the woods.