Well, it’s Thursday night and the yard is still wet. More than wet: Texas wet. As in probably 20 of the last 25 days having had seriously heavy rain. No matter. The kids are sick, the wife/ex-wife is sick, I’m sick, the dogs are sick, the cats are sick–hell, the field rats are probably drowning as I write. The good thing, of course, is that the fire ants are dying. The bad thing is that new plants are starting to grow that require water and they’ll all be dead three weeks into July when we have no rain for six weeks.
Couple of people from out of town came in for the weekend. I didn’t know one of them and hadn’t seen the other in five years. Had no idea what their food demands were so I decided to make a vegan and non-vegan meal. First off was guacamole–avocados are good this time of year, and the limes are sour while the red onions are sweet. Then I offered them a choice of sea scallops and shrimp or chicken. I didn’t get a lot of rah-rah from the scallops–couldn’t really believe that, but it’s true–so I went with chicken thighs. Cleaned, simply roasted with garlic in olive oil, sea salt and cracked black pepper. Served them with spaghetti squash–cut in half, cleaned, sliced four times length-wise, then topped with a bit of butter while baking, and later sauteed with diced red pepper and garlic and cilantro. Basmati rice, of course, and then a melange of veggies in a curry sauce: zucchini, yellow squash, cauliflower florets, broccoli florets, diced organic tomatoes, onions, garlic, daicon radish, spinach in olive oil, then seasoned with a really excellent Hot Madras curry. For dessert there was a bowl of organic blackberries, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries touched off with confectioner’s sugar.
Tonight it’s cold so it’s meatloaf time. 1 1’2 pounds or so of good lean chopped beef; 3/4 pound of good chopped pork, three eggs, ketchup, 1 cup of breadcrumbs, seasoned with oregano and basil, mixed with sauteed garlic in olive oil, diced red onion, two diced sticks of organic celery and three organic roma tomatoes (sea salt and cracked black pepper to taste). Mix it all up, put it in a baking dish. Cook at 375 for 1 hour. Then make a topping of organic brown sugar–a few tablespoons, a couple of table spoons of stone-ground mustard, a couple of ounces of Worstershire sauce and a bit of ketchup. Rebake at 400 for 20 minutes. Serve with a good salad–tonight’s salad includes corn stripped from the cob that we cooked last night, some left over homemade pico de gallo, romaine, red cabbage dressed with a fresh shallot vinagrette I just finished 20 minutes ago.
Hey! It’s not all politics. Just mostly. You still got to take time to live well!
