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Mowing and Cooking


Oh. boy! It looks like we are in for some nice weather in the coming week. I skipped the deck today and mowed the lawn instead. Mike spent the two plus hours it took me to do that scraping the deck and helping me "help" him. First, I could not get the lawn tractor to start. I checked the fuel; I tapped on the carburetor; I tried again and again; I walked away and then went back and tried again. Nothing. I finally went to get Mike and told him I couldn't start the lawn tractor. He stopped his scraping and went into the garage--that darn tractor started with his first turn of the starter. He went back to his job; I could not get the tractor to move. Once again, I interrupt him. The parking brake was on. I did not even know the lawn tractor had a parking brake. After a half hour of mowing I went around the lilac bush in the back yard. It's on a small but fairly steep hill. I tipped the tractor into the bush and got it thoroughly stuck. I couldn't back out and I couldn't go forward and I couldn't push the beast either. Mike had to stop one more time and maneuver the tractor out of the lilac bush. He was nice enough to say later in the day how much he appreciated my doing the lawn.
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This week I tried a few new recipes. I cooked sushi race for the first time and topped it with shrimp. It tasted good, but I had trouble with the rice sticking to my hands as I tried to form it into balls. The next night I watched Alton Brown on the Food Network demonstrate the art of preparing sushi rice. Next time I'll know to cool it more and dip my hands in cool water and vinegar before handling.
I made a wheat berry salad (adapted from the Mayo Clinic-Williams Sonoma Cookbook), an olive oil crusted spinach pie, and Korma, a vegetable curry sauce (from the February, 2010, Vegetarian Times magazine)--all nice, healthy dishes. Saturday night was Mike's turn, so we had steak and salad. I guess you would call my diet preferences vegetarian inclined, but the steak--with crusty French bread, salad, mushrooms, and red wine--was very excellent.

I also got the latest Taste of Home magazine this week. That can be kind of hit or miss for me, but I tried an avocado spread that was amazingly delicious and may prove to be my undoing. Purely as research, I also made a recipe from TOH called cranberry-port fudge brownies. Yummy...they are leaving this house in the morning!! Thy are spending the night in locked in the car to ensure that they leave the house in the morning!!




Comments

  1. After all you described are you sure Mike wasn't just being nice about you mowing the lawn?

    My daughter called and asked if we could have a Bullet Blender for her time here in June. Her dietitian has her doing some kind of shakes with it. I'm anxious to see if it's anything I'd be interested in.

    My daughter-in-law cooks nothing but sticky rice. I'm not interested in any kind of sushi but some of the other things you fixed sound good.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love your sure fire method to fix something. Walk away then come back. I use it too.
    Meal sounded great and I may have to re-up my subscription to Vegetarian Times. I'd forgotten how much I liked it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The dinners sound delicious! I'll have to start getting back into those types of cook books after we settle in - after our move. I had a wonderful cookbook called Kathy Cooks Naturally. For some strange reason- my husband sold it to a friend!! :-(

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yummmmmm it all sounds good. I have a Bullet Blender and I use that little dickens all the time. It works great!

    ReplyDelete

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