Still Cooking

I can't seem to stop.  Today I made 63 Fast & Friendly meatballs (1 WW point/meatball) with 3# of ground turkey, bread crumbs, a few eggs, some onions, garlic, and bell peppers minced and sauteed, S&P, and Italian herbs.  The first time I made them they were kind of gray looking after being baked so I turned on the broiler for 5 minutes to give them a little color and crisp the outside just a bit.  Perfect.  I keep notes on the recipe sheet and this is the third time I've made them.  They're so good, LC and OJ like them too, and they'll be just great with the marinara sauce I made on Monday.  I froze them, portioned them out three to a sandwich bag, and now they're in the freezer ready to be supper.  Or lunch.  Or a snack.

I went to the last Market on Military indoor farmer's market in the neighborhood for some farm fresh eggs, some radish sprouts, yellow onions, and some carrots.  I was too late for the carrots, he'd just sold out, but I got some lovely onions and button mushrooms.  Luisa was there so I treated myself to a couple tamales for lunch.  Yum.  They are so good.  Thanks, DS and DIL1 for telling me about her at the summer farmer's market downtown.  On my way home I swung by Pick 'n Save for an Rx and picked up a big bag of carrots.  I'll clean and cut them up tomorrow and roast them with onions, garlic cloves, in a little olive oil and have a nice big bock of veggies to eat next week.  Don't you just love roasted veggies?  I roasted the beets for my lemony beet hummus and the flavor is really good.


Today is OJ's third birthday so there was cake after naptime, a whole family trip to the zoo, and then supper at Culver's.  The Mickey hat and Tonka construction toys from Meemaw were a big hit.  That digger, front end loader, and dump truck will get a real workout.

It was the perfect time to be at the zoo.  It wasn't at all crowded and many of the animals that we usually don't see or barely get a glimpse of were out and about in their enclosures.  DS was thrilled to see the lynx and the bobcat both out and pacing.  JZ stood in front of the red pandas for a long time.  LC liked the deer.  HZ said her favorite was the peacock that greeted us as we arrived. DIL1 said she liked the otter.  OJ liked the snow leopard. My favorites are the giraffes; I could spend all the money in my wallet on leaves to feed them if people would tolerate it.  They have a new exhibit that lets kids duck through a tunnel and pop up like a prairie dog and when LC and OJ went through there was one little prairie dog right by them.  OJ kept running back to look again and again.  It's a wonderful zoo, we got through in about an hour, and the weather was perfect.  What a fun afternoon.  I hope we do it again.  Or I could just nab the kids and take them myself.

This evening I cut up the pineapple I got at ALDI yesterday and the strawberries and blueberries I got at Pick 'n Save earlier today for a nice big bowl of fruit.  I'm a huge fan of fruit, can you tell?


I picked up a clearance bag of three avocados at Walmart last week meaning to make Green Goddess dressing but they got shoved under a bag of lettuce so when I pulled them out this evening one of them was beyond hope and I managed to salvage enough usable from the other two to make dressing.  Whew.  It's so good.  I never would have predicted that I'd like something with tarragon and anchovy paste but I do, I really do.  Think how good a sprinkling of radish sprouts will be on my salads this week too.  

You totally wish you ate here.  Now if I can only curb my tendency to eat ALL of the ice cream...
 
I went out to get the mail after the sun went down but before full dark.  I thought the sky was particularly pretty.  Funny how I don't notice the power lines and the used cars at the end of the block.





20 April--Paul Gauguin, The Agony in the Garden of Olives.

Skeletal trees contort
moonlight
ancient olives shelter
suffering
man praying at
their feet
lurking friends
support
can't console his
anguish 
~~~~~

I saw the doc yesterday and got something to help with depression.  Just talking to him and him saying that he was expecting me to come in, that he would be worried if I didn't, helped me start to feel better.  Sunny days help a lot too.  So does spending time with those two small people.  I'll be keeping on keeping on.
--Barbara