Salad Day

Gainesville

Original meal plan for tonight was a crock pot thing called "Portuguese Soupas" (how could I resist with a name like that?). However, since I didn't go into the Lib today, I forgot to get it started until it was already too late. Decided to create something with the leftover fried chicken instead -- just the two breasts were left. Bill loves main dish salads, so started from there.

The thing I came up with was very well received, so much so Bill said I should write it down. And what better place to write it down than the blog?

I made a dressing in the bottom of the bowl, adapting one from a book: diced avocados, lime juice, yogurt, olive oil, hot sauce and salt. The recipe called for putting it all in a blender, but I just skipped that; the avocado was ripe enough that a lot of it colored and flavored the dressing, but there were still nice chunks in the finished salad. Chopped up some parsley, dill and basil into it.

Then I added about 5 cups of stuff I had around: diced English cucumber, two small Kirby cukes peeled and sliced, sliced celery, red pepper in small thin strips, cherry tomatoes quartered, green grapes cut in half. Mixed that up, then added half a bag of butter lettuce and radicchio and the chicken sliced and diced. (Was going to add some of the mozzarella balls, but decided that was overkill.) Pretty good! However, there is a ton of it leftover. Not sure how it will keep.

Got daily routines done, some laundry of Bill's folded, and the towels changed/laundered. Three times per week is working out well. We're getting spoiled.

Watched the hapless Orioles get clobbered by the Angels tonight. They are going through such a bad patch, and tonight's 16-6 debacle was just one more dismal pearl in their string of woe. Not as bad as the recent "Boston Massacre," or the no hitter they gave up to a rookie pitcher making his second start in the Bigs, but bad enough. Having Rick Dempsey as one of the announcers eases some of the pain, because he is so funny, and he is from my era of Orioles glory.

Okay, Mom. If you promise to be good and not peek until morning, I'll continue my current posting schedule, such as it is. I hope you have an enjoyable jaunt down to Iowa. I look forward to hearing about it.

Back to the reading chair. I'm nearly finished with Jane & His Lordship's Legacy, the last one of the series that I have on hand. Either must hie me to B&N or Amazon and get more, more more... or, God forbid I have to fall back on the real thing. I realized today that actually, I've only read two of them: P&P (several times) and Emma. Most of my Austen experience is on film! How embarrassing.