QUICK CHICKEN SALAD RECIPE

If you have food-storage, like we do, you probably have some canned chicken breast. This recipe is just something I throw together, no actual measurements, just "to taste", so you'll have to make up your own "to taste" amounts, but here is the jist of it:

1 large can of chunk chicken breast, drained and flaked into a mixing bowl
a handful of red grapes, cut into fourths
1/4 of a red onion, diced fine
a couple of dashes of celery seed
mayo or miracle whip, maybe a 1/4 cup, maybe a little more, depending on your preference for "creaminess"
about 20 lemon or lime basil leaves, sliced fine
salt, pepper to taste, add some celery salt to taste if you like the flavor of celery more

WE NOW HAVE INSULATION IN OUR HOUSE!!!

One more step in the direction of finishing the house. We had our house foamed, it's a castor bean oil (environmentally friendly and WAY better R value than traditional fiberglass insulation) that's heated and then mixed with something to make it foam. You can do open cell or closed cell. I really don't know all the technicalities, all I know is that it looked like a scifi movie's science experiment gone wrong. LOL! It pretty much oozed and bubbled everywhere it landed. The company did a pretty good job of cleaning up afterwards, but their tarp kind of broke on the way out the door, so there's way more to clean up now, but we'll get to it once the foam stops outgasing and it's cooler in there. The mixture is heated to cause the foaming reaction, so it needs to cool down, they said the outgasing would stop once it had fully cooled & cured. Its pretty amazing stuff!

We had them put a good thick layer in the crawlspace, walls and ceiling (upstairs roof), and a thin layer between the two floors to deaden upstairs foot traffic noise. We also had them spray foam our shed that houses our well, to keep it from freezing. It's pretty funky looking, especially since they didn't do any trimming of the foam after it cured like they did in the house...it looks like a freaky cave. LOL!

The last photo is of our shed enclosing our well. Until the house is finished I've had my washing machine installed for the last 3 years. Once in a while during the winter the line would freeze, so hopefully the new insulation in the well shed will keep that from happening.

TRADITIONAL RED BEANS & RICE RECIPE

From Southern Cooking Magazine, with my own twists. :)

I have even made this recipe Kosher and served the Andouille on the side.

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs dried red beans, soaked overnight in plain water (up to 24hrs)
1/4 c. olive oil, divided (I use light olive oil, it has a much higher smoke point)
1 lb Andouille sausage, cut into 1/4" rounds
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
2 med. sweet onions, chopped*
3 ribs celery, chopped*
2 medium green bell peppers, chopped* (or mix & match colors for looks)
Note**If you chop the veggies a little finer, they cook more quickly

2 bay leaves
2 tsp dried basil
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1/4 tsp ground red (cayenne) pepper
3/4 tsp rubbed sage
4 tbsp dried parsley
1 bunch green onions, chopped
HOT COOKED RICE (I like Basmati or Jasmine best) I use my rice cooker for the rice...makes it easy to get the rice & beans to the table at the same time.

In a large dutch oven (I like enameled cast iron) heat 2 tbsp olive oil over med-high heat. Add sausage, cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, remove & set aside. Add remaining olive oil and cook onions for a few minutes, then add garlic (to prevent burning). Then add celery & bell pepper. Cook until tender, about 10 min or so. Cook in batches if necessary.

Pour soaked beans & soaking water into dutch oven (I actually drain my beans, add them into the dutch oven, then cover with Swanson's broth with the Louisiana flavoring...it's amazing! It's a chicken broth base). DO NOT ADD SALT YET! If your beans are old, add a tsp of baking soda to help the beans cook through or your beans will be hard or you'll have to cook them for HOURS. Bring to a boil, then turn down & simmer until beans are soft, about an hour, longer if your beans are getting older.

Add reserved sausage, bay leaves, basil, salt, peppers, and sage. Cook another 15 minutes.

Remove 1 cup of beans and mash, return to pot. Add parsley & green onions, simmer an additional 15 minutes. Serve over hot rice.

Another change is that I do NOT like parsley, so I omit it. Sometimes I'll leave some of the green onion "greens" chopped up and use as a garnish. If I've added too much liquid and the cup of beans aren't thickening it up enough, then I'll add about 1/4 cup of dehydrated refried beans (they don't taste refried). Wish I had a picture of this for you, but it's usually gobbled up too quickly to get a photo! Maybe next time.

ARE YOU HUNGRY? AWESOME MINESTRONE RECIPE!

This is from the Johnsonville Brats website, however, I am adding chopped carrots to mine, too, and probably fresh basil & oregano, which when you add fresh, you add two-thirds MORE and add them in the last few minutes of cooking time (and not at a boil but a simmer) to preserve their freshness. I don't have red wine in the house, but you can sub in more beef broth, or even veggie broth instead. I also don't like hot sausage, so I'll go with their mild sausage. So after all the alterations, it's now my own recipe! :)

Hearty Minestrone
1 package (19 ounce) JOHNSONVILLE® Italian Hot Sausage Links, removed from casing* (*Cut sausage link end to end, about three-quarters of the way through. Flip sausage link over, grasp casing and pull off.)
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
4 cups beef broth
2 cups uncooked small shell pasta
1 can (15.5 ounce) Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (14.5 ounce) whole tomatoes, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 medium potato, peeled and chopped
1 cup red wine
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper


Preparation

1 Remove sausage from casing and cut into chunks.
2 In large stockpot, sauté sausage over medium heat until browned on all sides, about 5 minutes.
3 Add the red pepper, onion and celery; sauté 5 minutes longer or until vegetables are tender.
4 Add the remaining ingredients; bring to a boil.
5 Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until pasta is tender.

BEEN TOO BUSY TO UPDATE, BUT IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I HAVE...

It's been a really busy couple of weeks around here.

The garden scene: I'm battling squash bugs beyond belief! I wish they'd die, but probably won't before my squash does. :( The weeds in my garden are several feet tall (the areas that didn't get weed fabric covering), and I was working way too much and too hard, so I was too tired to do anything about it. Not to mention the fact that in the past month we've only gotten about an inch of rain. UGH! I've been watering twice daily in the garden, early morning and late evening. The 5 gallon buckets work wonderful for planting in, and my peppers are going CRAZY, but the downside is that they do tend to dry out quickly. Next year I have some better ideas, including drip line irrigation, and hopefully prevent early blight that way.

The yellow squash and zucchini are pretty much done in, thanks to the squash bugs, and I've seen them trying to infest my winter squash and pumpkins. I really have no way to get rid of them easily, and I'm not real big on using pesticides in my garden...but I'm about ready to give in. These things are SOOOO nasty and destructive! I'll keep looking for more info on natural prevention. One guy at the Farmers Market mentioned that he plants radishes in with his squash and that keeps them away...but do the bugs then head for his cucumbers? Hmmm....
I do know that diatomaceous earth and insecticidal soaps don't do a thing for them.

Home Life: Our cabin has been a mess for weeks now, and I am looking forward to having some time to get it all put back to neat & tidy. The dog is shedding and his hair has found it's way into every nook & cranny...so will have to really put some muscle into getting it cleaned behind & under furniture, thankfully I don't have a LOT of furniture in here. The laundry has been piling up, the food shelves are overflowing (literally, Shannon & I hit Big Lots twice this past month, so there are TONS of snacks and nowhere to put them...but school starts next week, so I expect the overflow will quickly be replaced with emptiness. And I've had a hard time keeping up with the dishes, especially with the kids working so many hours in July, they were never home to unload the dishwasher, but sure enjoyed loading up the sink!

Thankfully Tim's overnight job is over and done with. He can now focus on college again, which starts in two weeks. Michael's overnight job is over, but he was offered a FT position during the day...getting him back & forth to work is going to kill me until he gets his own car. 7am! :( Shannon is finishing her last year of HS this year and starts back next week. Jason has taken some time off to work on the house, and then returns to his regular FT job and also his teaching job at the same college Tim is at on the 19th. And what am I doing??? I quit my job the other day. BIG disagreement with an assistant manager. Apparently I have an attitude towards management...um...only when you're WRONG or treating others like the dirt under your shoes. But since I get upset every time I think about it, I am trying to put it in the past and focus on my family & home. I am also thinking of taking herbalist classes, but will have to decide if it's in the budget or not.

On a more positive note...all that time that my husband took off from work has been put to good use, the 2nd story on our house is up! The roof is on! And now we can begin putting the walls up, the windows in, and running electric upstairs. After that I believe the insulators will be coming out. We are using spray foam insulation, which is not only a great vapor & R value product, but also aids in structural stability. We hope our home is almost tornado proof, well, at least the normal range of tornadoes that pass through here, but probably would not withstand the force of a Joplin tornado. Hopefully a storm shelter will be in our future plans.

Here are some pictures. I'm just sooooo excited & happy to see the progress. It's taken three years, almost to the date, to get this far. We couldn't have done it without the help from our kids, my husband's parents, wonderful friends, and the local bank who decided to take us on with our unconventional building practices. That's my 1st floor bathroom tub and my 2nd story bathroom shower on the trailer to the right! :)

Those were taken after the 1st day's work. We had a BIG chance of rain that night, so we tarped the deck again as best we could. Thankfully Jason was awake and able to bail water out of the stairwell in the middle of the night. Other than a few other puddles, we were okay. We got an inch of rain that night.