Medium sized victories ...

Okay, I finally tried cooking and eating spaghetti squash today. Solar oven cooked squash, salt, pepper and some spaghetti sauce I really like made a decent lunch. I like this dish and it's really easy to make.

I'm in the process of packing up my shelves and shelves of books, rocks, sea shells and various other small souvenirs from trips over the years. No they're not going away, just until I get new flooring. My carpet is a little over "mumble, mumble" years of age and needs to be long-before-this-replaced! Doing anything about the flooring seemed so intimidating with all the stuff that has to be packed and moved around.

I figure I'll pack books, etc. and then arrange for flooring: I don't want any more carpeting though. This is easier for me than trying to decide on what I want, arrange for installation and then have a date to pack everything in a hurry. We'll see how it works out buf so far I've got 2 bookcases packed out of 5 (floor to ceiling books cases in the computer room). All the really breakable things in that room are almost all packed, too. Some spiny seashells need some spacial packing.

Any way, these seemed better than small victories in life so I called them medium sized.

peace, Shamba

Back to Some Regular Business ....

I've been eating rather much and not the best stuff the past month, burgers, burritos, picked up pizzas eating out with friends to try new stuff and new beer! and not enough green stuff. There were often vegetable that went with all these heavy meals but not much green. This really adds up on the scales and to the system generally within just a month or so!

So, a few vegetarian days and/or lentil/rice dishes will set some of this over indulgence right.

I just didn't want to eat the CSA veggies like I usually do so I lost some eggplant, basil, arugala. Fuzzy grey just doesn't look good on the pretty purple egg plants! Mea culpa!

However, the squashes, melon, great melons! peppers and chiles were eaten or frozen/dried for future use.

Seasons are changing even here in the desert. Lack of sun in the north patio is increasing every day very quickly, plenty left for solar cooking but it really moves every couple of days.

And because the seasons are changing there are herb plants available again at the neighborhood nursery so I picked up some: Italian parsley, thyme, Greek oregano, basil and one more oregano plant. I didn't even have any dried oregano, all gone!, and couldn't find the bottle of thyme I'd bought a couple of weeks ago. It will be nice to have some fresh stuff again. :)

Last year, I just kind of used the fresh stuff and watched how much they grew. This coming fall,winter when the plants really produce I will pick them and get them dried.

I just put leaves and greens put in the dehydrator and leave them sitting for a couple of days without the heater and they dry quite well.

Feeling much better than a couple of weeks ago. 90s instead of 103 is good and the evenings and mornings are almost cool, more like an absenth of warmth than cool yet.

cheers,
Shamba

A Post ...

Something like a malaise of heat and humidity overtook me the past few weeks. Of course, I'm still cooking, or eating someone elses' cooking, and things generally are going well.

this week my sinus headaches may have morphed into a low grade infection, maybe or not. I get one of these once a year. Usually, extra sleep and good food and laying off any dairy for a couple of weeks clears it up.

that's all for now ...

peace to all, shamba