Out of Gas

The lights in the sewing room were never turned on yesterday, and so it ended up an unplanned no sewing day. The morning was pretty well taken up with my walk with Sue. The trail was so pretty yesterday, and I resisted the urge to take pictures of every blooming thing. Nevertheless, I did capture a few.

These are wild roses. They are in bloom all along the trail right now.

These are tiny...about the size of a beebee.

These little red berries are about the size of a beebee too.

In yesterday's post, I alluded to having spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen on Thursday. I was making up the mixture for Best-Ever Veggie Burgers. We're not vegetarians here, but that doesn't mean I don't loves me a killer veggie burger every now and again. I was wanting to try making my own, and this recipe came highly recommended by our CSA farmers. It's made with canned black beans, roasted beets, sauteed onions, and brown rice, among other things. The mix was made up and then refrigerated overnight. (I suspect that improves flavor, but also makes it easier to form into patties.)

So last night was the night for actually eating them, and after I got home, I made up six patties to be cooked later.

I layered them between so many layers of wax paper, and then covered them with plastic wrap, then put them back in the fridge to wait their turn in a cast iron skillet.

When that was finished, I happened to look out the window to see this little sh*t having either climbed or jumped up to our peanut feeder to feast on peanuts.

Gasp! I do believe he's mocking me!

And after that, we had some lunch. I felt a little tired after lunch, and so laid down on the couch for a short nap. I think I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and I slept all afternoon! Geez. I hadn't planned on that, but I must have needed it. You know we get going here at the Three Cats Ranch because there is so much we need and want to do. Then at some point, our batteries run down  and we fall over in a dead sleep.

It was practically dinner time when I woke up, which was just fine because I was dying to sink my teeth into this burger. Ours kind of fell apart around the edges and ended up more like veggie sloppy joes. No matter...they were delicious.

The recipe made six patties, and you probably know how it is when you're trying to divide something up evenly...cookies, for example. You start out making them a certain size. By the time you get to the end, you're either making huge ones or tiny little ones, depending on whether you're trying to stretch out or conserve whatever you mixed up. These burgers were no different. The last ones were rather large, and this is a LIFO delivery system (Last In, First Out). The patties we ate were also the biggest. Anyway...I think in the future, I'll make them smaller and thinner. That might help them hold together a little better. It would probably be possible to get eight patties from the mix that way. There are two more in the refrigerator. We'll have those in a day or two. I froze the remaining two. We'll have them another time.

But that's not all I was doing in the kitchen. I made this Melt-in-your-Mouth Kale Salad too. Even not-fond-of-kale Mike will eat this. It's a simple recipe...no frills...but such a delicious way to eat kale.

Mine was made with golden raisins, parmesan cheese, and pine nuts. As one of our members pointed out, you can substitute any green, any dried fruit, any nut, and any hard cheese in this. I think it would be really good made with dried cranberries and pistachios too. It's easy, delicious, and oh, so healthy. After dinner, I was having a hard time resisting the urge to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

But I didn't...because we were fresh out of tall buildings here at the Three Cats Ranch, and besides, day was done.

So today, there's very little on the agenda that needs doing. I expect I'll spend most of the day in the sewing room. Todd the cat awaits.