Monday Musings: 05.12.2014 Edition

 

Yup, spring is here!

And with it comes all that Spring stuff – like yard work and gardening.

Peeps mowed the lawn for the first time this season, and it seems that we’re going to be looking for another lawnmower soon, which, yes, we knew last fall.

And we got our seed potatoes planted – we’re trying the potato cage method this year.  Last year’s potato crop was a somewhat disappointing use of my limited garden space.  I hope this works out a little better – I’ll keep you updated, for sure!

 

This weekend was also the first week of the Flower City Days at the public market – you can basically get anything “outside” related that you might be in the market for – and plenty of stuff you’re not!

I did get plenty of plants:  tomatoes, broccoli, several herbs, and flowers.

Peeps did NOT get the giant pig grill, though.

But he’s mighty cool, isn’t he?

Okay, here is where you’re going to be forced to say “that’s just wrong.”  And to be honest, I won’t blame you.

See, it’s like this.  We were walking the dog at the park, when he wanted to go over and sniff a bush.

He does that – bushes are apparently prime message-leaving spots.

So anyway, he stuck his face deep into the bush, and he pulled out . . . a rabbit!

It was dead, though fairly fresh – I suspect, based on the single neck wound,  that some cat had done it in and couldn’t be bothered to eat it.

While we have been working on “drop it” training with him, there’s a world of difference between dropping a ball or even an already-chewed bone, and dropping a fresh (ish) rabbit.

And I’ve learned my lesson about trying to take it away from him!

So . . . we marched him home, with his trophy firmly in hand mouth, and he just took his prize to the back yard where, well, we’ll just say that it did NOT come inside!

So . . . you’re still here.  Good.

How about this for a nice dose of wrongability?

It seems that you can cook cinnamon rolls – In The Waffle Iron!

So yes, after we got home from the market, we had cinnamon rolls for lunch.

Yes, it’s wrong.

But we liked it.

And once again, it’s time for the weekly menu plan.  We’re looking forward to quite a bit of rain this week – the garden can use it, but that means no grilling, so we’ll be cooking indoors this week.

Monday – Last week’s chick pea curry was quite good – and since I used dried beans instead of canned, we had a bunch left over, which will be repurposed into falafel burgers.  Since they’re “burgers” we’ll serve them on buns instead of in pitas.  We’re the boss of our food, right?

Tuesday – A couple of weeks ago, I picked up some beef tenderloin tips on sale – they’re basically the end pieces that the butcher cuts off when he’s cutting filet mignons.  So. . . I thought we’d do some kind of beef tips, maybe pepper-crusted, then a red wine pan sauce.  We’ve got some fingerling potatoes to roast and some baby spinach to saute.

Wednesday – I pulled some chicken “cutlets” from the freezer – they’re basically the hunk of chicken I trim off the breasts to make them a reasonable size.  I usually treat them like chicken tenders.  This time I’ll bread and bake them.  Who doesn’t like breaded chicken tenders?  I think we’ve got broccoli left from last week, too.

Thursday – For Minimal Effort Thursday, we’ve got some sausage that will go beautifully in risotto.  Before you ask, yes, risotto certainly is minimal effort – and it takes less than 10 minutes in the pressure cooker!

Friday – And here it is, pizza night already!  I’ve still got plenty of the eggplant sauce I made last summer – it’s so good!  We’ve also got roasted sausage in the freezer, and I’m not positive, but I think there are even some roasted artichokes somewhere, too.

Be sure to click on over to The Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan post for loads and loads of other ideas.