Tag Archives: weather

Lentil Soup

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November 9th and the high is predicted to be around 82 degrees. That’s about 15 degrees warmer than normal. It’s going to get cold, sooner or later. When it cools off, I’ll be in the mood for soup again. Here’s a post from my old blog, written in the summer of 2011.

In addition to my new Black Bean Chili Soup recipe, I recently made Lentil Soup from Rip Esselstyn’s Engine 2 Diet book. The real name of the recipe is Savory Lentils and Greens and it is on page 222.

I had the list of ingredients in my shopping app when I was at the grocery store, so when I started making the soup, I had all the ingredients. That’s a good start. Everything was going fine and dandy until it came time to add my leafy green of choice, kale. There wasn’t any room for it in my Dutch oven pot. (Dutch oven pot: is that redundant?) It was just chopped up green stuff but when I took off the lid after the soup had simmered for 45 minutes (or thereabouts), there was no room. In fact, my supposed-to-be soup looked like lentil chili, it was so thick.

The Black Bean Chili recipe called for 3/4 cup of water; it was supposed to be thick. It was in self defense that I ended up using 5 cups of water and making it into soup. This recipe called for 5 cups of water and 5 cups of vegetable broth. I just knew it was going to be soup-y. No? Obviously I’m still having “issues” with soup recipes.

No room in the Dutch oven for the kale? I got out my second Dutch oven and transferred half of the lentil chili into it. To make it soup, I ended up filling up both Dutch ovens with several more cups of water and it was still a little on the thick side. Now I had two 5-quart Dutch ovens full of lentil soup. That’s a lot of soup especially considering I’m the only one at my house interested in it.

Although I had read the recipe correctly and had all the right ingredients, there was one little detail that I had missed before starting this endeavor. The recipe “serves a firehouse of 10.”

Oh.

Well that explains it. When I try a new recipe, I like to make it exactly as written for the first time. I just wasn’t prepared for the quantity. Next time, I’ll try cutting it in half. If I remember, that is, and I probably won’t.

Armadillo Day

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A recent WordPress Writing Challenge was to invent and describe a holiday. I did just that a couple of years ago, on my old blog. Here’s Armadillo Day from August 11, 2009. It’s November 2012 now and we’re not in 100+ degree weather. We are, however, still reaching highs in the 80s, running about 10-15 degrees warmer than usual.

Armadillo Day

To state the obvious: It’s HOT here. We just passed our 50th day of temperatures in triple digits. We’re just not used to counting that high for that long.

I think we should start a new tradition, to predict how long our heat wave will last. So on August 1st, we’ll celebrate Armadillo Day.

We’ll have a contest to name the armadillo, but for right now we’ll call him Al. Al will be handled with tender, loving care by the members of the Armadillos Against Leprosy League (AALL). Armadillos, like humans, can get leprosy.

Over time the event will grow to include a 5K run, a bike ride (maybe Lance will show up), a concert (maybe Willie will show up), and a golf tournament (maybe Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw will show up and hit the links with Lance and Willie), with all proceeds going to research sponsored by AALL. Hat vendors at the event will do quite well. Hats with armadillo ears sticking up and a tail hanging down the back will be particularly popular. Bumper stickers will be another popular item: “Have you hugged your armadillo today?” and “We brake for Al the Armadillo.”

The AALL will have a permit to close off the intersection of Congress and 11th Street, at the south end of the Capitol. Meteorologists from all over the state will show up to report on Al’s every footstep.

Will we have six more weeks of brutal heat that will make us dry up like jerky, or will there be a break in the temperature before mid-September, cooling us down to the mid 90s? How will we know what the weather will be in the coming weeks?

The secret is in what Al chooses.

If he chooses to cross the road, making it to the other side safely under the protection of the police department, we can look forward to a cool front sometime in the very near future. A sigh of relief will float up from the gallery. Thunderous applause will fill the air. Everyone will eat ice cream.

If, however, once Al is set down on the sidewalk, he jumps up in the air about two feet – as armadillos are wont to do when startled – and then sprints up the Capitol walkway, diving into one of the fountains, our worst fears will be confirmed: we’ll have six more weeks of relentless heat, with nary a cloud to protect us. Some people will swoon, just a bit, at the thought of all the burnt skin they have to endure when getting into their vehicles, and, even worse, their skyrocketing electric bills.

After the original Al passes away, we’ll erect a statue in his honor on the south lawn of the Capitol. Children will hang flowers from his ears and tail, put rings on his claws and sunscreen on his snout (and their own noses) and get their pictures taken with him. A new Al will take his place and continue the tradition, but the original Al will have a special place in everyone’s heart.

Banana Blueberry Orange Smoothie Summer

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Last summer was so hot! We had 70+ days with temperatures above 100 degrees. And the drought! Our normal average rainfall amount is around 32 inches. Last year we had 11 inches of rain. We’ve had 18 inches of rain already this year. We are desperately hoping that the 18 inches recorded so far are not all that we are getting for the year. We had a mild winter, a warm spring and we are suspicious of the upcoming summer, thinking that it might be a replay of last year’s.

With the extreme heat and drought of last summer in mind, I have a plan: I’m going to blend my way through the upcoming summer. Smoothies and easy soups are on my supper menu. I treated myself to a Vitamix machine. (It was demonstration and sample day at the store and everything the Vitamix demonstrator made was really good!)

The first recipe I conquered was the Banana Blueberry Orange smoothie. It’s really cool and refreshing; definitely a keeper. To balance my diet, my next recipe was the Potato and Spinach soup that can be prepared mostly in the Vitamix; you just have to bake (or nuke) the potatoes first. There are only five ingredients in the soup (my kind of recipe), so how hard can it be?

Well, I don’t know how hard it can be in reference to an upper limit of “hard,” but I know that this recipe is making me work. I think the potatoes I use are too big and they overpower the soup. At least that’s what I think happened on my first two efforts. This recipe makes a lot of soup: seven cups. The instructions say that you can cut it in half, but I didn’t notice that until after I made the soup saw how much there was. (Really? I’m supposed to read all the instructions first?)

I was hoping to have success with one recipe before moving onto another one. However, if I keep this structure, it may turn into a Banana Blueberry Orange smoothie summer.

Summer Is Nigh

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I removed the smidgens of the winter-evaporated ice in the ice cube trays, washed and refilled the trays. Summer temperatures are nigh upon us.

Here’s an entry about ice cube trays that I posted on July 4, 2010 on my old blog.


I was making lunch one day, kale and avocado salad. (I must explain, here, that the recipe calls for 1/2 avocado. Note to the world: there is no such thing as 1/2 avocado. There is only a whole avocado and it’s for me. There may well be two halves to an avocado, but they are eaten at the same time. There is no “later” for any avocado in my house.)

I was looking for a bowl big enough for all the chopped kale. And remember, I’m one who can use up most of the kitchen items in making a sandwich. This kale and entire-avocado salad (who cares what the recipe says) needed a bowl bigger than I usually use, so I started looking around in the cabinets.

You’d think that because it’s my kitchen that I’d know where everything is. Okay, well, I do now. Probably. Anyway, the bowl I was looking for was in the second cabinet I looked in, so that search didn’t take too long.

But in the first cabinet, where I thought the bowl was (and I’m thinking it used to be there, until I-don’t-know-when), I found some ice cube trays.

Ten ice cube trays.

I have two robin’s-egg blue trays with the square cubes, two white trays also with the square cubes, five light blue trays with oval cubes and one blue tray for miniature ice cubes.

The light blue trays each have 12 ice cube holders. The robin’s-egg blue, as well as the white trays, have 14 holders. The miniature tray has 60 holders. The two white trays in the freezer with square cubes have 14 each. That makes 12 ice cube trays, total. (Excuse me while I do math now.)

I’m pretty sure that’s 204 ice cubes, in one shape or another.

I have no idea how I ended up with so many ice cube trays. We’ve had only one refrigerator at this house. Wedding gifts, maybe, from friends and family who worry about global warming?

The Two Budas

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When I started this blog, I added the weather widget for Buda, Texas, as that’s where I hang out a lot, usually at B&B Quilting and Gifts. When I checked the weather on my iPhone, I noticed it brought up Buda, Texas and Buda, Illinois. What a coincidence! Another town called Buda.

Around these here parts (Texas), we pronounce it “BEEYOU-duh.” You can tease the tourists and your out-of-town family members if you tell them it’s “Boo-DAY” or even “BOO-duh” (as in Buddha). There’s a couple of theories as to how Buda, Texas got its name but I’m not sure if any one theory is accepted as definitive.

Then I wondered about Buda, Illinois. How is it pronounced there? How did it get its name? Looking it up on the Internet, I found that both Budas have a Wikipedia page. The Buda, Texas page mentions the regionally famous Wiener Dog Races. The Wikipedia page for Buda, Illinois doesn’t mention any such sport.

I briefly considered randomly phoning people in Buda, Illinois and asking if they knew how the town got their name and it is pronounced. I decided against it, probably for the better. Instead, I added that weather widget to my blog as a nod to our northern sister city (lower right side of the blog).

Hello, Buda, Illinois!

It’s a lot colder there. And I won’t be surprised that in the summer, it’s a lot hotter here.