Relapsed

My knee was doing so well – I had had a few days with really no pain at all. On the 7th, I got the OK to walk for longer than 15 minutes, and the physical therapist suggested I get some over the counter (OTC) orthotics since my custom ones  don’t come till November 2 – so I did. I walked with them in my shoes a few times, and then I think last Saturday I kind of overdid it a bit – and this past week I’ve had a lot more pain. So I’m taking it easy this weekend; Saturday we drove to the Farmer’s Market and did one loop of the Square, so only about a mile. I came home and did a bunch of grading for one of my classes, and spent the rest of the afternoon with my leg on the heat pad reading a detective novel in my phone, after finishing the grading – or “marking”, as Ruth, the forensic archaeologist/university professor main character in my book would say.

Until it was time to cook dinner. We had this BBC Good Food bean and sausage casserole for dinner. I wasn’t sure what type of sausages to use, or how much – the recipe says “12 good quality pork sausages”. I had one brat to use up and I thawed out some breakfast links and used 6 of them, and a can of kidney beans, and some of my diced frozen CSA tomatoes, and the last of some pepperonata I made last week chopped fine, in lieu of tomato puree. The recipe suggested serving it with rice or bread – I decided mashed potatoes, and that seemed a perfect match. And a salad and I cooked up a bunch of collard greens that Susan gave me, so I had a nice bowl full of beans and sausage and potatoes and greens, that tasted great together. Mark stuck with beans and sausage, and mash – I didn’t force him to eat any greens. I think that means I get leftover mashed potatoes & greens for a work lunch one day this week.

Sunday morning while Mark was out walking – and I wish I could’ve been too – I went grocery shopping by car. I would’ve liked it better to have gone by bike. I didn’t go shopping Saturday in the hope of not overdoing like last week. So my walking grand totals are 1.3 miles for yesterday and 1 for today. Sigh. I guess I will slowly have to build back up.

At the co-op I decided to do something I always think about doing but never have. There was a woman talking on her cell phone with her car running and I pointed at the No Idling sign. She got really pissed off – she went inside to complain and then came back out and told me she was going to go shop someplace else. She said “I just pulled in and now I can’t even talk to my family in Florida?!” I said, “please turn your car off while you talk on the phone.” I went in and fessed up to management that I was the person who caused the irate customer and they said “It’s OK – you’re on the side of the angels”. But I’m still never going to do that again.

What else of note this week – Monday Susan and I went to a combined Democratic party benefit where they brought in Ro Khanna from California. There was a lot of food – Thai noodles and salad with peanut dressing and shrimp and dumplings – but not a lot of people. We got there at something like 5:45 when it was supposed to have started at 5:30, unless you paid extra for more exclusive time with Khanna, but we missed any speechifying. I think he was so disappointed with the turnout he left. So we had one drink each and ate and left, too.

Tuesday I was going to make cauliflower curry, but I decided to roast some chicken thighs and make a cauliflower gratin instead.

Wednesday afternoon I wrote up the CSA recipes and then I had class and I was going to make the bean and sausage thing, but ran out of time. I had come home a bit early and had a student meeting, then I had time to make coleslaw but not get the sausage thing into the oven. So we had cheese and pepperonata sandwiches and I thawed out this vegetable soup that was a CSA recipe back in August, my birthday week,  and I froze the last of it since then.

Photo by debslunch

All-the-vegetables Vegetable Soup

We don’t think of summer time as soup season, but fresh summer produce is so tasty in soup. This quick and easy vegetable soup can be thrown together in 30 minutes in the morning and reheated for dinner without overly heating up your kitchen. And it can turn a sandwich into a real meal! I’ve used Tipi green beans, carrots, corn, and bell pepper in this batch, as well as my last pint of Tipi tomato juice, but feel free to sub in what you have – zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes.

Takes about 30 minutes
Serves 6

1 tablespoon butter
3/4 cup chopped onion
3 stalks of celery, well-rinsed and chopped, with some of the leaves if possible
3 smallish carrots, sliced into rounds (a generous cup)
1 bell pepper, chopped
kernels from two ears of corn
1 1/2 – 2 cups green beans, cut into 1 to 2-inch lengths
2 cups of tomato juice
2-3 cups chicken or vegetable broth, or a mix of broth and water
1 to 1 /2 cups cooked beans or small pasta like macaroni or small shells
salt and freshly ground pepper
one tablespoon of honey, or to taste

1. Melt the butter in a large pot that holds about 4 quarts. Add the longer cooking vegetable first – onion, celery, carrots, and toss with the butter. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes until the onion starts to soften and turn translucent, then add the peppers, green beans and corn. Continue to cook for about 10 more minutes.
2. Add the broth and tomato juice and water of necessary, and raise the heat to bring the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. (If you’re making this in the morning, you can go and change out of your pajamas into regular clothes while the soup simmers)
3. Add the beans or pasta – I used small red beans from Rancho Gordo, but garbanzos would be good, too. Stir in the honey. Cook a few minutes to make sure everything is blended. Dip out a spoonful and let it cool slightly, and taste to see if it needs more salt, or anything else.
4. You can eat the soup immediately or cool it, and refrigerate and reheat when you’re ready. Serve with crusty bread or grilled cheese sandwiches.

I had time after dinner to listen to a bit of Robyn Hitchcock’s Live From Tubby’s House Wednesday night show. He’s promoting his new Shufflemania album which I bought on Saturday, from Band Camp for the digital download, since Robyn doesn’t have the digital in the Tiny Ghost Records store. I tried streaming it to the living room TV from my phone, after the success of John doing that with the Packer game in London a few weekends back. It was pretty cozy – I had music and the heating pad – but I couldn’t look up anything on my phone while I listened, which felt limiting.

Thursday we went to see Alejandro Escovedo at Stoughton Opera House. Susan got us these great 2nd row seats and our group was me & Mark and Susan and her friend Connie. Mark was our designated driver, and it was a little ugly with all us old ladies back seat driving Ms. Google who took us what seemed like a weird way to Stoughton on I 39-90 to avoid construction in Stoughton. Good thing we’re we’re all old enough that it didn’t come to blows, and Mark was quite gracious and opted to listen to Ms. Google instead of us.

It was a good show, Alejandro was in good voice. He opened with Wave from Man Under the Influence, a song that I’ve always liked, and he did John Prine’s Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, that I always hear Nanci Griffith singing. The lates.  Alejandro told a lot of stories and mentioned Chuck Prophet and Green on Red, and I discovered I only had two Green on Red songs in my iTunes, and I played them a lot when I was on WORT, so I bought Gas Food Lodging from Band Camp too.

It was hard to get up Friday, and I had to facilitate a job title appeal panel zoom meeting – but I made it through. Then Friday night again I was going to make the bean & sausage thing, but I had to go to training to be to be a WisVote hourly and enter registrations and print absentee ballot envelope labels, and it went way long … so we had scrambled eggs with more of the pepperonata in them (I will get the recipe onto my blog, promise), and biscuits, and I reheated the rosemary roasted potatoes form last Sunday.

And I guess that gets us back to Saturday again. I guess it wasn’t such a bad week, obviously good music and food involved. I just wish I could sleep better, and relax w/o the leg pain, and trun off my brain from a zillion other worries, elections, the siding on the house, work, retirement, the environment, etc. etc. And the Packers lost, which is always deleterious to Wisconsinites’ sense of well being.

I think that means it’s time to go take a shower and get the frikkin’ brace off my leg and take my blood pressure – which despite everything is down. Yay!

I made apple slab pie, and it looks good though I think it could use 3 pounds of apples in it instead of two, to really fill up the crust. We get to eat it with ice cream while watching Dragons and probably some detectives on PBS for our Sunday night treat.