Thankful Sunday--July 7, 2018

I am thankful for clear skies 

and summer flowers.

After a lot of rain and extreme temperatures, yesterday we had clear, moderate weather. A great day to spend outside in the yard. For this weather and the chance to enjoy our flowers, I am thankful

Celebrate!

Happy 4th of July

Note: Uncle Billy grew the yellow watermelon and Ward made the corn hole game. 

Enjoy your day as we celebrate the 

242th birthday of our Nation.

Here is a simple quiz to see what you know about the USA.

1. Using the the date when the Declaration of Independence was ratified, how old is the US today? (242 years)

2. What is the largest state according to land size? (Alaska)

3. What is the largest state according to the population? (California, Texas, New York, Florida. The first four according to the 2013 census.)

4. What are the top exports of the US?

(Food, beverage, and feed according to the US Commerce Department in 2017. You will find various answers to this question depending on how it is calculated. And this just for a interesting tidbit, not to start a discussion about trade policies. :) )

5. Speaking of foods, what is the most common vegetable consumed in the US? (Potatoes followed by tomatoes according to USDA research. Yes, I know that technically tomatoes are a fruit. My sister just pointed this out:) )

6. No more questions for now because I've run out of time. We have to get the ribs on and the cherry cobbler made, two of the things on our menu today. Have a great day whether you are having a picnic or reading a good book.

Cucumber Soup

Sunday I posted about cucumbers I had been given and the the cold soup I made from them. Anne at Cooking and All that Jazz asked for the recipe. I almost decided that the posting could wait for another day when I wasn't so wrung out from the heat. But there's not a break in the weather in the foreseeable future, so now is as good of a time as tomorrow or the next day, or the next day.  Too bad my husband finished the rest of the soup, because some cool cucumber soup would hit the spot right now. And I would have had a picture for you.  Oh, well. It was very easy, so I'll make some more. Here's the original recipe that came from Epicurious.com. I've cut and pasted so spacing, etc. may look a little wonky.

YIELD

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

1. • 5 cucumbers
   • 1/2 cup chopped parsley
   • 6 scallions, chopped
   • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
   • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
   • 1 quart buttermilk
   • 1 pint yogurt
   • Salt and freshly ground pepper

   • PREPARATION

     1. 1. Peel cucumbers and cut them in half, scraping out seeds. Sprinkle the cucumbers with salt and let them stand 30 minutes. Drain excess water.
        2. Chop the cucumbers coarsely and put the pieces in the blender along with scallions, dill, lemon juice, buttermilk, and yogurt. Blend at high speed. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Chill well before serving.

My sister gave me this recipe. She and I both modified it with the these results. 

She used two small onions instead of 6 scallions. This had little effect on the taste, but the green tops were not there to add color. She left out all of the parsley. That did change the taste of the soup, but it did not suffer. It was just different. She used 7 oz of Greek yogurt instead of 1 pint of plain yogurt. These are roughly equivalent and didn't change things much. She did not add the whole quart of buttermilk.  She only added about 1 1/2 pints of buttermilk because she thought the soup was already too thin. Her version was very good and was both refreshing and filling at the same time.

I changed a few things, also. My husband doesn't like onions, so I left out the scallions/onions altogether. However, I did add in all of the parsley. The parsley was pretty strongly flavored so it more than made up for the lack of the onion. In fact, I may add just a bit less next time I make it. It did add a nice light green color to the soup. I also did not add all of the buttermilk. I think that would have cut down on the cucumber taste too much and made the soup too thin.

My sister used her food processor to blend things and I used my blender. Both worked well.

I think this would be a fairly forgiving recipe to tweak with what you have or what you like.

I do know that I am going to make some again very soon. As soon as I get more cucumbers.

Good luck to all who try it. What other versions of cucumber soup do any of you make?

Thankful Sunday, July 1, 2018

I haven't checked in for a while, so here are some of the things that have been occupying my time.

We've been picking cherries. 

We've been harvesting and freezing cherries from our sour cherry tree and I have the cherry-stained hands to prove it. We were a little late, so we didn't get as many as we had hoped, but there are some in the freezer.  For the prospect of cherry pies ahead, I am thankful.

 

We hosted a picnic for the people I work with and their families.

We had good food and a relaxed time visiting with friends and their families. As a dark cloud approached, everyone hustled and we got inside with the food before the downpour started. It was great teamwork. For this fun afternoon, I am thankful.

Ward had surgery.

Ward had surgery this week. He was in and out in a day and is recovering well although his activities are limited for a while. Times have changed. When his father had this same surgery years ago, he was in the hospital for a week. For Ward's successful surgery, I am thankful.

Uncle Billy shared cucumbers.

Uncle Billy and Aunt Martha shared cucumbers from their garden with us. I made a cold cucumber soup with them which has been refreshing to have on these days of oppressive heat. For the gift from the garden and the cool house to enjoy them in I am thankful.

Wait and it Will Come

We got an interesting email the other day from the office of student affairs at Virginia Tech. The email said that someone found Ward's class ring and contacted them because they wanted to return it. The university was trying to verify if they had the right person to go with the name engraved inside the ring.

It turns out that a man in Kansas found the ring in the bottom of a box while he was going through things in preparation for moving. He has no idea how it got there. The last Ward remembers, he took it off to wash his hands in a bathroom and hasn't seen it since. That was 25 years ago in Houston. The man said he has never been to Houston and has no association with Virginia Tech. So far, no one can connect any dots to understand how he ended up with it. The stranger very kindly mailed it to Ward and he got it yesterday. Ward was thrilled to have it back. Hooray for the kindness of strangers.

This story reminds of a ring I lost several years ago. My sister had a new house and I was helping her paint. I took off my rings to keep them clean and put them in my pocket. However later that day when I went to put them back on, my engagement ring was missing. I searched high and low for weeks and even got a metal detector to go through my sister's yard. My best guess was that when I took my car keys out of my pocket the ring came out, too.

Of course, there was sentimental value to the ring for me, but I could get another one if I wanted. I was more concerned about what I was going to tell Ward's grandmother. The ring had been her mother's and she very carefully said that if anything ever happened between Ward and me, the ring came back so that it would stay in the family.  In the beginning, I hoped that the ring would show up somewhere. However after several months when I still hadn't found it, I started to worry about how I was going to tell his grandmother. Each time I visited, I tried to hide my hand so she wouldn't notice. I considered not telling her, but I didn't think that was the right thing to do. Just as soon as I finally had decided that I was going to tell her on our next visit, my sister called. She had found the ring! She was planting flowers and found it buried in the dirt. Boy, was I happy! That happened on Mother's Day and I'm not sure if there was significance to that, but I think there might be.

There you have it. Two lost rings, two found rings. Sometimes it does pay to be patient.