Chickpea "Chicken" Salad: recipe, from scratch

I've been experimenting with different vegetarian tuna salads, and finally found one that has the husband's seal of approval!  He says it is definitely not a "tuna" salad, but extremely similar to a "chicken" salad.  I would agree.

The Bean Prep

If you are trying to use up 25 pounds of dried garbanzo beans like I am...

The night before:

• Measure out 1.5 cups of dried chickpeas.
• Add at least 4 cups of water.
• Let soak overnight.

The day of:

• Drain and rinse beans.  You should have almost 4 cups of rehydrated beans.
• Boil beans in fresh water for about 20 minutes.  Let cool.

Alternatively, you can leave them raw, but I'd soak them for 24 hours, changing the water every few hours... this makes for a crunchier salad.  Or you can just get 'em canned. 


The Salad Recipe

• ~ 4 cups of chickpeas... rehydrated and cooked, or the equivalent canned.
• 3 stalks celery, chopped fine
• 1/4 cup red onion, chopped fine
• 1/2 cup relish
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (full-fat, otherwise it's bleh!)
• 2.5 T brown mustard
• a healthy sprinkling of cayenne pepper, to taste

Directions:  Mash the beans only halfway with a potato masher, you still want some chunky texture (sometimes the skins separate, just stir them back in).  Mix very well with the rest of the ingredients.  If you let it sit in the fridge overnight, the last of the dryness of the beans disappears... but this makes 4 cups so you're pretty guaranteed to have leftovers.  Serve on bread with a bed of romaine lettuce for extra crunch.

Mmmmm.  Just wanted to share the results of many many batches of chickpea salads!  It's far more simple than the other mixes I've tried, but somehow simple was better in this situation.  There's a curry version with carrots and raisins coming up, but it is not yet perfected.

Cloth diapers for dogs are awesome!

In preparation for Stormy's next heat, which should be coming in October when a whole bunch of other big life stuff is going on, I decided to get some cloth/washable dog diapers. 

Why, mom, why?!

While she was not very happy about trying it on, I really wish I'd had these instead of the disposables for the first heat!  They appear to be much more comfortable, and she doesn't have a problem changing positions with them.  I'll do the same thing I did to stretch the use of the disposables... cut a human menstrual pad in half, stick it to the inside, and just change the half-pad as needed until the diaper needs to be replaced.

The purple's a good color... but the other one is hot pink, ew!  It was a pretty good deal to get 2 for $15, considering that is cheaper than a pack of disposables.  We are totally ready for a heat to come on this time.

The 4" tall pie

The pies ended up a little epic, so they needed a post of their own.

The first pie is in the oven, and here's the second one.  This is how you make an apple crumble pie... the slices packed tightly like tetris pieces, over 4 inches tall!!

I may have outdone myself with this one.  If it stays intact in the oven, it will be a miracle.

I kind of mixed a few recipes together since I don't have the original recipe on hand... here's hoping it is as tasty as it smells.

A Holiday of Pie and Stuff

I don't talk about stuff like this very often, 'cause... the feels.  Too many feels to feel.  Feels make me want pie.

The due date of the twins was 3 years ago today.  Since then, mother's day has felt strange because of that... I would have been a mother for the holiday, and I have felt like a mom on the inside since then, but nobody else sees it or acknowledges it.  I've been an invisible childless mom.

That said, due to my odd belief system, one of the twins is currently reincarnated in my belly, seemingly happy as could be that it's finally going to join us.  It's doing amazingly well and is growing large enough that people I see on the hike trail are noticing.  Here I am with the pregnancy practically halfway over, and someone has already wished me a happy mother's day.  This time it feels more like a holiday symbolic of hope and contented belly-rubbing.  With pie.  Baby needs pie. 

The contradiction of the two concepts is really weird to think about. 


Here's the pie I promised!

Update to "Awaiting Diagnosis"

Just in case there was anybody following this, I just got the call from the doctor.

Yay!  Not gonna die!

 ... Ahem, not that I was ever in danger of dying, if I was they wouldn't have let me leave the hospital after the first EKG. 

But still, the heart issue has been deemed mild enough at this point to not require medication, unless the "is my heart going to stop?" sensation becomes distressing enough that I opt for it.  And I'm not going to opt for it, since the less crap I have to put into the baby, the better.  They say that the palpitations and skipped beats may hang around or get worse until the birth, or go away as mysteriously as they came... but either way, they should be gone by the end of October!

Why do I have this?

I've been spending a lot of time digging through boxes and boxes of stuff, sorting out what'll stay in the house, what'll be doomed to go back to the garage.  Now that the carpet's in, we're finally getting our 3 extra rooms sorted out into:  baby/craft room, guest/exercise room, and library/batcave.

What I really want to find is the hardware to put the guest bed back together, but I found a plush unicorn horn instead! 

Why would you do this to me?  WHY??

Stormy has decided that she really doesn't like playing Unicorn Puppy.  Ah well, it's back to the abyss of sorting boxes, I guess.

No Plums This Year

The title says it all... we aren't getting plums this year, besides perhaps 10 or 15.  This is going to severely cut down on my garden poundage.  I'd be banging my head against the wall if I didn't have a gallon of chopped plums in the freezer waiting to be made into jam already.

How did this happen?!  The small new plum tree flowered first, and has a few plums on it, about the same as last year (though last year, all fell off unripened besides 2).  The large plum tree flowered, but I can only find one plum on it now.

The internet says there are a few possible reasons:

1. Lack of pollinators.  I have noticed that there seem to be far fewer bees around, despite having left all the flowering plants in the garden that the bees love.  The small tree is fine, so maybe bees were only out early in the spring?
2. Weather swinging from high to low and back again.  This a very likely explanation... our weather the past 2 months has been REALLY bizarre.  40's to 80's to 50's to 80's to 50's to 90's.
3. Too large of a trim, or an inappropriate trim (cutting branches in half instead of at the base) in the previous year.  Well... yeah, this totally happened when the landscapers putting in the stone raised beds decided to trim half the tree off (and fully remove the 4th of the tree that made better plums) despite us specifically telling them not to (which is how we got the small plum tree as a "please don't hurt me" gift).
4. Some older trees only produce every other year.  I doubt this is what happened, since the previous owners of the house said it was a big producer every year, and the last two years we've had tons of plums.

So, I am just taking a deep breath, fertilizing like normal, trimming the tree properly this year, and hoping for extra abundance next year.

Awaiting Diagnosis

A week ago, I woke up with frequent heart palpitations that just never went away.  I've had 4 doctor's appointments over the last 4 days, 2 blood draws (and a blown vein), an EKG, and then had to wear a holter monitor (a wearable EKG) for 24 hours. 

Definitely classy.  Everything about pregnancy has been super glamorous so far.

Just another hike post.

We've been hiking mostly in the afternoons when the sun is low, and the temperatures have been pretty low too.  I have a few errands to run this afternoon though, so I slathered on the ol' SPF 75 and we headed out around 11:30.  It was 93 degrees!

The benefit to this was that all the cows and calves were cozied up against the fence in the best shade with a water source, and Stormy loves cows.

Moooo

As you can see, Stormy really, really, REALLY wants to be with the cows.  She especially wants to play with and chase the calves who "playfully" bolt away when she makes prolonged eye contact, but I am totally mean and won't let her cause a stampede.