my favorite summer salad

Tonight I made one of my all time favorite salads. It's only ever truly good during the summer months when the herbs and vegetables are fresh and at their best. I made it when I went home in June and I've been craving it ever since.



I found the recipe in an old Cooking Light magazine. I love that cooking magazine; the recipes from it always turn out well. This salad is easy to make and perfect to double or triple for big groups.

Summer Garden Lentil and Pasta Salad

Vinaigrette:
2 ½ tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 ½ teaspoons minced fresh garlic
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons extravirgin olive oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Salad:
1 cup chicken broth
½ cup dried petite green lentils
1 bay leaf
2 cups uncooked orecchiette pasta
1 cup diced zucchini
3/4 cup halved cherry tomatoes
½ cup diced red bell pepper
½ cup yellow bell pepper
½ cup diced red onion
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
2 tablespoons grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh or ½ teaspoon dried oregano
1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh or ½ teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

To prepare vinaigrette, combine first 7 ingredients in a blender or food processor; process until well blended. To prepare salad, combine broth, lentils, and bay leaf in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 25 minutes or until lentils are tender. Drain and rinse with cold water. Discard bay leaf. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and rinse with cold water. Combine lentils, pasta, zucchini, and remaining ingredients. Drizzle with vinaigrette; toss well. store in an airtight container. Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 1/4 cups)

Lynnea’s note: When I'm in a hurry I just use 1 regular sized can of lentils rather than cooking them up. I always rinse and drain them very well before using. I also use dried basil and parsley if I don’t have fresh and the salad turns out edible. And I have never used the le puy lentils, instead the regular brown ones work nicely.

visit home in June

I just found all these photos of our visit home in June. They are kind of fun.



We pulled out the drums for a fun and loud afternoon.



My mother's sweet and rascally little dog, Toby.



We visited Grandpa's grave. It was a lovely day.



Pat's flower garden and lawn.

Little button

During a recent hot spell we purchased a darling little fan to keep us cool.



After our crappy box fan pooped out on us two summers ago(never mind the fact that we've faithfully kept it stored in our closet just in case we ever had the inclination to figure out how to fix the burned out motor) we resigned ourselves to sitting grumpily in our upstairs apt. sweating from about May through October.



The hardware store really had too many fan options to choose from and very little customer service to help us narrow down our choice, so we decided to go with the most adorable, and most expensive option, the Turbo-aire. We've dubbed him the button simply because he's cuter than a button and he's round like one too.

On top of being super cute, this fan works very well and hardly makes any noise, even at the highest setting. We're now rather fond of him.

I"m jumping up and down...

in excitement, over the fact that Matthew and I just got to meet this great fellow who writes mmm-yoso. His blog is one of my favorites and I check it every day. He was really nice and seemed pleased to meet me, which was perfect because I was so worried about interrupting him. When I realized who he was, I was afraid to introduce myself but Matthew encouraged me to say hello and I am glad I did. It was so cool to meet him as I've wanted to ever since I started reading his blog 2 1/2 years ago.

Anyway, this was a wonderful evening.

sponge bathing my car

Quite honestly, it didn't work as well as I thought it would. I had grand visions of using my 3 gallon bucket of soapy water to clean the inside vinyl and then washing the outside of the car until it was a lovely, gleaming grey(yes, I recently was informed that my car is grey, not black. My recent parking ticket, the DMV and Matthew have all three insisted on this point; it was a surprise to me). Really, the dish soap that I used didn't cut through the brown grit like I expected it to and I suppose the kitchen sponge I used wasn't truly adequate for the job. Oh well, it looks slightly better than it did with it's streaky brown patches of dirt covering the hood, trunk lid and top of the car, and besides, using only 3 gallons of water for the entire car bath is far more environmentally friendly than using a car wash. Although I think giving my car a sponge bath is pretty high up on the crazy scale, I still don't think it competes with taking a rag mop to the car like a former acquaintance of mine once did.

I also discovered that my roomba is not designed for vacuuming the floors of a car. He did absolutely nothing to suck up the dirt but did successfully managed to fling the dirt and other collected filth in a little circle, away from his little body. He's cute.

shopping and visiting family

The farm


Today Matthew and I went back to work after ten days off, which we spent back in So Or./No. Cal with family. Basically we just ate and shopped the entire time. It was delightful (except for the massive weight gain). We did go on a beautiful hike around Mount Shasta, just above the town and just east of the mountain.




Castle lake

Just above the lake about 500 feet


Snow is cold

my owner

So, the same grumpy British lady that gave me a hard time at Christmas came in the store today and started calling for help while I was on the phone with my all time favorite customer, only to ask me if my owners were in. I quickly assured her that my owners weren't in and wouldn't be in for the rest of the day. She proceeded to razz me for the rest of her unpleasant visit.