Music Monday: Kings Of Convenience - Cayman Islands

I listen to Kings of Convenience a lot at work. They are very soothing.

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Spring Fling at Curry's Hot Rod shop

Summer is almost here, which means at least one car show a month until fall. Our first car show was yesterday at Curry's Hot Rods in Nixa. The owner, Nathan Curry, is a really nice guy, probably about the Hub's age and he does amazing work. Most of the car shows we go to raise money for a charity. This one raised money for the Ozarks Honor Flight,which flies WWII veterans to DC to see the war memorial.

Here is 54 Ford pickup, very similar to Grandpa Fluegge's truck that I've been trying to restore since I was a teenager. 

Here's a 56 Ford pickup, the same year at Grandpa's truck. The difference is that my truck is an F-350 and the one pictured here is an F-100.

I have more photos of other vehicles, but they will have to wait for another post. My phone didn't want to upload anymore photos!

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I want to ride my bicycle...

 

When I moved to college, my parents bought me a bicycle. It's a Mongoose MGX 21 speed mountain bike. (No, I didn't know that off the top of my head. I wrote it down so I would know what to tell the guy at the bike shop yesterday!) 

For awhile now, I've been considering riding my bicycle to work on days that I don't have to do site visits for work. Because, well, it would take me several days to bicycle to West Plains, which is 1.75 hours from Springfield by car... I've been trying to avoid the road construction near my house and have been scoping out bike routes to work. I clocked one with my car and it's 3.5 miles from my house to my office. According to my BFF Melissa, that should take about 30 minutes to bike, maybe less once I get faster.

These are the tires I used to have on my bike: 26 x 2.0 mountain bike tires. The tires are probably still usable, and I'll probably keep them as long as the hubs will let me, but street tires should be faster and offer lest resistance on the road.

 

These are the tires I installed this evening: Bontrager 26 x 1.5, with new tubes. The new tires put me back $50.00 a tire, and the new tubes about $6 per tube. (This might be more than my parents initially spent on my bike?) I still have to buy a helmet. I went to A&B Cycle to get my parts. They were very helpful, despite the fact that I went in asking for bicycle parts while fancified up with make up and a dress... I got a CO2 inflator, similar to this: Innovations Ultraflate Plus CO2. I need to go back and get a spare tube and a tool kit.

This is what the bike looked like when I took a picture with the flash on; at least we know the reflectors work! (And that the laminate floor in our living room is shiny!)

Oh, and I was going to link to the youtube video of Queen's Bicycle Race, but apparently you have to set up a youtube account due to the "racy" images, and I don't just mean the bicycle race images...

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Garden photos

I was out in the garden this evening and happened to have my camera phone, so I snapped a few photos to share!





On the left side of this bed are leeks. Toward the center back is an artichoke. There are four other artichoke plants but they are much smaller.


These are onions. On the right is some volunteer spinach that came up from last year.


Peas!


The back side of the greenhouse, where the native flowers will go. You can see where I sprayed roundup last year (I know, roundup is the devil, and I typically wouldn't use it but I also don't want weeds growing up into my greenhouse).


There are several strawberry blossoms.


The inside of the greenhouse. These are the tool holders I installed.


Spinach



Another view inside the greenhouse. I don't have the 1x12s for the shelves yet, but the brackets are installed. The vent openers are working!

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Music Monday: "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab for Cutie

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Chicken Mushroom Enchiladas with Cheese sauce

 

Last night for dinner I made enchiladas. I usually make a 9x13 pan and then have leftover filling. Last night however, I decided to make a 9x9 pan as well. 

 

Enchiladas:

Filling:

1 package of boneless skinless chicken breast, about 2 pounds. 

1/2 large onion, chunked

2 tsp cumin

salt and pepper

2 cloves garlic, diced finely

about 4 c. water

Put the above in a crockpot on high heat for about 6 hours, or until the chicken falls apart. You can do this on the stovetop, but it heats up the house more. I had errands to run, so I opted for the crockpot.

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced finely

8 oz mushrooms, sliced

pulled chicken

salt and pepper

cumin

red pepper seed

Herdez Salsa Verde

Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil until tender and starting to golden. Add the mushrooms and chicken and cook until most of the water evaporates. Add the seasonings to taste. Add about half a jar of salsa verde.

In the meantime, start working on the cheese sauce:

1/3 c butter

1/3 c flour

3 c milk

2 c cheese (I used a 10 oz round of queso quesadilla, but the recipe I found called for 2 cups cheddar cheese)

salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large sauce pan. Stir in the flour. Stir in the milk and cheese and cook on low until the cheese is melted. Stir regularly to keep the bottom from sticking and burning. This cheese sauce recipe made more than enough for both pans of enchiladas I made.

When the filling and the cheese sauce are ready, it's time to assemble the enchiladas. You will need:

a package of corn tortillas

1/2 jar of salsa verde

cheese sauce

chicken/mushroom filling

Spray a 9x13 pan with nonstick spray, and heat the oven to 350.

If you heat up the tortillas prior to putting filling in them, they are less brittle.  We have a gas stove, so I turn a burner on very low heat and put a tortilla on it, flipping a couple times until it is warmed up. 

Put a couple tablespoons of filling in the middle of a tortilla, fold over the tortilla, and put the fold side down in the pan. When all the enchiladas are in the pan, cover with cheese sauce and drizzle some salsa verde on top for color. 

Bake until the cheese and exposed tortillas start to brown, probably about 15-20 minutes.

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Native Plant Sale

Yesterday, I went to the Native Plant Sale at the Springfield Nature Center. I first heard about this sale when I was in college, working on the LEED Platinum Habitat for Humanity House that was my senior project. We incorporated native plants into the landscaping and this sale was a great resource for us.
There were two vendors yesterday, Pan's Gardens and Missouri Wildflower Nursery. I purchased all my plants from Missouri Wildflower Nursery because they had small plants available for $2.50, or large plants for $4.75 so I could get more plants for the same amount of money. Pan's only had large plants.
The plants I bought are for the north side of the greenhouse, which is shady and will get runoff from the north portion of the greenhouse roof, so it will be fairly moist too. I bought:
Jacob's Ladder x 1
Lobelia x 1
Cardinal flower x 3
Downy Skull Cap x 1
Columbine x 1

I also have Leatherwood Ferns x 3 that I purchased at Lowe's a couple weeks ago. They were in sealed plastic baggies, similar to how Lowe's sells asparagus crowns and flower bulbs. I made sure to buy only ones that had green showing.

Also a short garden report.... I pulled up all the cover crop of winter wheat on Friday evening. The kohlrabi and golden beets have sprouted but nothing else in the root veggie bed. We got a pretty hard rain last week and I some of the pea seeds surfaced and were 3 feet from where I planted them... I harvested 3 spears of asparagus last week, rinsed and froze it. There are a few more spears peeking through the dirt but the weather can't decide if it wants to be hot or cold (example: earlier this week it was 30 degrees, high today near 80.) so I think the asparagus is stunted. The greek oregano, flat parsley, curley parsley and golden oregano have come back from last year.

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