MONDAY MORNING RECIPE POST - CILANTRO-LIME BLACK BEAN RICE

My dish this week came from Julia's Album. The original recipe can be found here. It is described as an easy, light, delicious, gluten free side dish. It is flavored with lime juice and cilantro, which made it very yummy. If you don't enjoy these two items, you could replace them with your own choices. I especially enjoyed the added lime juice. I also like the idea of pairing it with Julia's recipe of Cilantro Lime Honey Garlic Salmon. You can find it at this link, but other favorite proteins would suite very nicely. 

Cilantro-Lime Black Bean Rice - 4 servings

Approximate calories per serving: 321

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 cup Jamine rice, uncooked (you can use any rice that says on the packet that it cooks in 15 minutes)

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons lime juice, freshly squeezed (use one tablespoon first before adding another, to suit your own taste)

15 ozs. can of black beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Use a large, deep skillet or a large sauce pan.

Add chicken broth, uncooked rice, 1/4 teaspoon salt and minced garlic to the skillet or saucepan.

Bring to a boil. Mix everything well and reduce the heat to a low boil/simmer. Cover the skillet with the lid. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, covered, until the rice is cooked through.

Remove skillet from heat. Mix in 1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lime juice, rinsed and drained beans, and fresh cilantro into the rice. Add more salt and small amount of lime juice if needed to suit your own taste. Julia suggested 1 extra tablespoon.

Julia's note: she thought 2 tablespoons of lime juice (fresh squeezed only) are just perfect, but the lime flavor might be too strong for some people, so you might  just add 1 to 1-1/2 tablespoons instead of the two she used. I actually ended up adding more lime juice at the table but it's entirely up to you how much.

If you go to her website you will be able to read the full nutritional value of this meal, and see other very appetizing recipes.

(Less would be more trying to add the lime slices to pretty it up a bit, but it worked out as far as adding flavor to the dish.)

I read several comments and thought it would be a good thing to read first next time. Here are some of the things that took my interest.

Adding a fresh corn-on-the-cob and eating it on the side made a great meal for one commenter.

Another said that instead of the whole 2 cups of chicken broth, she substituted a can of coconut cream and then enough chicken broth to make up the 2 cup measure.

Someone else used a bowl with a bed of lettuce, topped with the beans and rice, plus tomatoes, onions, peppers and papaya.

Another commenter asked about making this dish the day before. The answer was yes, it can be made up to two days in advance and kept refrigerated.

Reheating can be done in the microwave, adding a small amount (a tablespoon or 2) of water, or freshly squeezed lime juice. This will prevent the rice from sticking.

Someone said hers was very starchy. Julia said to thoroughly rinse the rice with cold water before cooking and that should take care of it. This is something we noticed and we realized we had forgotten to rinse the rice.

Another person used cauliflower rice instead of rice and said it was delicious.

Someone used a few dashes of green Tabasco sauce (we splashed a little sriracha on ours). 

The dish can be served cold or at room temperature. (We said this would be a great dish to take on a picnic.)

One person used it in a family favorite which was a burrito bowl topped with salsa verde, honey-lime chicken and all the fixings for their particular dish.

Someone else used kidney beans instead of black beans, though the black beans made it look extra pretty in my humble opinion.

What did we think. Out of 10 out of 10, 10 being the best, Gregg gave this a 7 and I gave it a 9. He found it a bit bland and stodgy (the stodginess I think was because of not rinsing the rice. I didn’t think it was bland, just not highly seasoned.  There are times when I would rather have tasty but plainer tasting food). However, the more he ate, the more he liked and by the time he finished, his number became 8-1/2. He said he would eat it again but as a small side served next to a protein.

The first night we served it with an already cooked rotisserie chicken from the supermarket. The second night we bought shrimp which were sauteed in a separate frying pan.

I had this on its own for a vegetarian meal on the third day. There was just enough left for a light lunch and it was delicious. I had a quarter of lime left and sprinkled the juice on my serving. The more lime juice for me the better. I would definitely make this again.

Here is the full address if you want to copy and paste instead of using the link above.

https://juliasalbum.com/cilantro-lime-black-bean-rice/

Thank you for looking at this week's recipe. 

Have a great day!

HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE - HERE IS THE STORY OF MY PET RAT

I had a 24-hour pet rat when I was about eight years’ old, a vivid memory to this day, given to me by a little boy I knew in the neighborhood. When he showed me I immediately fell in love with that sweet little thing. I toddled off home carrying it in a small cage, very excited to tell mother about my new pet, that it was a gift and then proudly, I didn't have to spend any of my pocket money (all three-pence of it). Mum took a good long look, smiled and said something like, how nice dear.

The next day, on my return home from school, my new pet was nowhere to be seen. Mum, looking serious as she sat me down, explained with great sympathy, that it missed its mummy badly, and its mummy missed her child. They were very sad and she felt they should be reunited immediately. Then she said to me, I would miss you and you would miss me, right? Sadly, I agreed and I went out in the back garden to seek comfort from my pet rabbits. 

Mum was used to me bringing things home. Worms were really interesting, and frogs. I drew a line with spiders after playing in a long, narrow gully on open land a month before. At great speed, I ran through thousands of tiny hatchlings on thousands of tiny webs floating on the air at face level. My friends ran off screaming in all directions. Mum heard me screaming from the next street over and spent a long time clearing them off my face and out of my hair. Why mother's go gray, I think I've heard that somewhere before. Mum was a good egg. She didn’t grow up with animals but when she married Dad, they came with the territory. We already had a dog, Skipper, a cat, Binky, a budgerigar, Kim, and lots of rabbits named after Dad’s western shows. There was Cheyenne, Sugarfoot, Maverick, Rowdy and Miss Kitty to name a few. 

As for my newly departed pet, I found out several years later from my sister, that Mum marched up to my friend's home, and gave the little rat-child back to its mother, my friend’s mother that is. She apparently was not happy to get it back.

I wrote this story for our son, and I am very sorry I didn’t buy you a pet rat. We did, however, have Bridgette who was our sweet dog-fur-baby, and Big Al, (I don’t know where son got that name from). Big Al was a turtle rechristened Big Alice by son when she laid an egg. I called her Popsy on the quiet. 

And coincidentally a mouse fell into a bucket in the garage found by son. With great pride he announced he had a pet. A few hours later on his return from school, I told him that his mummy missed it too. (I released it into the hills behind our house and asked it nicely not to come back.) Son was around the same age as I was when I had my 24-hour pet rat. He also was not very happy mouse-ling went home, but he understood. That's when we went to the pet store and bought Big Al/Big Alice/Popsy. Bridgette arrived a couple of years later. They were with us for many years and will never be forgotten. They brought us a lot of joy, many smiles, and even more tales I'll tell one day.

 And that's the end of the story of my 24-hour pet rat. 

 

SATURDAY MORNING AT THE BIRD FEEDER - PILATES AND TAKE-OUT

And so it goes on a Saturday Morning at the Bird Feeder!

Thanks for visiting my friends. 

Have a great weekend!

THANK YOU ANN

 Happy mail from Ann is a happy day indeed. Thank you so much my friend, I always appreciate seeing them in my mailbox.

I have mentioned this before, but this is my favorite comfy corner where I do all my reading and blogging, sip on a hot or cold drink, and watch the birds outside. The two figurines that are next to Ann's pretty card are gifts from my dear family. It's my happy place of treasures, where I can easily reach up for a book to leaf through, and now I have Ann's card to look at.

Thank you Ann! 

This is such a delightful tradition you started.

And thanks for dropping by everyone.

I hope your day is a great one.

SUNSHINE

 

"Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy..."

~John Denver~

I found these flowers at the garden. They always remind me of little orbs of sunshine, and it started me thinking about this beautiful John Denver song. I have been playing it a lot today. His voice sets him apart. I love listening to him and the lyrics are timeless.

CHIPMUNKS AT GREEN SPRING GARDENS 9-7-24

Gregg took all these photos. It is hard to see but there are two chipmunks in the photo above, a few feet off the ground. One is on the righthand side next to the single pink flower, and the other is more to the left above the group of pinks flowers. The only reason I found them was all the rustling and movement that was going on as we walked by. You can enlarge the photo for a better look.

It turned out that they were very interested in this yellow flower - Wholeleaf Rosinweed - munching away not on the petals but on the bud that was left after the petals had been taken off. They could have eaten those too but all I saw was them munching away at the buds. Very entertaining!

This one was the most cooperative for photo taking. He did a great job of balancing, and I was fascinated to see the long toes and nails on his feet.

There are actually 25 species of chipmunks. All species are native to North America, except one, the Siberian chipmunk. You can find our eastern chipmunk in most of the eastern half of the United States and Canada. Western chipmunks inhabit the western states as well as most of Canada. The Siberian chipmunk is the only species that is found outside of North America. Its range extends throughout northern Asia, from central Russia to Japan.

These industrious little things never stopped while we were there. Apparently, chipmunks in captivity have been found to sleep 15 hours a day. I am not sure if they know how much these little ones in the wild would need.  Weighing in at 1 to 5 ounces (28 to 142 grams), chipmunks are among the smallest members of the squirrel family. They are also related to woodchucks and prairie dogs.

They like to live in burrows in woodlands and other areas that provide adequate camouflage. Some do make nests in logs or bushes, but most prefer to dig vast underground burrows. They make a camouflaged entrance hole and the tunnel they excavate can be from 10 to 20 feet (3 to 9 meters) long, There is a food storage area, and a nesting chamber that is kept immaculately clean and lined with leaves and other plant matter. 

What always amuses me is how you can see their cheek pouches expand as they stuff as much food into them as they can. Then they will make several trips back to their burrows for storage. One chipmunk makes as many trips as he can to transport more that 165 acorns that he has collected in a single day.

There is a wealth of information out there if you want to find out about this cute little animal. Baby chipmunks are called kits, kittens or pups. They are born blind, hairless and totally helpless in the spring. Their litters usually contain three to five babies, and they look like a pink jelly bean. Weighing in, pups are only three grams but develop quickly and leave the nest after only four to six weeks of age. 

This is just a small portion of what I have read about these very interesting little animals, and I hope you have enjoyed what I have shared today.

Thanks for looking and have a great day.

 

MORE PHOTOS OF THE MOON GATE

 Another photo of the old house taken by Gregg, with one part of the Moon Gate off on the side. This house always seems to make an appearance in my posts from Green Spring Gardens. I love this old home with its green shutters and door, and its pretty garden bed always full of flowers in the front.

They had done a lot of landscaping on the other side. There were a lot of bare patches where the installation had been done, but I'm sure this will all be taken care of soon. I think the pathway's surface was also temporary...

...as through the gate it was all bricked in.  

I liked this circular area with the long, curved metal benches on each side. We couldn't make use of them as there had been a downpour but there will be other opportunities.

We had a nice surprise when we walked through and started looking at the flowers. I saw some rustling about four feet off the ground next to the bench on the right-hand side. More on our little critter in another post.

I realized that this area was one we had walked by on previous visits. Everything had grown tall and lush. 

Below there is a nice message and the names of those who made this Moon Gate possible. Two more people I have to thank. "For Love of Nature!" I'll venture to say that all of us who come to this garden feel the same way. And thank you Arlene and Barry for this lovely addition. I very much appreciate your generosity of spirit.

Another short post today but more photos soon.

Thanks for following along 

and I hope you have a great day.

MONDAY MORNING RECIPE POST - EASY AIR FRYER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

I was happy to find this recipe for cookies done in the Air Fryer. I am always looking for ways to use it. In the summer I stay away from the oven. This would be very nice to use when you fancy a sweet treat but don’t want the kind of heat the oven puts out when baking. This recipe came from Preppy Kitchen hosted by John Kannell. I found him on YouTube here, but I was happy to find he had a food blog, link on its name. The original recipe on that blog is here. It is always nice to follow along with the video, but I was happy that he also had it all written down on a website. There are more tips on John's website.

Air Fryer Chocolate Chip Cookies - makes a dozen cookies - approximately 269 calories per cookie.

Air fryer with 6-quart basket

½ cup unsalted butter softened (113g)

½ cup light brown sugar (110g)

¼ cup granulated sugar (50g)

1 large egg at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1½ cups all-purpose flour (180g)

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (180g)

In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Using an electric hand mixer, beat on medium-high speed for about 3 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl halfway through, until well combined.

Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat on medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again.

Add the flour, then sprinkle the baking soda and salt evenly over top. Mix on low speed until no dry bits of flour remain, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand with a spatula.

Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces (about 2½ tablespoons each) and roll into balls.

Preheat the air fryer to 300°F if your model requires it.

Line the basket of an air fryer with parchment paper (cut to fit the basket if you don’t have an air fryer liner). Working in batches, place 4 pieces of dough in the basket, equally spaced.

Air fry for 14 minutes at 300°F. Remove the basket from the air fryer and let the cookies cool for 4 minutes on the parchment paper, before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Continue cooking the rest of the dough balls.

John's notes:

Chilling and freezing instructions: If you don’t want to bake the whole batch of cookies immediately, you can cover and refrigerate the cookie dough balls for up to 72 hours. Alternatively, freeze them on a cookie sheet until solid, then transfer them to a freezer-safe container, and freeze for up to 3 months. Air fry from frozen.

To enhance the flavor: Sprinkle the cookies with flaky sea salt once they are finished baking.

This was an experiment as I have never cooked cookies in an air fryer before. I was happy they turned out as well as they did. 

I preheated the air fryer first, and used a parchment liner.

We thought they were excellent but they are very rich. I made enough for two each but found one each was enough. I froze the rest of the dough in single scoops to use whenever we felt like a cookie.

I divided the dough in half as we both have different tastes in ingredients. I added chopped pecans and mixed them in for both of us. I divided the dough and in one half I added chocolate chips, in the other I added chopped dates to suit each other's taste. Just a handful, you can see by looking how much you would need, probably about half to a cup for each depending on how much you like or will fit the recipe. If I had raisins I would have used those.

These are the chocolate chips I used.

I didn’t have any unsalted butter and used regular. I will put unsalted on the shopping list for next time.

All this being said, you can always use your oven if you don’t have an air fryer.

You can copy and paste the full addresses below if you prefer.

Website: https://preppykitchen.com/air-fryer-cookies/

YouTube: https://youtu.be/G36OLNSiOFY?si=RcHc6OLGtioyIca8

HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE - THE MOON GATE AT GREEN SPRING GARDENS

 

This is half of Gregg’s photo above, taken from the other side of the Moon Gate, a preview of more photos to come on Tuesday.  I like how he framed the house. He has such a good eye for these things. We weren’t there for very long but could see that it had been finished and flowers and fauna planted. It looked lovely! I am still hobbling and could only manage 20 minutes, if that. There was seating but we discovered it had rained quite hard and all benches were drenched (we had no rain at all getting there, so it was a surprise to see everything so wet). Still, at least we got there and what a treat it was. The garden staff have done a beautiful job indeed. 

You can click here to see my posts on this Moon Gate.

I will be catching up with you over the next few days. I am eager to visit and see all your happenings. 

Happy Sunday everyone. Have a great day!

SATURDAY MORNING AT THE BIRD FEEDER - 9/7/24 - COFFEE TALK

 

My coffee is the secret ingredient to releasing my inner comedian. Sorry my friends, I obviously didn't get enough cups today.

And that's how it goes on a Saturday Morning at the Bird feeder, with thanks to Pinterest for today's inspiration.

Thank you for putting up with the groaners.

Have a great weekend!

HOW ABOUT MEETING BUFFALO BILL BUNNY AGAIN?

I have not gotten out to take any photos lately so I am thankful I can go to my old blog and find something for you. One of my favorites popped up, a bunny we found while on a road trip in September 2013. Meet Buffalo Bill Bunny. We found him in a quiet area of the garden when visiting the Buffalo Bill Center in Cody, Wyoming, which you can look at here.  

Buffalo Bill Cody is famous worldwide. I remember my father telling me stories about him as a child. Dad was a big western fan and new all about Buffalo Bill's Wild West Tours in the UK, stories he had read when he was a young lad. That was the first time I had ever heard of this famous showman. You can read a biography at this link.

His namesake, Buffalo Bill Bunny wanted me to tell you "Howdy!"

He was a bit too busy to get into an in-depth conversation...

but told me he was very happy I had named him so auspiciously.

I couldn't interest him in any kind of conversation. That grass was just too tasty.

An addition to my post on Saturday, September 7th, 2024. There is another from this center that I published on Annie Oakley.  She was a very popular performer at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Tours. You can see that post at this link.

Thanks for hopping by and 

I hope your week has gone well.