This salad, by Marketside (a WalMart brand), and very likely sourced from Taylor Farms has a fresh, and only slightly sweet flavour, despite the sweetened ingredients.
This one has: Spring mix (leaf lettuce and arugula), feta cheese, herb seasoned flatbread strips, sweetened, dried cranberries, candied walnuts, and raspberry vinaigrette dressing.
Although arugula isn’t among my fave greens, the sweet bits in this salad nicely mask it.
Yesterday, I finally found enough time to get back into my macaron groove again.
I especially enjoy making them when we’re in Texas because there are so many special occasions we’re here for, so I can make a great variety. Our friends here also enjoy them, so there are several birthdays to make them for as gifts.
I wanted to make these for Halloween but we’ve been extremely busy since we arrived, so, because I brought the candy corn with me from Canada, I decided to make them anyways. Hopefully they’ll be acceptable as my dessert contribution for our table at the big Thanksgiving pot luck here in our park.
For two days last week, Aurora was extremely strong and extended as far south as central Texas (almost four hundred miles north of us here in the RGV)
One phenomenon that can accompany extreme solar storms, is known as STEVE – a term coined in 2016 in Alberta Canada (our neighbouring province).
STEVE is an acronym for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement and usually appears as a diagonal thin band of purple with sometimes green accompaniment across the night sky on a night when Miss Aurora is showing off farther north.
I like to think “Big Steve” visited us last week.
My nephew (a geologist) passed my photo along to his friend (a geo-scientist) who concurred that this was indeed STEVE.
Below are photos of Aurora (from both nights) that our grandson sent to us from his home in central Saskatchewan, Canada.
The first three were Tuesday night and the last three were from Wednesday night.
I’m so pleased, that at age 19, he appreciates nature as much as he does.
This mural, on the side of a roadside service station in Saskatchewan, Canada – although weathered, depicts some history of the pioneers and farming in our province.
Each winter, we eat far more salads than in the summer.
Why? It’s because prepared salads are abundant here in south Texas.
Taylor Farms makes a variety of single serving and double serving salads.
The part we enjoy the most, is that we can enjoy a variety of salads without having to buy all of the ingredients separately and then risk them going to waste if not used in a timely manner.
For the next few “foodie Friday” posts, I’ll feature and review different pre-made salads that we enjoy.
My feature photo is of the single serving Everything Chopped Salad from Taylor Farms.
Ingredients: Romaine lettuce, grilled white meat chicken, carrot, red cabbage, sharp white cheddar cheese, cheese and garlic seasoned crouton crumbles, everything bagel seasoning, and ranch dressing. *No synthetic colours or high fructose corn syrup*
These salads, available at WalMart, come in a disposable plastic bowl, but I prefer to plate them.
My review: I love that all of the ingredients are separated in the packaging, so nothing is soggy. This one had great flavour and crunch. Although they contain some cooked chicken, don’t expect more than a tablespoon or so of small cubes of meat in the single serving size. The cheese adds extra protein.
At under $3 USD, it’s good bang for your buck.
This past summer saw an unusual amount of rain here in the Rio Grande Valley.
As a result, some plants are confused as to when to bloom.
This hedgehog cactus is an example.
Whereas it usually would bloom in the spring here (March and April), it was in full bloom last week.
We’ve been stopping in Llano, TX every year on our way south since 2019.
I found the subject for my feature photo during a walkabout on our first visit there.
This week, we’ve been going over to Mexico for dental appointments.
It’s only a 20 minute drive from our home.
My favourite part of this is that we can once more enjoy authentic Mexican food. We didn’t get across once last winter, so now we’re making up for lost time.
I had some problems with my feature photo because of the shadows cast on the plate. I’ll be sure to avoid that next time.
Each of us ordered our fave dish : enchiladas for hubs and chile relleno for me.
We forgot that we could order one dish, split it, and easily have enough food for lunch.
Practise makes better.
What started out as an incredible year of long distance travel from January, to and including July, ended up with shorter trips from August to December that focused on weddings of family and friends, my Dad’s 85th birthday party, and lots of quality time with our own small family.
Each part of the year held its own memories and treasures, and the best part was that hubs and I were both now fully retired, so neither of us had to miss a minute of it because of work schedules.
We kicked off our retirement with a year packed with everything imaginable. It’s almost as though we were compensating for all of the things we had to cut short or miss entirely in our working careers.
It was a good year.
For many years, Chicago has been home to giant murals.
It’s pretty easy to capture decent shots of them “on the way by” if you’re passing through during rush hour.
Radically Retired 