would make again

I have definitely learned my lesson.

I don't think I'd ever encountered poison ivy before. I'd heard the saying, "leaves of three let them be" but it wasn't until after pulling out a few weeds along the border of our property, with my bare hands, that I realized my mistake. I immediately ran inside to wash up but it was too late.

At first, the rash was just on my lower legs. After a couple days with no improvement (in fact, it was getting worse), I went to the doctor, who gave me Prednisone to help clear it up. After four days the medicine was gone but I wasn't feeling any better. The itching was driving me crazy and nothing was helping. All of a sudden I started to itch ALL OVER and I couldn't keep myself from scratching. I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

When I woke up the next morning, my entire body was covered in a rash - arms, chest, stomach, back. I tried to stay calm. I took a cool shower, slathered on some lotion, and tried to do as little as possible.

Inevitably, I started to get antsy, so I wandered into the kitchen and turned my attention to chili. My Rancho Gordo order had arrived recently and I was eager to try the beans I'd heard such good things about.

The chili was good, although I'm not sure a hot/spicy meal was the best idea for my condition.

It's now been a month and I STILL have scars on my legs. I'm never going near poison ivy again.

Oh, hey there! How are you? I've been pretty quiet lately, busy with work, traveling, and simply disinterested in this blog. I haven't made much of anything lately that was amazing or different enough to be documented here. I do have a couple posts waiting to be finished, and this is one of them.

I made this linguini almost a month ago. It's a very basic dish - pasta with a clam-based white sauce and bit of spinach and lemon juice to finish it off.

I bought a watermelon on Memorial day. We hung out on the warm, sunny, patio and ate a few slices while waiting for grilling time.

And then, a cold front came through and the remaining watermelon sat in the refrigerator, forgotten, for nearly a week. I was starting to feel bad for it, so I decided to turn it into sorbet. That way I could put it in the freezer and forget about it there until the weather became watermelon appropriate again.

This watermelon was the perfect sweetness, so I didn't bother adding additional sugar. All it needed was some alcohol to keep it from freezing too hard. I went for the fruity ones that we had sitting around, but the possibilities are endless.

I haven't been especially inspired lately, or even in the mood to cook (let alone do the dishes afterwards). To make matters worse, we've pretty much depleted our stash of frozen meals.

Thank goodness for eggs. I need to make eggs for dinner more often.

Matt loved this dish. I thought it was ok. I think there was a little too much filling for the number of eggs I used, but it was tasty enough. We ate it with corn muffins.