Monday Night-cooking without electricity

I told James that people must be tired of reading about us cooking stir-fry; so James decided to make 'Risotto with Chicken and Asparagus'. The first problem we encountered was that I haven't been in town and have not gone shopping for two weeks. We did not have fresh asparagus, but we did have beans that were..well..semi-fresh--they definitely needed cooking--as did the mushrooms we threw in. We did not have onions, so we pulled out the food storage and opened a can of dehydrated onions. We did not have Arborio rice--we had the pearl kind from WinCo. We did have chicken broth--we added more because we didn't use wine, and we did have Parmesan Cheese. We also had chicken, although I had it marinating, frozen, in Italian dressing. So, yes, we did a totally different recipe than what we had started, but hey, we used what we had. Amazingly enough, it turned out really good!

My trip to Virginia

A few months ago, we made plans to visit Dick and Marge in Jonesville, VA. Dick and Marge have been part of our lives since the day we were born. They were the first friends my parents had when they moved to Seattle in 1954 and Dick and Marge lived there until they moved back to Virginia in 1996. They are our second set of parents --they are two of three people, my dad being the third, who never called us by our names; we have always been 'the Dollies' or 'Dolly'. This was because they could not tell Kris and me apart.

We were excited to see them; we had not seen them since 1999. Mom, Kris and I flew in on three different flights, meeting up in Knoxville, TN where we spent the night and the next day we made the two hour trip to Jonesville. The GPS took us on the back roads and we had a beautiful drive through lush green hills and small towns in the Appalachian Mountains.

It was wonderful to see them again! We had a great visit; it was probably one of the most relaxing vacations I have been on in quite a while. The mornings were spent talking and laughing around the breakfast table and then Kris and I would go for a swim. By the time we swam and got cleaned up, it was 12:00 and we would take off to Kingsport one day for lunch at Cheddars and shopping and the next day we headed to Johnson City for Chinese food. Both cities were a 50 mile drive from Jonesville.

We visited with Marge's sister Sarah and her husband Frank. It was all so very pleasant; we enjoyed reminiscing about the past, catching up on the present, and planning future visits--it was difficult to leave.

Pictures

Having great time in Virginia. Visited Marge's sister this morning after a one hour swim in dick and marge's pool. Time going too fast. So good to see them. We need to come back more often.

Monday cooking w/o electricity

We concluded some important things tonight while cooking fajitas for dinner; it is best to have at least two people working together or else you would not be done cooking until midnight--how our pioneer women did it is mind boggling to think about--maybe we have mentioned that one already. We learned it is best to light enough briquettes to cook the meal you are preparing because it would take too much time to light more. We also realized that if we were really without electricity, the refrigerator door would not be opened as often.

We will not be cooking without electricity next week--I will be in Virginia and James may need to go to Arizona.

Kammeyer Happenings

It has been a busy week filled with time spent with the grandkids, doing bolt kits for Aaron's business, and work. Last Saturday we planted two more columnar apple trees, 8 tomato plants and four more blueberry bushes. We wanted to plant more vegetables, but we were told it is still too cold out at night. Since we are novices, we listened.

Sunday we celebrated Lauren's birthday, which is really May 12th, however, I will be in Virginia, and so we celebrated early. It was so fun getting the family together; even more fun to see the grandkids playing together.