Wednesday, March 7

Slept late this morning, until around 8 a.m. After breakfast, I did a treadmill session and weights exercises. Hubbie went out to work in the yard this morning, and Mother stayed home until after lunch.

For Hubbie's and my lunch, I made big chef's salads, using whatever I could find in the fridge and in the pantry...lettuce, topped with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, sliced apples, Craisins, pecans, Muenster cheese, cottage cheese, and potato salad. I managed to use up scraps of this and dabs of that to make the salads.

After lunch, I accompanied Mother to our house, where she chopped veggies for soup. Naturally, I discovered we didn't have celery, so Hubbie ran to a grocery store for some. While he was gone, I found we didn't have carrots, either, so I called him, hoping he was still at the store. He wasn't. He was halfway home. But he turned around and went back to the store.

Mother chopped celery and carrots, as well as onions and mushrooms, which I sauteed in olive oil. To that, I added diced tomatoes, beef broth and chicken broth, tomato sauce, and spices.

While the mixture was simmering, Hubbie and I ran errands...to a grocery store to get more cottage cheese; to the bank; to a pharmacy store to use a $3 coupon for on-sale cereal; and to the WDCS.

Back home, Hubbie and I toured the yard, and I snapped photos of early-blooming trees and flowers, which I later uploaded to my social network page.

Mother spent her afternoon working another jigsaw puzzle, which, drat it, one of the cats knocked off the table. The puzzle isn't completely undone, but Mother will now have to fix what is messed up.

Around 4 p.m., I added leftover veggies and meats accumulated in a container in the freezer to the soup. This soup is never the same twice, because the variety of leftovers is never the same. Tonight's soup included the usual assortment of veggies...corn, green beans, peas, beans. But it also included a dab of spaghetti with sauce, and chunks of pork chop with apples and onions, and some rice.

This is a good way to use up those dabs of leftovers that are too small for servings. Just keep adding them to a freezer container until enough is accumulated to make a thick, rich soup. Leftover meatloaf, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, beef gravy, and all kinds of veggies are wonderful in soup.

We call this "Dragon Soup," because we are draggin' everything out of the freezer to make it. It can also be called "Same Song, Second Verse Soup," or "Bottom of the Refrigerator Soup."

The soup, served with slices of crusty, buttered, French bread hit the spot tonight. Mother even ate two helpings. Maybe it was the weather. Though it was a relatively mild day, it was windy, and darkly overcast, with a threat of heavy rain tonight and tomorrow. So it felt like a soup day.

Hubbie accompanied Mother to her house after supper, and then we turned off the TV for an hour, while we pursued other things. I did some household chores for half an hour, and then read my novel for 30 minutes. Hubbie spent his time reading.

Back to TV, we watched the 2008 movie, "The Oxford Murders." An elderly woman is murdered, and an Oxford professor, along with a grad student, believe that other murders are possible, linked by mathematical symbols.