A Chick Thing! or A Nose For These Things!

Sunday and today have been great. Sunday morning after talking to Carol about eating a plant-based diet I asked her to send me a few of her favorite recipes. Then Tony and I went to Kerrville to wash a load of clothes and to buy a few more groceries, because I did not have all of the ingredients needed to make Carol's recipe.

So while our clothes were doing their thing, inside a Speed Queen washer, a half a block away—Tony and I were at H-E-B filling our cart with healthy ingredients, fruits and vegetables, etc.

When we could not find a chick peas anywhere in the store, I said, "Dang it, I wish I could call Carol, because she would know where they are or at least, she could tell me what to substitute it with." And five seconds later, Carol turned onto our isle pushing a cart, and said, "Hi!..."

I thought it was another one of those minor miracles that happen to me a lot, at H-E-B, or maybe it was a sign—that chick peas or a chick-thing. Anyway, I gasped and asked my dear friend, "Do you know where the chick peas are? We've looked up and down these isles and we can't find them anywhere. I've never eaten a chick pea, so I don't even know what they look like..."

And moments later, Tony was pushing our grocery cart, at breakneck speed, as we followed Carol to the designated chick pea place. I knew that I only needed to buy one can, but because we had such a difficult time trying to find the darn things—we put two cans into our plant-based food cart. Then we had a fun visit with Carol, picked up our wet clothes and came home.

When we got home Tony carried in the groceries as I began hanging up our clothes on our solar-dryer (clothes line).

I had just hung up four pairs of our 501 Levis, when Tony came out to help me hang up the rest of the laundry. And right when I started to hang up a pair of sweat pants the clothes line (rope) went like this ~~ and then the rope broke and our clothes fell to the ground. But luckily they landed on the grass and not the dirt.

"Well, this sucks," Tony said, as he tried to lift up the rope, with our clothes still attached to it.

"No, its a sign, Tony," I said.

"No, its not. The rope has rotted and that's why it broke." Then the end of the rope that he was holding broke and our clothes went down for the second time. "See, its rotten."

"Tony, its a sign that you need to string up wire—instead of using rope," I said. And a few minutes later, I had a newly improved metal-solar dryer.

Now fast forward to early this afternoon...

Tony and I went to Kerrville today, so we could meet Hans & Marita, under the bridge in the park, because last week when they came out to visit us, Hans had left his vest on our couch.

Normally, that would not have been a problem, but because they were flying back to Norway, on Wednesday, we wanted to get it back to him and also have one last, fun visit with them before they return in September. Bottom   Line: We fed the ducks, geese and the squirrels and had a wonderful visit.

When we got back home I told Tony that I was going to make us a healthy lunch using a recipe that Carol had e-mailed to me. When I started putting all of these needed ingredients for the recipe on the kitchen island—Tony left and went into his man-cave and closed the door.

And all of this was on the island when I finished: mushrooms, carrots, celery, green lentils, Thyme, tomato paste, dijon mustard, ketchup, liquid aminos (natural soy sauce), Worchestershire sauce, oats, almonds, coconut sugar, salt & pepper and apple cider vinegar.

While the lentils were cooking I made the glaze and set it aside. Then I sautéed the vegetables and I was busy for about thirty minutes adding this and doing that.

And about an hour later, I pulled this mouth-watering, totally delicious Mushroom Lentil Loaf out of the oven. And Henry who has a nose for these things that come out of the oven, got up and came over to try to beg for a bite.

Tony and I loved this recipe and the next time I make it I am sure it will not take me near as long, because I am always slower the first time I make a new recipe.

Anyway, Carol found this awesome Mushroom Lentil Loaf recipe on Pumpkin and Peanut Butter  and I am absolutely thrilled about getting this new recipe and I hope that you will try it, because it is not only delicious—its so healthy! And we have so much of it leftover tonight, we are going to make "meat" loaf sandwiches tomorrow.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!