Rainy days and Sundays...

I woke up at 6:30 AM on Sunday, which was about right, as I’ll need to be up and at ‘em at 5:30 AM tomorrow. It was raining and it rained off and on the entire day.

I moseyed awhile and then warmed up a cup of yesterday’s coffee. I got a magazine, a glass of water, some Cope, the phone and the heating pad and moved to the living room recliner. Before I sat down, I turned on Sunday Morning, Over Easy.

When the radio show ended, I started making my wild turkey soup. I got out the Dutch oven, set it on medium high and added some canola oil.

First I made my mirepoix (traditionally two parts onion, one part carrot and one part celery, so I didn’t need the ingredient amount). I used two cups of onions and one each of carrots and celery.

I sautéed those until they were soft. Then I added in two minced garlic cloves and cooked everything a minute more. I added four cups of my homemade chicken stock and four cans of drained and rinsed cooked beans (three great Northern, and one of Dark Kidney beans. Finally, I put in two cups of cubed smoked turkey after I carefully removed the blackened outer skin.

Here’s where I made the first of two mistakes: On the show, she added fresh baby spinach to wilt. Not having any, I had thawed out a box of chopped spinach. I put that in a towel and squeezed it as dry as I could. Then I put it all in.

Hers looked pretty, with the occasional spinach leaf floating around. Mine looked like spinach soup, with other things floating around. Too much spinach!

I added a tablespoon or so of dried parsley and a teaspoon of dried time, then I seasoned it with salt and fresh ground lack pepper.

I brought it to a boil, then reduced it to a simmer and let it get happy all afternoon. While checking it at some point, I noticed the liquid level was a bit low. So, not wanting to waste a whole box, I opened two cans of chicken stock and dumped those in (spoiler alert: second mistake).

You'll note that I didn't mention going to the drugstore and getting more Epsom salts. Thought its probably only 1,000 yards from my house, that trip in the rain seemed daunting. So, so Epsom salt soak today.

Melissa called and we chatted for a long while. She mentioned that my daughter Amy said she had almost the exact thing happen with her back this week. Melissa jokingly said she didn’t want to talk too long, as she didn’t want to catch anything over the phone. My conspiracy theorist tendencies kicked it, and I said, “No, it can’t be that as I don’t talk on the phone with Amy all that much. We do email each other, so it’s probably some kind of computer virus!” Hey if they can set your HP printer on fire remotely, why can’t they give you a backache?

After we hung up, I got a bowl of soup and went in to watch TV and eat. The soup was excellent and I would have said perfect except it was not pretty (with all that spinach) and was a little too salty. I checked (which I should have done before) and the chicken stock I added was NOT low sodium. Damn!

I watched my usual Sunday night shows and then tried to go to bed at 11:00 PM. I could not get comfortable, so I gave up trying after midnight. I grabbed my alarm clock, the heating pad and a blanket and spent the rest of an uneasy night sleeping in the recliner.