Friends and Food- We're Back!

We got up in Miles City on Tuesday morning to a beautiful day. At 4B's, where we ate a VERY early breakfast, our Montana-friendly waitress advised us on road work for our route home, the reason for the size of the Yellowstone River (see below); "June Rise," and the recent, unexpected presence of Ricky Scaggs and his wife at one of her tables.



As we got closer to Choteau, the clouds returned. Below is a picture of the view across Freezeout Lake, just south of Choteau. We could see the rain falling from a huge cumulus cloud extending into the high, icy reaches of the sky, and I thought to myself, hail!


Minutes later we arrive at our Blue House to wet sunshine. However, the presence of the hail was everywhere. As we drove into town it looked as if it had snowed! Below is the pile of hail which ran off of our roof into my flower bed.



There were other surprises, as well. During my (very cold and very windy) week here at Easter I got the bright idea to plant a little garden inside our Dr. Seuss fence/secret garden. I bought seeds but had few supporters in town. My cheerleader was Jill Owen, who owns Mountain Front Market (now across the road from us). Since she hails from West Virginia, she was in agreement that it wasn't too early to plant peas. Not only did I plant peas, I planted lettuce, chard, beets, carrots, spinach, and kale with guarded optimism, not daring to imagine that anything would come of it. The local rain (we drove across a green eastern Montana- totally unheard of) was kind, and despite the continued cold weather, everything came up!

The hail storm shredded only the tender spinach, which was nearing the end of its life-span, anyway, so I pulled up most of it for supper last night (more about that later). As you can see, we have lots of lettuce, and the peas are climbing the fence.

This spinach became the basis for last night's supper. Here are the recipes for what I made from my garden:

Black Beans with Spinach

Saute an onion, red pepper, and a clove of garlic until tender. Add the spinach and continue cooking until wilted. Dump in a can of black beans, undrained, about a tsp. of salt, about a tbsp. of vinegar, and 5 shakes of ground cayenne pepper. Mix together and let simmer until the liquid is reduced.

Glenvar's Favorite Salad

In a deep bowl add 1 clove of garlic (I use a garlic press), -this is not optional- it's what makes this dressing! 3/4 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. mustard, 1 tbsp. honey, and 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar. Mix well until honey is dissolved. Slowly add 4-6 tbsp. oil, beating with a wire whisk as you add it. The dressing will get thick and creamy.

Shred fresh lettuce in a large bowl and slowly add a tiny amount of the salad dressing, mixing well as you add it. It takes a very small amount of this dressing, so be careful. Save the rest in the refrigerator for the next salad.

I served the salad and beans with thick-sliced bread from Jill's. YUM!! A great way to start our summer! Since I'm on a greens kick, I'll post more recipes that I use. Many thanks to my students this year who were the inspiration and researchers to find these good ideas.

And last, but not least, we had our steady stream of welcome-back visitors. Our next door neighbor, Laurie, came over immediately (I suspect she is responsible for the lack of weeds in my garden), Rosell came by, then later Tony, and Mike and Calvin sat on the porch with us for a while. I'll call Shelly today, because she'll never forgive me if I'm in town without letting her know, and if it ever warms up, I'll go see Sharon to get whatever flowers she has left over. Today it is pouring rain and Harry's trying to decide if we have an umbrella anywhere in this house. Nope! Never needed it before...