A Rainy Sunday

I suppose our gorgeous run of weather had to break sometime. As much as I love warm, sunny days, it is nice to have those chilly, rainy days that make you feel like hibernating. Or baking. I whipped up some Bisquik waffles with pecans. As much as I don't care for Bisquik pancakes, it does make a decent waffle and it sure is easy. I had hoped to also get some muffins made, but didn't get around to those. I did, however, make some Chewy Ginger Snaps at my husband's request.

Tonight we tried a new recipe for dinner. I was browsing through the May issue of Cooking Light and two spinach recipes caught my eye. I love spinach. My family is slowly coming around and I try to sneak it in wherever I can. This salad recipe caught my eye because it included egg and bacon. I find that it's often easier to get them to try something if it includes one or two things you know are winners (in this case, the egg and bacon).

Spinach Salad with Egg, Bacon and Goat Cheese

Funny thing is, when I went to make the recipe, I realized that it doesn't call for spinach at all! I'm so glad I imagined it - it's perfect with spinach. I strayed quite far from the written recipe, even beyond the spinach subsitution, and really only used the recipe as inspiration to try something new. The CL salad calls for toasted walnuts, pear and blue cheese. I'm not crazy about walnuts in salad and I often don't care for fruits in salad, either. I used goat cheese instead of blue cheese because that was what I had on hand and needed to use up. Instead of using their dressing recipe, I used this one that we've made many times and really like.

One thing I found interesting about this recipe was the way the eggs are cooked. You cook them in ramekins or custard cups in the microwave. This idea intrigues me as a quick and easy way to make an egg for breakfast in the morning. Maybe I'll give it a try tomorrow. I love a runny egg on buttered whole wheat toast. Yum.

This salad received two thumbs up from the boys. Even if I hadn't asked them, it was pretty obvious from the way they were shoveling it in! I think the strong flavor from the Dijon dressing and the goat cheese help to make spinach more palatable for them.

I still have a whole bag of spinach left, so next up is a frittata from the new CL and maybe this recipe for a brown rice risotto that I spied on Sweetnick's ARF round-up this week. Looks delish. What could be better than healthful comfort food??

VRC REMINDER! You have until tomorrow night to submit your favorite salad recipe. I will post the round-up tomorrow night. There are only a few entries so far, so I hope a few of you are still planning to participate.

And last, but not least, my submission for tonight's WBD over at Sweetnicks.

Poor Bailey. If they had animal protective services in our area, we might have been reported! His ears have a tendency to get dirty, but I often forget to check them until he starts shaking his head. He hadn't been doing a lot of that lately, but when my husband checked his ears, one of them was absolutely filthy. I have cleaned it 3 or 4 times and it's getting better, but not quite there yet. I feel horrible!

We go to the vet tomorrow for his yearly vaccinations and I'll have them check his ear. I'm also going to have a very worrisome spot on his nose checked and his paws too - his nails don't look healthy to me, so I'm worried about a possible fungus. Poor dog - sounds like he's falling apart! The ticks have been horrible this year (or it may just be that we live in an area more prone to ticks than our old house), so we've been battling those as well.

Anyway, here are two pictures (can't pick one) of Bailey getting his ears cleaned. He's not crazy about getting them cleaned, but his face tells us that he was rather enjoying it in spite of himself.

I'm so glad to have had time to blog today. Hopefully I'll get a chance again soon. Until then.......