Just A Few Things Again...

...That I want to share today.

For those who are concerned or interested about the state of my formerly hairy legs, mentioned in THIS POST last week - You'll be glad to know that I bush hogged them Saturday night. But in a few days they'll be in need of another bush hogging. A woman's work toward beauty (okay, just presentability in my case) is never done. At least I shouldn't scare small children and people with weak hearts or stomachs now.

(Photo courtesy of http://www.answers.com/)
V. from Northern Idaho asked in the commments what I do with zucchini. I don't think she means do I take my squash out on the town, so I'm assuming she means recipes and culinary uses for zucchini.

Well, V, I use zucchini any way you'd use yellow summer squash, which means I flour and fry it with sliced onion, make squash casserole, add it to stir fry and many other things.

One of my favorite ways to serve fresh zucchini is to steam it about 5 minutes then scoop out the pulp, leaving about a half inch shell with the skin, then mix the pulp with a beaten egg, bread crumbs, chopped onion and parmesan cheese, then stuff the pulp back into the zucchini and top with marinara sauce and shredded mozzarella. Yum, and it's a great vegetarian meal.

I also make zucchini bread and muffins, though it's been a while since I made any.

I don't have any of the recipes I've mentioned posted on MY RECIPE BLOG but I'll try to get some posted soon. I'll let you know when I get them posted.I have to go to my doctor this morning to have a 2-hour fasting glucose tolerance test done. I have to drink some sickly sweet potion then have my blood drawn immediately after I drink it, then every hour afterwards to see if my sugar is staying too high.

I have to have at least 2 documented tests in the doctor's office with my blood sugar testing above the normal levels before my insurance company will pay for my diabetic testing supplies and any medications, even though my glucose meter stores my test results for 14 days worth of tests and they average in the 150's for my blood sugar levels, and some are in the high 190's.

I hate drinking the super sweet concoction worse than having my blood drawn!

(While I was searching Google*Images for graphics to use on this post, I came across this image of a guy who has a glucose molecule tattoed to his shoulder.

Can I just ask - "Sir, what up with THAT??" Obviously he suffers from delirium brought on by high blood sugar. That's the tamest explanation I can come up with anyway.)
After I get done with my sugar test I have to do my monthly shopping. It's bad enough any other time, but today's high is supposed to be near 100F. That's about 38C to all my friends who measure your temps on the Celsius scale. For the next several days it's supposed to hit 100F and above, or about 39C.

Can we all say, Ick! Just....Ick! So much for my shower that I just finished earlier. Once I set foot outside my door that's the end of the clean feeling from that shower. I'm sure by the time I get home this afternoon I'll be ready for another shower!If anybody ever finds a way to make out-of-season tomatoes and other fruit and garden stuff taste the same as it does when comes out of the garden in Summer time, that man will rule the world! While he's at it, if he can find a way to preserve tomatoes and other fresh fruit and garden stuff so that it tastes as good after it's processed, he'll rival the guy that figured out how to make out-of-season tomatoes taste like the homegrown ones.

Right now I have tomatoes and other garden stuff coming in faster than we can use it all. I do give away some of the stuff and freeze some, but a little blemish on a tomato can grow from a speck to a rurnt (ruined) tomato in a few hours time, it seems.

Come this Winter I'll be pining after homegrown tomatoes, yellow squash, okra, green beans, purple hull peas and other fresh garden stuff. The frozen and canned stuff will work, but it's just not the same as the garden fresh stuff in season. I'll mourn after every bruised tomato and peach that I had to toss in the trash during the Summer time of plenty, wishing I could recapture the taste of Summer once again when the land is cold and fallow and the tomatoes are hard as rocks and have about the same flavor.I think that's enough of my mind-numbing blathering for now, so I'll get this published and get ready for my day in the withering heat and humidity that is August in Arkansas.

Y'all have a great Friday and I hope it's cooler where you are.