Never gonna …

Okay, before I go you HAVE to see this. Wonder how long it took to produce it ...

Our favorite soup

In fact, this might just be our favorite meal. It's quick to fix, it's full of healthful ingredients, it's delicious, it's better the next day (but we usually gobble it all up) and I usually have everything I need to make it. And if I don't have what's called for, substitutes taste just as good.

Sausage, White Bean and Kale Soup

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 5 asiago-spinach chicken sausages (or other flavorful low-fat sausage), sliced into bite-sized pieces
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, thinly sliced
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 four-ounce can mushrooms, pieces and stems, drained
• 4 cups low-fat chicken broth
• 2 cups cooked white beans
• 1 large bunch kale, rinsed, stemmed and torn

In Dutch oven or large saucepan, swirl oil to coat bottom of pan. Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add sausage pieces and cook two to three minutes. Add chopped onion and celery and continue cooking until onion is translucent and celery has softened. Add the rosemary, mushrooms, chicken broth and beans and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the torn kale and cook another 15 to 20 minutes.

You can garnish with shaved Parmesan and serve with crusty bread, but we usually don't.

If you can't find a chicken sausage to suit your taste, you can use chopped cooked chicken breast pieces. You could add zucchini ribbons or sliced carrots if you have them on hand. Black beans, or a mixture of black and white beans, is an interesting variation, too. And certainly, feel free to sub fresh spinach or escarole for the kale. There's something about the kale, though, that really boosts the flavor.

So there you go … next time you need dinner on the table in a hurry, TRY THIS SOUP. I predict you'll love it.

P.S. Mad Men was great, and I had the den all to myself (my husband would probably LOVE this show if he'd just open his mind enough to realize that there's more to television than NEWS). I also got a lot of knitting done. My sleep for the next few months will probably suffer, as the one-hour regular episodes don't start until 10 p.m. Seriously, I thought 10 only came once a day. Sigh.

Three words

Mad.
Men.
TONIGHT!

Oh, okay, more than three words. Do you know how hard it would be for me to do a three-word post? You guys are the only people I talk to all day, other than my husband. And the dog. And they get pretty tired of my chatter after a while.

This was yesterday's Project 365 picture. The prompt was
An Animal. Had to snap something quick when I got home,
because it's hard to take drive-by pictures of cows or turkey
buzzards. Hershey was, um, bored with it all.

Yesterday was a good day to travel. It rained and/or was cloudy and grey all day, and I didn't mind being cooped up in a hotel conference room with a couple dozen other Democratic women. And one clearly outnumbered man, who didn't appear to mind being outnumbered at all.

I've been appointed to chair a committee for the group (our state Democratic women's organization) and I volunteered to be on a planning committee for the 2013 national convention, which will be held in West Virginia. You'd never know I used to be a Republican. But I make no secret of it, and they all seem to like me anyway.

It's raining now, and looks like it might continue to do so most of the day. I hope it clears up long enough to go for a walk, but if it doesn't I can and should will hop on the elliptical. And I will definitely be taking a nap. Rainy days are good for that, and I will need one, because the Mad Men season premiere doesn't start until 9 p.m. Eastern.

Which is usually past my bedtime.

Still no answer ...

on the logo. Maybe I'll make a video and it'll go viral on YouTube and out of the millions of people who view it, the original designer will come out of the woodwork and offer me lotsocashmoneybucks for the one remaining gimmetote left from that particular event.

Or not.

Moving on …

I originally dedicated my Project 365 blog (I guess it should be 366 this year, eh?) this year to food, glorious food. But you know what? You can take just so many pictures of meat and salad and it starts getting boring. And repetitive. And boring. A couple days ago I kind of circumvented the topic by posting food for the soul, but yesterday I just busted out totally and shot this.

People, it's waaay too early for daffodils. The first daff photo I took last year was of a bunch of them along a median strip. On March 23. The first asparagus started coming up March 15. I'm kind of afraid to go look at the asparagus bed. I haven't even cut back last year's dead stalks.

I continue to stay on track with the food part of the South Beach plan, but totally blew off any intentional activity yesterday. Even though the dumbbells are now convenient to where I usually park my ass. I kept postponing the walking, mostly because I was busy clearing out the guest room of the generational clutter.

Among the treasures I found were five tuxedo shirts, all different, four of which are in remarkably good shape. They'd been carefully folded and placed in the bottom of a cardboard box, and then various other odd things were tossed atop them. Things like:

• Dozens of spools of thread, some wooden
• A set of plaques with heart images on them, advertising drugs made by Boehringer-Ingleheim
• A stack of handprinted fabric squares, 9x9 inches, made in Key West, FL
• Odd pieces of light blue cotton
• Enough beautiful dark-pink cotton pique fabric, embroidered all over with daisies, to make my younger granddaughter a dress
• A Kodak camera. With film in it.

And that was just one box. I'm also now stocked for life with blue, white and black fabric ribbon, and with gift wrap. As long as I want to present my gifts in a plain brown wrapper.

Today looks like a good day to catch up on another episode from Glee's first season. I'm always gone on Tuesday nights when it airs, and I don't have anyone to talk about the episodes with anyway, so I don't mind being a couple years behind. I do intend, however, to keep up with Mad Men when it begins its new season on AMC March 25. 9 p.m. Be there or be square.