Kitchen Window Wednesday and Hooray for Moms

This Wednesday, I am going to stand at the same kitchen window, but point my camera in the other direction.
(We're getting a little bit greener!)

And then I'll give you a recipe for a great take along salad....that uses....TopRamen Noodles (gasp)


In my past few Kitchen Window posts, I have always stood here....





but today, I'm standing here..... same window, same kitchen, but I made a monumental decision and "turned".

Things I've discovered because of my decision to "turn": That I need to wash my kitchen window! And next time...take down the basil plant.

A look at another Friday Friend's kitchen window.... Robbie, my friend Robbie. She had us over for brunch on Sunday, so I took a quick snap of what was outside her window.
We've had rain....Nevada looks green to us... NO LAUGHING!

An ode to Mother's since Mother's Day is close at hand.....

The first "ode" is to my daughter-in-law, who is now 31weeks, 6days pregnant with twins!!

Twins who want to come early (minds of their own already) and she has been in the hospital.....complete bed rest....for 3 weeks today. Yesterday was the first time she got to leave her "pink" hospital room in 20 days. She got to go to the room next door for an ultra-sound growth scan of the babies.
She was VERY excited to leave her room....20 DAYS!!! Stir craziness is settling in. But in a month or so she'll have beautiful babies, and then the painful, boring days of the pink hospital room will all be forgotten.
Three Cheers for her!!

And then I was thinking of recycling .....I have reusable canvas shopping bags, which 9 times out of 10 I forget about because they are in my trunk of my car. (sigh) I need to work on this...maybe start putting my purse in the trunk?

I went to the market the other day and didn't' have my bags. Guilt overcomes me and I end up purchasing one more canvas bag... I think I'm up to 42 in the trunk of my car now. (a slight exaggeration), but I noticed yesterday there was a big note on the door of the grocery store DID YOU REMEMBER YOUR CANVAS BAGS?

I know it was written just for me!! The Manager of the store is my boss. (one of ten) He's on the Board of Directors here at the Chamber of Commerce. He must have had the sign made just for me. (and you, and you and you... I'm not the only one, am I?)

It just dawned on me yesterday, that my mother was a woman before her time. She recycled long ago.
Pepsi bottles! (During my rebellious years, I switched to Coke)

Every Saturday she would buy a six pack of Pepsi in bottles (that was the only way they came, in glass bottles) and thru-out the week, she would have one in the afternoon....sometimes she'd share one with a friend (these were 12oz bottles)....my brother and I never got a Pepsi, because "they were not for kids".
Then the next Saturday, she would take the empty "POP" bottles back to the store and return them and buy herself another 6-pack for the week.

Whatever happened to that? I know, I know, they "used" to charge for the bottles AND they used to reuse the bottles (which they don't do anymore---they used to wash them and reuse them, but now they have to actually "be" recycled, which costs more )

We recycled our milk bottles too.... we went to Thomson's or Thomalson's dairy. It was a drive thru dairy, like a fast food joint. You drove up and handed them your used milk bottles (they were glass) and told them what you wanted; more milk, butter, cream, eggs, etc. and they handed it out the little "drive thru" window.
The glass milk bottles had little paper covers that fit around the opening.....kind of like an egg-carton feel about them. Does anybody remember them?

In Rich's (my husband, the handy-man's) family they recycled too. They had a "milk man" who came to their house every morning early and picked up their used glass milk bottles and left new ones.

Our mothers were women before their time!!
They were green when green was unheard of.
Why did we lose that along the way?
Thanks Moms.
******

I grew up in the great Pacific Northwest, as did my good friend Shelly. We even went to the same elementary school at the same time, but didn't know each other.
Shelly has a couple of signature dishes that she brings to our BBQ's and potlucks. If she failed to show up with one of these, and brought something new, we would be sorely disappointed.
One of these great dishes is this simple shrimp salad, but we love it so much!!

We've put together a "Friday Friend" cookbook over the years. Collected recipes from all of us, The Friday Friends. They are just typed and in a 3 ring binder....no fancy cover, (but a lot of work to do this. Thanks Barb) so I took a picture of the recipe page.

And the ingredients we used. Usually we use fresh salad shrimp, but there was none to be the day I made this salad, so I went with canned shrimp, which is fine, but I rinsed them really good.

Green Salad With Shrimp

Dressing:
1/2 cup vinegar
4 T. sugar
1 cup salad oil
seasoning packet from the Ramen noodles
or 2 t. MSG, 2 t salt, 1 t pepper

Salad:
1 head finely chopped lettuce
1 bunch chopped green onions
3/4 lb. salad shrimp
1 pkg slivered almonds
1 pkg Ramen noodles

Crumble noodles and brown in butter, set aside.
Combine all salad stuff and noodles. Toss with dressing.

And here is Shelly on the left!! (facing the camera) We had just taken a "Desert Walk"
link one
link two 

Thanks Shelly for the great salad recipe.