Blue Monday/Met Monday

I have a dual post again today.

Today is Sally's Blue Monday

and

Susan's Met Monday.

For starters I actually completed a project,

and remembered to take a before pic,

and an after pic!

I have a cedar glider on my patio

that is so comfy,

but it was starting to look like

it had seen a better day.

I had a little help from Grampa,

he helped reinforce it,

then I sanded it and repainted it with

Behr Solid Stain in sage.

(Below is the before - see awful

it was starting to look?)

It was finished and dry just in time

for our 4th of July festivities!

I prepared a boneless turkey breast on the grill.

First I rinsed it off and patted it dry.

Applied a light layer of vegetable oil,

applied pepper and a little paprika.

I discovered that you don't really want

to salt it. The brine that it is packaged in

is quite salty already.

I snipped a few herbs from the patio

and placed them randomly around on it.

I used Sage, of course, some Marjoram,

and a bit of Thyme.

I placed it on prepared tin foil.

Sealed it up and double wrapped her.

(Just a note....place a drip pan underneath

if you want to catch any stray juices for gravy later.)

I'm from the old school, I keep it on the grill

until it reaches 180 on the

instant read thermometer.

We had the turkey breast, cheesy potatoes.

You know the ones made with hash browns

and two kinds of cheese,

(I placed them in a tin foil pan right onto the grill also.)

potato buns, and a Wild Rice Broccoli Salad.

The recipe is to follow.

See, the turkey breast turned out beautifully.

Juicy, not too dry,

because it is wrapped in foil.

I use the Cultivated Wild rice, not the cracked,

for this recipe.

I dice and add a red pepper (I used an anaheim ancient sweet pepper -

but you can use a red bell pepper as well,

a medium red or vidalia onion,

broccoli flowerettes cut into smaller bite size pieces,

and slivered almonds to taste

(that should be toasted, if you have the time),

to the cooked and cooled Wild Rice.

Then I add 3/4 bottle of

Girard's Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing,

(you could make your own with the Ramen Noodle packet)

one minced garlic toe, and a palmful of

Italian Seasonings.

See how pretty it is?

Jacob wanted the bottled Coca-Cola from Sam's.

(It turned out that it is from Mexico,

so it processed with sugar, rather than corn syrup.)

Just like the good old days.

I'm using my new dishes from The Pottery Barn.

Although the plates look like they are paper,

they actually are china, and my cup

appears to be plastic, it actually is glass.

Everyone got a kick out of that.

We are so green....

I hope you give this salad a try.

Everytime I take it somewhere I am asked for the recipe.

It actually tastes better the next day.

I'm off to check out the other Blue Monday offerings

and all of the great projects of

Met Monday.

Robyn