Allyson

I would call this a pesto but it isn’t actually pesto. There’s no Parmesan cheese, and no pine nuts. On the other hand, it’s healthy, and ZOMG so good. I made this two nights in a row, once over gnocchi, and once with chicken and veg, and it was just incredible. This is the chicken version.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup cashew yogurt or Greek yogurt (plain)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 6 oz chicken per person, cubed
• 1/2 red onion, rough chopped
• 6 large mushrooms, sliced thick
• 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 handful spinach

In a blender or food processor, add the basil, yogurt, yeast, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper, and pulse until thoroughly mixed. If it is too thick, add a drizzle of either milk or a non-dairy milk substitute (oatmilk or soy milk). Set aside or refrigerate until ready to use.

In a large pan, saute your chicken until it’s browned. Add in the onions and mushrooms, and cook until the onions soften and the mushrooms have released their liquid. Add in the tomatoes and spinach at the end of the cooking time for just a minute or two. Turn off the heat, and add the creamy basil sauce. Stir to incorporate it evenly.

This can be served as is, or over pasta or rice. It’s quite good over potatoes, too. I would actually love this over cold pasta as a pasta salad!

I’ve tagged this “from behind enemy lines” because I didn’t know where to put it. It’s replacing today’s prepping article because I only have time to write one, and this one needs to be written.

Many of you know, maybe all of you, that I’ve drifted Right over the past few years. Some of it is indeed that the Left has run so far Left that I look Right, but some of it is the conservative beliefs I already had (fiscal conservatism, for instance, and my stance on 2A) coming to the forefront. I have gone from being a “never Trumper” to being cautiously optimistic about him. I think that’s the most I could ever really have for any President, because the act of becoming President means I should be examining their every move carefully. I don’t care if it’s Gandhi or Mother Teresa. If you’re President, every action you take should be scrutinized, constantly and unendingly. You are MY employee, not the other way around, and in order to make sure you do a good job, I need to watch what’s going on.

I am not a fan of the BBB (Congress.gov). First and foremost, I believe that things need to be simple, and people I trust have stated that this bill is full of pork. It’s as full of pork as any other budget that’s been put in front of the House. I don’t want pork. We The People didn’t elect Trump to put pork into bills; he was hired to remove it. The fact that it took some 16 hours for the bill to be read to the Senate says enough. The fact that I don’t have time to read the damn thing from beginning to end says more. The fact that the table of contents itself is larger than I believe ANY bill should be pretty much puts the last nail in the coffin.

If it’s too long for ME to read, then the average American isn’t going to read it. That’s just a statement of plain fact. It’s also a damn shame. It puts the country in another moment of “you have to vote the bill in to know what’s in it.” Nothing that this country’s government is passing should be beyond the understanding of the average American (I realize we need to educate our people more, and that’s another fight for another day, but let’s just assume that most people have the reading ability and comprehension to read most bills). If the government is inking up rules for us that we cannot comprehend, then we’re no better than Britain was 250 years ago, folks. It means we have a ruling class, and that is EXACTLY what we fought to get out of.

I realize some folks are always going to consent to be ruled from on high. I can’t help them. Frankly, I’m not even interested in helping them (though the thought of deporting them has come to mind). If you haven’t voted in the last four Presidential elections, then I’m not really talking to you. You can move along. I’m talking to those of you who give a shit, who try to keep up with this crap, and attempt to understand it in order to make educated choices.

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I spent a good portion of my early life in Canada, and so I have a decent understanding of the culture and history of the place. One of the things that was already beginning to fail, long before I left Canada to return to America, was the Canadian medical system. Let’s talk.

Let me start with a BLUF: American health care is great. American health insurance is fucking ridiculous. Canadian healthcare AND insurance is just whackadoodle.

I don’t currently have insurance. The hows and whys are not up for discussion, but the fact is I’ve paid much less for health care in the last 20 years than my family has through their insurance (either via what they pay off their paycheck alone, or what insurance pays… works for both). I get a “discount” when I see the doctor, get medication, have labs and scans done, etc. because I am uninsured. The quotes are there because the payment I make is frankly what everyone should be making, or rather it’s slightly higher than it ought to be but I can live with it.

American insurance causes people to overcharge on a regular basis, because if they don’t, then they could lose out on insurance payments altogether. I don’t even really understand it. It’s fekking complex. It’s the only industry in the world where MY broken leg and YOUR broken leg, despite being exactly the same, could have vastly different costs. Even when all other things are equal, a doctor’s office, surgeon, or anyone else in the medical factory cannot give you a price until after the work is done, and then they still can’t give you a price because Reasons.

Today, I had to go in and see my GP about my shoulder. I injured it several years ago, and lately it’s been giving me a lot of grief. It is time, even though I’m terrified of the bill for the MRI I’m about to get (anyone want to buy a cookbook? *sigh*). I went in and immediately she bundled together the visit I’d come in for with some other upcoming visits that I can now skip. Hooray, no paying for extra office visits! Win number one.

She looked at my shoulder, hemmed and hawed for a minute, and then started in. “Well, first we should probably send you to physical therapy…”

I stopped her. “I am self-pay, remember. What is going to be the best use of my money?”

“Oh! I forgot! Well, then we should go straight to the MRI. It’s possible they’ll refer you to therapy, but more than likely you’d have gone through weeks of expensive therapy only to be referred to get an MRI and have a different path forward. I’ll make out that paperwork right now.” And off she went. I came home with my papers for getting an MRI on my shoulder, and now I can shop around to find the cheapest place to get that MRI done.

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Color me surprised. I had no idea until yesterday that it was possible to revoke someone’s citizenship, even years and decades after it’s been sealed. I have to admit, I’m a bit concerned about this. The case that brought this to my attention was that of Elliott Duke, previously of the UK (NPR). The NPR article is obviously biased, so I went and found the removal order announcement from the Office of Public Affairs. Basically, Duke had kiddie porn that he was watching and distributing, and was arrested and sent to jail for that crime (ICE). Now, he’s also facing deportation.

Do I want kiddie diddlers in my country? No. But frankly, that’s something that should have been discovered during the lengthy and grueling process of becoming a US citizen. Somewhere in the multiple interviews, the background checks, the letters from people at home, and frankly, the check into his military status, SOMEONE should have see this. People applying for entry to the United States should be undergoing hefty scrutiny.

It feels to me like this is similar in nature to the idea of criminals losing their 2nd Amendment rights. I can agree that I don’t want violent criminals having access to firearms. However, if you’re letting a violent criminal out of jail, and you’re so sure he’ll re-offend that you want to strip him of a Constitutionally protected right, then why the hell are you releasing him at all?

When it comes to Duke, he broke the law while a citizen, and before becoming a citizen. He’s shown he’s a cretin.

When I go and read the actual DoJ papers in regards to stripping previously naturalized citizens of their citizenship, it’s incredibly open-ended. Whether I believe Trump’s people are going to use it poorly doesn’t even matter. I know that some Left leaning president will do so. Therefore, we should not be doing this. The Civil Division memo dated June 11, 2025, states, in part:

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Have you ever found yourself in the position of wanting to tell a friend about the Vine of Liberty, but you didn’t have anything to write on? Well, we’ve designed some business cards!

These are standard sized business cards, vertical rather than horizontal. The cards are matte, with a very soft finish that allows the plain white back to be used for jotting down phone numbers or notes for your friends. The front includes the URL for the blog, plus a QR code that brings them right to us.

I do not know what the S&H will be just yet, and it will probably change depending on where the cards are going, but if you’d like to order cards, drop me a line at m.allyson.szabo@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to send you some. Payment can be made via credit card (I can issue an invoice), or you can use Paypal or otherwise arrange things with Chris.

And thank you to ALL of you, for making this blog a place that I love to read and to write for. I hope you’re all having an awesome summer!

I’m not a huge fan of hash, to be honest. However, I am a BIG fan of using up leftovers. The other day when it was hot, I used our Westinghouse to cook up a whole turkey (it was small, only 15 lbs or so). I’ve been using it in sandwiches and salads since last week, which has saved us turning the stove on during hot weather. As with Thanksgiving turkey, after a while you tend to run out of the usual leftover turkey dishes. I was looking for something different but yummy, and this was the recipe I found. This is my take on one by DownShiftOlogy. It was so delicious that we’ve decided to make it again, and soon! This dish serves two people.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium or a couple of small red potatoes
• olive oil
• 1 small yellow or red onion, in half circles
• 2 green onions, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup cooked turkey, diced finely
• ½ cup thick sliced mushrooms (optional)
• ½ cup rough diced bell peppers (optional)
• 1-½ tsp finely chopped fresh thyme (or ½ teaspoon dried thyme)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 eggs

Cook your potatoes until they are barely soft. I did mine in the microwave, but you can easily use leftover potatoes, or even frozen hash browns for this. Dice the potatoes into small pieces, about a half inch square. I like the skin; your mileage may vary. Feel free to discard it if you wish.

Oil a large cast iron (or other) pan and add in the onions and potatoes, and cook until the onions begin to soften. Add in the mushrooms and bell pepper, if you will be using them. Continue to cook until the mushrooms are soft and cooked. You want to leave the contents of the pan in a single layer, as much as possible, and don’t touch them for about four to five minutes. This lets the bottom get crispy and golden.

Add in the green onion and garlic, and gently stir. Cook for another minute or two. Add in the turkey and spices. Saute for another five to ten minutes, or until everything is thoroughly warmed.

In another non-stick pan, cook two eggs per person. These can be fried or poached, as you wish. Keep the yolks soft, unless you have picky eaters who simply can’t tolerate it.

Serve up on a plate with half of the hash and the two eggs on top. There’s no need for toast, with this meal, but it’s a welcome addition if you have some.

Notes:

If you like spicy, sprinkle the entire plate with a good quality sriracha. This adds both color and flavor, as well as a dash of heat.

This hash is lightly based off an African dish called shakshuka. You can find it here, if you’d like to check it out!

So what I do, when I’m out and attending events, is I set up a historically inspired or historically accurate (depending on the event) encampment. I dress the part, I cook meals either inspired by or directly from recipes of the time period. While I’m not perfect, I try to be very aware of what’s modern and what’s not, so that I can explain to any interested onlookers.

This lends itself well to gadget building. Not modern camping gadgets, though. While those are nice, they’re not replaceable. I can enjoy them, but only in moderation. I’m talking about the kind of gadgets you can build on site, for each event. Or they take so few resources that you can carry said resources with you. When looking into these types of items, I almost always turn to the Boy Scouts (mostly “of old” because the modern ones seem to have lost some of the sauce that made them special, but whatever). They have great publications, both on and offline.

When you look at paintings and sketches and such of earlier time periods, you learn things. A lot of the images contain people doing normal human things. Laundry, cooking, writing home, lounging, and the like. It’s the details I look for, though. What do they have around the fire? Are their tools laying on the ground, or hanging, or what? Where are their towels? How do they hang their wet laundry? What do their tables look like?

Chris is making some shelves for me, and probably a box that is both dry larder and a hide for my very modern cooler. It will look like a standard wooden chest, but will contain some build in shelves for canned and other dry goods, and a big section to slide my cooler into. When the lid is closed, it’ll be just like any other piece of camp furniture. And it will break down and flat-pack in the truck, which is a personal requirement I have of most items.

But there are other, little gadgets that I need in my encampment, and I’m in the process of learning how to make them. The first and most important one for me is a garbage bag holder. I know it seems stupid, but I need to have a modern garbage bag on hand for my very modern garbage… but I don’t want it in plain view. I’m going to be using a “three stave” version (the pic to the right is a four stave style), with either twine or small branches going between the tops of the staves. My garbage bag will be inside a large cotton canvas bag, which will in turn be draped over the staves. Voila, something that doesn’t take away from the camp look, but allows me easy access to my rubbish bin.

The Boy Scouts have a bunch of cool gadget pages, but the best is the Scout Pioneering “camp gadgets” page. If you read through, there are literally hundreds of projects, some large and many small. The second gadget that I’ll be making is a pot holder. This one, like the garbage bin, doesn’t require any twine or tying. For each end of the two sticks, you drive a criss cross of pegs which can be made of any bits of wood laying around. Lay the rods or sticks on top, and now you have a place out of the dirt to put your washing to dry, or the lid off your dutch oven. I have a trivet that I’ve used previously, but this is a much better alternative and one I can install along the far side of my fire. It will have the added benefit of keeping patrons from walking into the fire pit (which is actually a larger problem than you might think).

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Considering my post from yesterday and the “Nazi salute” that prompted it, I thought this was germane to the moment. 😉

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16rizNSXqL/

My kid has been harassing me to go to a friend’s wedding at an event this fall. I didn’t want to go to the event, but I did want to go to the wedding. These are friends who showed up to their first event and had a catastrophic failure with their food, and ended up at a 4 day event with nothing to eat but nuts. My household “rescued” them, fed them, loved them. They, in turn, adopted my kid (they’re only a couple of years older than my kid, though at the time they were young adults working full time and mine was still in high school). I’ve always been proud of that, the concept of being there to help and offer a hand up to people.

Now, those people are definitely on the Left. But they were, I thought, good people. And on one level they are. They do help others, support people down on their luck, and pass along the help we gave to them. But they are not the type of good people I thought they were.

Today, my very disturbed (adult) kid came to me and said that they’d spoken to those people… and that they didn’t want me at their wedding. I was too extreme. Apparently, when I “supported Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute” they were all done with me, and deleted me. Kid is gutted, apologetic, unsure of what to do.

I’d assumed they’d stopped following me. I’ve unfollowed a few people on social media that I’m still very good friends with. Sometimes, your religion or your politics or some other belief is just too much, and you don’t want to see it. You unfollow them but remain friends, as they say on Facebook. That way, I don’t have to read their posts about their parakeet, their love of Kamala Harris, or their hatred of their job. Or whatever it is I’m tired of seeing. Sometimes I “snooze” people, and sometimes I unfollow them. I VERY rarely unfriend someone, though. I actually want to know the other side of things, and seek out diverse input about various things. To me, that’s vital if you want to be good at … well, pretty much anything.

In any case, I knew they were very Left, and had assumed I’d been unfollowed, just as I’d unfollowed them. No harm, no foul. Despite the mismatch of political beliefs (and I can’t say opposite, because there are still things I heartily agree with them on), I’d always gotten along with them in person. They decided no.

These are people who know me to be kind, helpful, and generous with my time, my resources, and my knowledge. They know all my various niches and labels. But they were so offended that I had a thought opposite to their political ideology, that they had to not only not read my stuff (understandable) but had to remove themselves from me entirely. Online, offline, whatever, they don’t want anything to do with me.

Once more, I find myself disappointed, in people I considered friends, and in myself. Perhaps it’s the sting of the rejection, but I ask myself, was I so poor a judge of character? Again, I haven’t changed. My beliefs are still the same. Some of my opinions have changed because I’ve learned more and educated myself on subjects, but my morals and ethics are still the same.

The thing is, I’m sure they think the same thing. I’m absolutely certain that they were concerned for my kid, worried about her having a parent who thinks like I do. And that concern is likely genuine. But how am I supposed to trust in that again? It makes me ill and I really just don’t know what to think about the whole thing.

I’m disappointed in them. They accepted my hospitality when it suited them, but turned their back the moment it wasn’t all unicorn farts and rainbows. And that hurts.

My (former) best friend walked away because of my politics. That hurt more than I can describe. And you know what? If she showed up on my doorstep tomorrow, asking for help, I would help her. That’s me. That’s what I do.

But man, my patience is starting to wear awful thin.

I can’t write more about this right now. I’m too raw and angry and frustrated. And I’m too damn hot, because the lowest temperature my room has been at in 48 hours is 82*F.

We love salmon in our home, and I cook it in a variety of different ways. This, however, is my “signature” recipe and it’s the one I get requests for most often. This salmon can be eaten with “the usual suspects” as sides (pasta/potato/rice, salad/steamed veg), or you can shred it after cooking and toss it over a cold salad for a summer treat. Check out the notes below, as there are cooking options listed!

Ingredients:

• 4 to 6 oz salmon per person (filet, not steaks)
• oil for cooking
• soy sauce
• fresh lemon, half sliced and half juiced
• good quality balsamic vinegar (like this one)
• white wine (optional)
• minced garlic (fresh or dried)
• salt and pepper to taste
• fresh herbs: thyme, oregano, rosemary, winter savory, dill are usual

Preheat your oven to 400*F. In a high edge pan or cast iron pan, add some olive oil or other heat safe oil and spread it over the bottom of the pan. Add in your salmon pieces, skin down. Drizzle with soy sauce, the half of a lemon’s juice, about a tablespoon or more of the vinegar, and a dash of wine if you like. Then top with the garlic, herbs, salt, and pepper. You can use dried herbs, about a total of a tablespoon of herbs per 6 oz of salmon. Fresh herbs are, in my opinion, better.

Pop the salmon into the oven and bake for about 25 minutes. Using a thermometer, check for a finished temperature between 125* and 145* F (I like mine more rare, but some people don’t like to risk it and cook it for longer). Check the temp at the fattest part of the salmon. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can try flaking the fat part of the salmon; when it flakes easily and is no longer fleshy and dark pink, it’s ready.

Let this sit on the counter, out of the oven, for about five minutes. This lets the juices settle and the flavors mingle.

Notes:

You can cook this on your stove top, at a medium heat. Using a pan large enough for your salmon, begin with the salmon skin-side down. Cook until you start to see the cooked part of the salmon not quite to the half way point. Flip the salmon over, and continue to cook for about 2 minutes, then flip so the skin is down again. Cook until the salmon is done (see instructions above). If you have a very fat part of salmon, you can put a couple of tablespoons of water or wine or broth into the pan and put a lid over it while cooking.

You can cook this on your grill! If you have a fish grill basket, you can use that. If you don’t, then use a cast iron pan or pick up disposable mesh grill mats. Don’t try to grill salmon directly on your grill bars, because they’re too far apart and your salmon will end up in the fire, and you will be sad.

Though I haven’t tried it, I’d warrant you could even cook this in your air fryer or your slow cooker (though I’d be wary of that last). Enjoy!