Friday, February 27, 2026
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Fast & Healthy Marinated Salad

By
Debbie Dance Uhrig
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With the heavy heat at week’s end I decided it was time to do a hearty marinated salad for our lunches this week. The recipe may be simple, but I will be honest and say the prep took a little time. The ticket is to do parts one evening and then finish it the second evening. This outline is going to be totally flexible according to your likes and dislikes.

When I prepared the quinoa and rice I cooked more than the recipe needed. Currently these two ingredients are in Ziploc bags in the refrigerator, if I don’t use them in a couple of days I will place them in the freezer for a later use. This is when you will be so thankful you cooked extra.

When I made the salad on Saturday, our son, Phillip, said he wasn’t going to eat any because of the artichokes and tomatoes. Then I heard him go to the garage deep freeze and I knew he was hunting for an alternative! Since I knew what he was up to I went out and said: ‘Hey, how about some quick fix fried rice?’ He sautéed some of his favorite vegetables, added soy, etc., used the last chicken breast diced, added quinoa and rice, and wrapped it up with 2-3 eggs scrambled in the center. Then he brought all his ingredients together and had a quick and simple fried rice. By the way…..I’ll run my Malaysian Fried Rice in the near future so you can make a large ‘bunch’ of fried rice for your lunches. It’s a little more intensive than this simple little version, and more flavorful.

Feel free to put the extra quinoa and rice in the freezer. This way you are ready to add them to any dish. Another way to be a bit more efficient in the kitchen.

For the dressing I used one of my favorite commercial dressings by the company, ‘Breanna’. Yes, this salad dressing is a bit more expensive than most, but it’s worth it for the taste. I like to use the poppy seed version on some of my Cole slaw recipes. The peach dressing and strawberry are good with the matching fruit also added to a salad. Sure, it would have been good to make dressing from scratch, but I had other things to do and using a prepared salad dressing doesn’t hurt a thing!

I was hearing some rather intensive heat for this week, so plan your meals sensibly. When the heat intensifies the AC units are working overtime. There’s nothing wrong with a plate of sliced tomatoes and sandwiches. I know I always say, ‘I remember’, but I’m going to do it anyway. My mom made all the hot meals at lunch, especially when we didn’t have air conditioning! Evening was cold cuts and chips, then a trip to the local quarry, for a swim.

Enjoy trying something different this week. Simply yours, The Covered Dish.

Note: This makes enough salad for 12-14 persons, you may need to cut the recipe in half.

 

Healthy Marinated Salad

2-3 baked chicken breasts, cut into small pieces
2 cups cooked red quinoa
4 cups brown Basmati rice
Salt for quinoa and rice, see below-
1 bunch of green onion, finely diced
2 jars (10 oz. ea.) quartered artichokes, drained
1 container of grape tomatoes, sliced in half
4 canning size cucumbers (these are small), cut in half and slice
4 ounces sugar snap peas, trimmed and cut julienne style
1 can (20 oz. approx.) black beans, drained & rinsed
4-6 ounces of Asiago cheese, (may change this), add after the dressing-
Fresh minced Basil, or 1 tablespoon dry Italian spices
1 teaspoon dry chipotle pepper
Brianna Asiago Caesar dressing, about 8-12 ounces
* Fresh sliced spinach would be a good addition-
1 large bowl

Other choices might be dried fruits, walnuts, or even a turn towards a more Italian version
using colored peppers, black or green olives and perhaps an Italian meat.

While the chicken is being cooked; prepare the quinoa and rice. Follow the directions on the bags and you should do just fine. After rinsing the dry basmati I did add a bit of dry stock to the boiling water before cooking. Salt was added to both saucepans, perhaps 1/2 teaspoon each.

Make sure the rice and quinoa are totally dry & cool before adding into your large bowl. Sometimes I will put down paper towels and spread it out to dry. Prepare all the vegetables
& meat and add to the bowl. Sprinkle on seasonings, next pour on a portion of the dressing and stir. Gradually add more until it’s at your desired level. Lastly; I would add the cheese and perhaps sliced spinach to the mixture.

This will be a great protein dish for your lunch, by using brown rice and quinoa you will have cut down on lots of carbohydrates. Be sure and read the column above as I give additional tips for this recipe.

 

Bull Frogs and Me

By
Steve Gilliland
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Bull frog season in Kansas stirs up lots of fond memories. It seems bull frogs and frog hunting were a part of my summer for many years as a kid. When I was in grade school, there was a big drainage ditch across the road from the neighbor kids’ house. The three of them had a BB gun and there was never a shortage of frogs in the ditch. When we weren’t shooting at frogs in the ditch, we were behind the barn shooting their big boar hog in the butt (and elsewhere.) Anyway, each time we finally managed to kill a frog, we’d cut the thing open with our pocket knives and retrieve the BB’s.(how’s that for recycling?)
After we moved away from there, lots of my friends were city kids so my outdoor adventures consisted of me shooting blackbirds out of trees along the creek with mom’s old fold-up .410 shotgun, catching crawdads under the bridge using forked sticks as spears and learning how to trap muskrats.
We moved one more time before I graduated from high school, and there all my buddies were country kids once again that trapped and hunted rabbits, deer and bull frogs. There was a farm a few miles away with two ponds, one on each side of the road, and they both teemed with bull frogs. Back then the hot humid summer nights didn’t bother me at all, and that was the best frog hunting weather. By then we were all in high school and one of us always had some beater of a car, so we’d don warn-out jeans and old sneakers (which was our usual attire anyway,) fill the trunk with flashlights, feed sacks and frog spears and head for the ponds after dark. I can only figure the farmer only let our motley crew on his property hoping we’d all drown in the pond and never bother him again. Anyway, we would split up to cover both ponds at once, slowly wading around the edge knee-deep in the water until a frog was spotted ahead. Putting the flashlight beam in its eyes dazzled the frog until we could spear it and add it to the feed sack hanging around our waist.
I remember vividly returning home after one particular frog hunt at those ponds. The night was hot and steamy and the four of us went to work butchering frogs in our driveway under the security light by the barn, using an empty hay wagon for a table. Sacks were emptied and squirming bull frogs went everywhere. I also vividly remember mom hollering out her upstairs bedroom window for us to be quiet; I don’t know what her problem was, it was only 2 in the morning!
Frog meat is white and sweet, and half the fun of frog hunting is watching the legs twitch and quiver as they fry in the oil. One night, a girl friend of one of the guys was there as we fried up a mess of legs. The experience was all new to her, so while she was out of the room, we propped up a big pair of the legs on the edge of the skillet as if they had climbed out. As I recall that was the last time she ever hung-out with us.
About fifteen years ago, when my dad was still alive and was nearly 80, I took him frog hunting. We went just out of town to some of the McPherson Valley Wetland ponds. It was a slow night for harvesting frogs, but we got enough to have a “small mess” to fry. The legs still twitched and quivered as they fried, and they still tasted just as sweet as I remembered them. Thankfully, some things never change! Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.
Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected].

 

Time to Enroll!

By
Guest Columnist
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September is just around the corner! That means cooler weather, fall sports and the Extension Master Gardener Basic Training course. You can be a pro or a novice, this program is for anyone! Are you interested in learning about flowers, vegetables, landscaping trees, turf, or growing plants, etc.? Are you interested in volunteering? K-State Research and Extension-Harvey County is accepting applications for the fall 2023 Basic Master Gardener class.

Master Gardener trainees are instructed in the areas of landscaping, soils, plant diseases, insects, herbs, flowers and turf, trees and shrubs, gardening, vegetables, fruit, and landscaping among others. The teachers of the class are Kansas State University experts, horticulture industry personnel, and county extension agents. Trainees receive approximately 40 hours of instruction on Thursdays from mid-September to mid-December. In return, the new trainee returns 40 hours of volunteer time the following year to extension through various activities such as: The Giving Garden, garden tours, The Harvey County Home and Garden show, flower bed displays, etc.

The fee for the program is $125.

If you have an interest in this program or would like to learn more, stop by the extension office in the basement of the courthouse at 8th and Main in Newton, or call me at 284-6930. Master Gardener classes start on Thursdays beginning September 14 and end December 14, 2023. Enrollment ends September 5,2023.

 

Wheat Scoop: African trade team explores Kansas wheat industry

By
Guest Columnist
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Kansas Wheat

Contact: Marsha Boswell, [email protected]

For audio version, visit kswheat.com.

Exports of Kansas wheat may be in short supply right now, but working with international customers is a critical piece of developing and maintaining long-term markets. That’s why decision-makers from agribusiness companies in Nigeria and Kenya traversed Kansas in early August to learn more about hard red winter (HRW) wheat and the U.S. grain supply chain as part of a trade team organized by Kansas Wheat and U.S. Wheat Associates (USW).

“Harvest results may differ from year-to-year, but coordinating local visits directly connects our customers with the dependable farmers who are committed to growing high-quality wheat,” said Aaron Harries, vice president of research and operations for Kansas Wheat. “Around the world, grain buyers, millers and bakers track the progress of our wheat crop each year, and moving past the headlines is important to communicating the quantity and quality of each year’s harvest.”

The team traveled to Kansas from August 5 to 9, visiting grain companies, wheat researchers and a flour mill. At the USDA Federal Grain Inspection Service in Kansas City, the team received an up-and-close look at how U.S. wheat samples are inspected and graded before heading off to markets both foreign and domestic. In Manhattan, the team learned about this year’s crop quality as well as wheat research projects and upcoming varieties at the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center and USDA Center for Grain and Animal Health Research. Discussions at the IGP Institute included the program’s technical training and assistance programs in addition to tours of the full-scale pilot flour and feed mills. Finally, the team toured a commercial flour mill in McPherson.

“Our team had a chance to visit all aspects of the supply chain, giving them a sense of how U.S. wheat quality is ensured throughout the way,” said Chad Weigand, USW regional director for Sub-Saharan Africa, based in Cape Town, South Africa, who accompanied the team. “These visits provide reassurance to overseas buyers that they are getting the quality they want, and face-to-face visits go a long way in providing trust and confidence in our buyers and establishing long-term relationships.”

Trade team participants represented two distinctly different types of overseas markets — large and well-established customers and emerging markets that present future market opportunities. Both are important to the long-term mission of U.S. Wheat Associates — the industry’s export market development organization — which invests funding from USDA Foreign Agricultural Service export market development programs to bring trade teams of overseas customers and stakeholders to the United States each year. These visits provide important selling points in a world marketplace where Kansas wheat producers compete against their counterparts in Canada, Argentina, Australia and the Black Sea.

Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy and the fourth-largest buyer of U.S. wheat in the world. The United States has been the top wheat supplier in Nigeria two of the last five marketing years; the majority of which is HRW. This market is increasingly competitive with millers subject to price constraints. As a result, U.S. wheat farmers can lose out in this market when the dollar is strong or supplies are short, but Kansas Wheat and USW have built strong ties between the Nigerian milling industry and the U.S. grain supply chain. Trade teams like the one in early August are an important part of that process to reinforce the quality, reliability and value of U.S. wheat supplies for when market conditions are ripe.

Kenya, on the other hand, is considered a developing market. Per capita wheat consumption has increased significantly as the flour market consolidates and urbanization increases. Most wheat flour sold, however, is still used for the home baking of chapatti, a type of flatbread.

USW is assisting this growing flour industry, particularly by working with up-and-coming millers who are just learning their trade. By providing technical assistance in areas like grain analysis, test milling, flour analysis and test baking, USW helps grow the region’s milling industry and increase those millers’ knowledge of and experience with U.S. wheat classes and their different functionality and advantages. USW also works with the flour industry to address trade policies — like import requirements — that would increase costs or complications in future imports of U.S. wheat.

While the buying opportunities for both markets will be limited by the short supply of HRW wheat this year, building and maintaining relationships with overseas customers through trade teams and other market development efforts will continue to contribute to the long-term growth of opportunities for Kansas wheat farmers.

Learn more about the trade opportunities and issues affecting the Kansas wheat industry at https://kswheat.com/international.

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Written by Julia Debes for Kansas Wheat

A bad day

By
Milo Yield
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0
Thayne Cozart
Milo Yield

A morose, sad-eyed, downtrodden farmer wuz sitting at the bar one smothering, stifling afternoon staring at his frosty mug of beer, watching the condensing water run down the side of the mug and puddle on the bar.
Then a large, loud, trouble-making biker slams the front door to the bar, steps up next to the farmer, grabs his frosty mug and gulps the cold beer down in one swig.
Then he looked condescendingly over at the farmer and blares menacingly, “Well, whatcha’ gonna do about that you pansy farmer,” he said. “You gonna just sit there like a coward and take it?”
The farmer unexpectedly burst into tears.
“Aw, come on, man,” the biker says, “I didn’t think you’d cry. I was just being a biker bully. That’s what us bikers are supposed to do. It’s our schtick. It’s how we’re supposed to uphold biker tradition. In truth, fella, I can’t stand to see a grown man crying.”
“This is the worst month of my life, the worst week of my life, and the worst day of my life,” the farmer sniffles, wiping his eyes and nose on a red kerchief. “I’m a complete failure. My crops are drying up. My ponds are drying up. My dog bit me. My credit card in maxed out. My banker won’t speak to me. My wife and kids and parents disown me.
“Then this morning early my tractor broke down, so I came to town for parts. The dealership didn’t have the parts. So, I stopped here to ponder my life. After a few beers, I went outside to go home and I found my old pickup had been stolen and I don’t have any insurance.
“So, I walked down to the farm supply store and bought some rat poison pellets and came back to this bar to work up the courage to put an end to it all. I
ordered another drink with my last dollar. I dropped a few poison pellets into my beer and was sitting here watching the poison dissolve. And, then, bully you show up and drink the whole darned thing!”
“But, heck, enough about me, how are you doing?”
***
As I say about every week. You can’t live in the country without having frequent interactions with wildlife. This week it wuz a blacksnake again. Yesterday morning I wuz relaxed on riding my Country Clipper lawn mower cutting the patches of crabgrass and foxtail that have managed to stay green when I heard and felt a loud “WHUMP!”
I knew I’d hit something with the mower, but it didn’t sound like a tree limb and I knew it wuzn’t a rock. Then I saw the fore, mid, and aft sections of a big black snake that the mower spit out left, right, and front. It was an instantaneous demise for the snake and I wuz surprised that I didn’t see it before I chopped it up. It wuz a pure case of wrong time, wrong place, for the hapless, and headless, snake.
***
We got a little six-tenths of an inch of rain a few days ago and it perked everything up for a day or two. We need a lot more, but I’m thankful for the dribs and drabs of rain that we’ve been getting.
At any rate, it rained enuf to begin the blooming of the fall flowers — both tame and wild. The domesticated variety that erupted overnight were the Naked Lady flowers. The official name for the pink flower is Amaryllis Belladonna. They are fragrant light-pink flowers that appear in mid-August once their green foliage has died back. They bloom atop a stark stem with no leaves, giving them the common name of “Naked Ladies.”
The first and most obvious of the wildflowers are the Snow-on-the-Mountain. Their snow white blooms are nestled in a cluster of green on the top of a tall stem. Also, the first of the fall sunflowers are blooming, but the main sunflower season is still a few weeks away. While driving around on my ATV, I see that the Blazing Stars are preparing to bloom. It’s my favorite fall bloomer.
***
We’ve been busy getting ready for our downsizing auction. The date is Saturday, Sept. 16. We know we’ve got to get shed of a lot of stuff, before we move into our new home. The problem is what to sell and what to keep? Our big garage now has two growing stacks of “stuff.” One stack sells and the other moves.
Speaking of our new home. Construction is progressing rapidly. The exterior is painted, along with the trim. The sheet-rocking is done and the interior painting has begun. The electricity and water will be hooked up soon. The move-in date is projected to be October 1. We’ll wait and see it that date holds true.
***
Ol’ Nevah and I passed another marriage milestone on Aug. 16. We’ve been putting up with each other for 59 years. We had a quiet anniversary all to ourselves and ate at a nice restaurant in Emporia to celebrate. Next year, if we make it to 60, we’ll have a big blowout celebration.
***
Words of wisdom for the week: “Without freedom of speech, we wouldn’t know who the idiots are among us.” Have a good ‘un

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