The "cascade effect" ;)

Several years ago, we decided to remove the sliding glass doors on our shower/tub and replace them with a shower curtain.  Simple, right?  As with so many things, by the time we got done, the project not only took longer, but became much more complicated than we thought it would.

My husband removed the doors and the tracks.  Then we had a big mess to clean up.  Then he had to buy some stuff to patch the holes left in the fiberglass tub.  Then we had to buy and install a shower rod, the shower curtain, and of course, I "needed" a pretty fabric outer shower curtain.  Sigh...

Fast forward to this morning ~

I had a few tomatoes and they were ripening so I needed to do something with them.  I decided to make "tomato chips."  I had a mixture of paste tomatoes and regular tomatoes.  All they needed was to be washed in cold water and then sliced rather thinly.  The instructions on 11th Heaven said "1/8th inch" but I wasn't too scientific about it.  Here they are, all sliced up:

I put them in this big stainless bowl, added a small amount of olive oil, some garlic powder, some of my fresh basil that is preserved in the fridge in raw apple cider vinegar, and then tasted it and added salt until I liked how it tasted.  Next, on to a couple of dehydrator trays:

Ok, so those are in the dehydrator as I type here.  Here is what was left in that bowl:

I couldn't just throw it out!  What would you do?  It occurred to me that I could use it in a salad.  Here begins the cascade.  I looked in the refrigerator and found a head of lettuce, a sweet pepper from our garden, some fresh celery, and some carrots.  That's a good start!

Sliced up the pepper:

Sliced the celery:

Peeled and sliced two carrots:

Sliced and cooked 3 slices of bacon, added that, drippings and all to the bowl:

Added a few sliced sun-dried tomatoes, and tore up the lettuce.  Can you hear the wheels turning in my head?  I'm thinking about and searching for whatever I can add to this salad!

 Chopped a small handful of walnut meats:

Added some of my preserved parsley and basil:

  Diced 1 large clove garlic:

 

Here's the bacon, ready to go in:

Topped it all with a big glob of homemade mayonnaise, a good splash of some raw apple cider vinegar and a drizzle of honey.  Then, salted to taste.  Time to stir it together:

Here it is!  Our lunch:

Do you see what I mean?  After all, I was just wanting to make tomato chips.  :D

This post is linked to Traditional Tuesday!