**Week 5** - Tomatoes are appearing!
Our first eggplant has set up, and the mini-pepper plant is more peppers than plant. The windowsill gardening continues.
The space that looked so empty just over a month ago is full now.
Day 1 of 3 via YouTube. Truly awesome!
Memorial Day Meal
Hot dogs, macaroni salad, heirloom tomatoes, and fresh strawberries. Yum!
We were treated to a Memorial Day Flyover…
Low, Slow and smoke trail filled fleet of 18 military planes, including a WWII-era Douglas C-53D at the front as well as C-47 transports, P-40 Warhawks and P-51 Mustangs.
Right before the pandemic, Laura’s craft group started a group project making knitted/crocheted Twiddlemuffs for donation to a memory care/Alzheimer’s facility. Apparently some patients can have restless hands, so these are meant to be fiddled with. They’re embellished with buttons, beads, and ribbons (inside and out) and are made of variously textured yarn - kind of like soft yarn-y fidget spinners. They’re fun to make. These are all embellished and ready to go.
We celebrated with a scaled down version of a Pioneer Woman recipe - Caramel Apple Pie - and had individual pies. We added a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg to the apples because, cinnamon and nutmeg! We didn’t have caramel sauce, but the pies were still delicious without it.
Here’s the recipe: Caramel Apple Pie
It was scary to take those first snips, but the herbs have settled in nicely and we needed a little something to go with our lunch. Parsley and chives are the first harvest of our garden 
We all live on a ball orbiting a ball
Another ball orbits us after all
It’s patently clear
Whether far or near
We’re all just balls orbiting balls orbiting balls
It never ceases to amaze us how crafty folks can be… We enjoy tea and have some of these little tea canisters that seem too nice and sturdy to just throw into the recycle bin. We challenged Cindy to come up with a re-purpose for them, and look what she did!
Our friend Cindy has been busy crafting, and we were gifted this amazing cork wreath - thank you Cindy! She does beautiful work, and this will be a cheerful and festive addition at Christmas-time.
Our Christmas cactus got into the spirit of things too
We enjoyed Enchilada Casserole for Cinco de Mayo. Laura grew up with this recipe, and it’s a good one to customize… add corn, jalapeños for heat, add or swap beans in for the meat, etc… We’ve always used corn tortillas, as that’s the “classic” taste of enchiladas. Adding toppings is part of the fun!
It started like this….
In the main plot: 4 tomato plants (Sweet Million, Early Girl, Indigo Rose, Better Boy) 2 bell pepper (Better Belle, Lunchbox Red mini), 1 eggplant (Millionaire), and 1 jalapeño.
In the herb planter: parsley, thyme, tarragon, rosemary, chives, and not showing yet is cilantro (planted some coriander seeds out of the spice cabinet).
One bell pepper has a flower bud.
Our friends Helen & Alan were distance tailgating at Alpine Village and were nice enough to bring us some German Liverwurst & Hungarian Sausage…
We considered this……..
… but opted for something a bit more manageable.
It’s not everyday we’re lucky enough to get a delivery of Deviled Eggs. Thanks Dennee and Olivia!
We tried out a new recipe to celebrate National Garlic Day - “Everything” Pull Apart Bread. The “everything” seasoning is heavy on the garlic and the bread was very tasty. We’ll definitely make this again!
Snack plate for watching the Jeopardy College Championship under COVID-19 Quarantine
Snacks for the best show on TV right now.
We celebrated National PB&J Day with PB sandwiches on wheat toast, with homemade strawberry jam (thanks Peggy!).
(No Fooling)
Isolation Pantry recipe: We’ve always enjoyed Alton Brown’s cooking shows, so we tried his spruced up saltine cracker recipe. Crunchy, with a nice bit of zip - happy hour snacks at their finest!
Find the recipe here:
https://youtu.be/VI11XNr3jHo
Alton has several other Pantry Raid videos on YouTube - They’re entertaining and tasty too. Check them out!
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