Please Identify This Creature!

Amazing BIG spider sitting on the door to my garden shed!  Hope it didn't lay a sac of spiderettes inside the shed!

Pupusas at Home!

On Memorial Day we had family over for us to practice making our own pupusas on! We used the recipes form our pupusa making class that we participated in this past February.

We discovered that the 'secret' ingredient that makes the pulled pork filling is a Mexican spice called epazote, also know as Mexican Tea Herb.  It has a very distinctive flavor.

The vegetable filling is made from fresh corn cut from the cob, zucchini, peppers, onion and a tad of epazote in it as well.  Very colorful and tasty.

There are several ways of actually making them into pupusas.  We found the easiest is to sandwich the fillings between two uncooked corn tortillas (made from Maseca) and pinch them together. 

This is the pickled cabbage that is eaten along side the pulled pork pupusas.  Even I, who does not care for pickled foods nor cold slaw, like this with the pupusas!

The Salsa Roja                                                                    

The Spicy Pepita Salsa

We also made the queso fresco (fresh Mexican cheese) pupusas as well as the Manzana (Apple) dessert ones.  Here is the dinner plate: pupusas sprinkled with queso cotija, pickled cabbage and rice and beans.  Totally delicious, all of it!

Fruit Crepes

Darrell made these strawberry dessert crepes a bit ago.  Just use any basic crepe recipe, pull some fruit out of the freezer or use fresh fruit, roll the heated fruit (with or without a bit of sugar) up in the cooked crepe, dust with powdered sugar and there you have it :-}

Signs of Spring

This is the first year our flowering tree gave us more than a few blooms! It greeted us with hundreds of beautiful white blossoms when we came home from Mexico on Cinco de Mayo!

This sprig is from a bush or tree in Ryan's yard.  A prize for the first one who successfully identifies it for me!  We are not sure what it is, though we have a couple of ideas. I would love to buy one for my yard!

My geraniums overwinter in a slightly heated green house, so when I finally pull them out for the back deck, they are in full bloom.  Instant spring color :-)

Funny!

Just had to post this!

Easter Meal

I didn't post any blogs for awhile towards the end of April and end of May, so you may have noticed that I am backtracking for a bit of catching up.  We had almost all of our family here for Easter this year.  Missing were daughter Bethany Jean and grandson Zach.  We had a great time with those present, including an egg hunt for a few of us who wished to search (I was among those this time....... it's been over 40 years since I hunted eggs).  Easter was a warm, bright and sunny day for once, and with little Emerson's arrival this year, we all had a grand time!

For a salad we had a Wilted Spinach and Apple Salad from the Celebrate the Rain cookbook. Please notice the beautiful colored eggs adorning it, compliments of DIL Nancy.

Besides roasted asparagus, the main course was Rosemary Walnut Chicken, from the Simply Classic cookbook.   Really, quite delicious!

Also from Simply Classics I made this Sparkling Pineapple Sangria.  Yum!

I did not snap any pictures of the wonderful  Orange and Lemon Sour Cream Cake!  Can you believe it?!?!  It hailed from the Celebrate the Rain cookbook, and was one of the most moist cakes I have every had, as well as scrumptious all the way around!

Flower Moon

On our way home from the airport from our Mexico trip, the Cinco de Mayo moon happened to be the Super Flower Moon, the full moon that was bigger and brighter than any other moon this year.