Saturday Meanderings

Happy Saturday, friends! What a week it has been. Our large group of houseguests have left and all the laundry is done. We are still experiencing the most glorious weather and I’m not sure why this Spring seems so vibrant this year. Maybe it just everyone emerging from two oppressive years. Anyway, glad you are here today and let’s get started on all good things that happened this week.

Easter Wrap-up

One of our Easter traditions is the making of a lamb cake for dessert. Using a cast iron mold, I opted for a Trader Joe’s Meyer Lemon cake mix vs. making a cake from scratch. The cake, and the addition of freshly made Swiss buttercream, was a proven winner. To see a post on this Easter tradition, click here.

Since we did have a large group, I also made a chicken cake, also using the box cake mix and a mold from Martha Stewart. Fun barnyard desserts enjoyed by all!

Since we had 12 for dinner, the best place to sit is outside under the large, old date palm trees. Fortunately, I have a few of these Indian block tablecloths from Just Darviny and all the patterns worked for a pastel Easter theme.

A 400 egg egg hunt was a big hit with all the 20+year olds and in 6 minutes, all eggs were found and gathered.Many thanks for my daughter, Julianna for hiding ALL those eggs!

Growing up in a Polish family, we always had ham, a spicy Polish mustard and babka bread for Easter. This year I decide to make my own sourdough babka bread, which is a labor of love. It baked beautifully and tastes great with its cinnamon sugar filling, but it is a big effort. Recipe by The Perfect Loaf is here. If you are interested in bread recipes, Maurizio is a great teacher and his website is the place to go.

Hot cross buns are another recipe I love for this holiday. This is another recipe I only make once a year and wonder why I do not make them more frequently. Just delicious~recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

All in all, a very busy, productive and abundant Easter. And both my husband and I are a bit pooped!

Garden Update

It is almost past time to glean all the citrus trees. Since we have so many trees, we put cartons of fruit out in front of the house with a Free Citrus sign. Generally, they are happily scooped up and gone within a few hours. We hope to get that done this week. If anyone lives nearby North Central Phoenix and wants grapefruits and oranges, please let me know. You can reach me at [email protected].

Don’t you just love the color of artichokes? Well my plant has 4-5 new artichokes growing right now. I think this is such a beautiful vegetable.

Often, I will let them go to flower, because the blooms are also so gorgeous too! Can’t wait to eat these.

Keeping the Flies away

Occasionally we will get flies that interrupt our outdoor dining. My husband found these fly fans that you can put on your table and they really help keep the flies at bay. Battery operated, the on/off switch is on the bottom and once on, the soft-touch blades rotate. There are holographmatic dots on the blades.The dots refract/bend sunshine. Bending light is not a part of the fly’s DNA. In their little minds, the bending colored sunshine is not normal in nature and it appears dangerous to them. They will always choose to go somewhere else.

And if you put your finger in the rotating blade they are flexible and soft, so no little fingers get hurt. Really quite ingenious and they do definitely work. You can find this set of two here on Amazon.

The Smells of Nature

I wish you could scratch and sniff this photo because the smells of Spring are so fragrant here. A hedge of jasmine sits in a front planting bed and it is intoxicating and heavenly. If you live in a climate that can handle jasmine, I can’t recommend it enough.

Everyone who comes to the front door exclaims how glorious it smells.

New Book Series

I am really enjoying this new book series. After completing the second book, I believe it is worthy of referral. Written by Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club is the first book in a series of 3. In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. It is witty, dearing and entertaining.

The next two books are The Man Who Died Twice and The Bullet that Missed (which will be released in September 2022)

Have you wanted to learn to make Sourdough?

My friend and neighbor, Kelly Liston is conducting a sourdough starter challenge, where she hand holds you through making your own sourdough. It certainly sounds interesting! She is on Instagram @kelly.liston and reach out to her here if you are interested.

Well that’s a wrap to Saturday Meanderings. It’s been a busy week of clean up, laundry, putting away lots of dishes and glasses and a very time consuming zoning case (which we won!). And with all this good food, it’s time to get back to the gym and work it off. Next week I hope to tackle those wicker chairs and get some painting done. I miss my time on canvas.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend! If you missed the pool house Before, During and After you can find those blog posts on my home page.