Look what was on the porch for me yesterday!!! Flowers! And a tomato plant!!
Yup, I said a tomato plant. That guy in the middle is a Big Boy. I'm not sure he adds to the beauty of the flowers gracing his feet but he certainly appeals to me! He's my first container vegetable though I suspect he'll need a bigger pot before long. I'm hoping he'll jumpstart me this weekend to get my other container vegetables going. A few days ago my order from Burpee arrived with several different kinds of vegetable seeds (including zucchini! but I'll just pass that along to a friend or something now that it's unwanted in this household). Burpee said these particular ones are good for small container gardening in such a place as one's deck. We'll see. And if it works, between the container veggies and the CSA we joined it should be a very producey summer. =)
Last night we had a themed dinner with Adam and Cathy and their family. We are going about it like we do the International Food Night (new name, Chels???!!!!!) with Kris and Chelsea. Cathy hosted and picked purple.
Purple.
Purple.
I can't express how glad I am that it was she who was making the main dishes!!! I brought homemade (duh) blueberry muffins. My recipe requires mashing half of the blueberries before putting them in the batter and it turns the muffins purple in spots. Organic grape juice--which turned out to be frightening because Cathy had a beautiful white tablecloth on her table and it was really purple. Five kids between the two families and not one juice spill. Not bad. And for dessert I made purple and white striped jello concotion with fresh whipped cream on top.
Cathy had the hard job. She made a dirty rice that had sausage and beans and vegetables and purple onions in it. A salad adorned with purple onions. There was borscht which was Bright Purple! and also a vegetable dish that included eggplant. Also, she had several types of cheeses--2 cheddars and 1 goat cheese--which had purple on them. The one wasn't very purple, the second had purple 'veins' and the goat cheese had been cured in wine and had purple edges.
Everything was delicious and we had a lot of fun. Sometimes with 5 kids all together it can get a bit chaotic feeling but last night was just right. The kids were running around the house and in the yard playing together but in a way that allowed the grown ups to relax around the remains of the meal to chat. =)
