Blue Moo

 Dave and I recently went to Blue Moo Ice Cream Shop for the first time. We got lunch and ice cream. 

The food was good, but the ice cream was amazing! Dave's vanilla shake was one of the best I ever tasted. I got a scoop of Oreo cookie and a scoop of salted caramel. YUM. 

We both agreed we'll be coming here a lot more.

Mississippi mud bars for two

This is another recipe from Dessert for Two. It's a chocolate chip brownie topped with mini marshmallows and chocolate icing. 

There were four bars, but I ate one before I took a picture. Oops. They look a little smooshed because our power was out for a couple of days due to a hurricane, so they got wrapped up and stuck in a cooler. 

Also, I didn't have chocolate chips. I ALWAYS have chocolate chips, so I don't know how that happened. I chopped up some chocolate so they were chocolate chunks instead. These bars were sooooo good. However, they were very rich, and Dave didn't like them. More for me!

Pumpkin cupcakes for two

I love pumpkin things and eat them all year, not just in the fall. I made pumpkin cupcakes from Dessert for Two.

I got lazy and didn't make the buttercream icing. I made a simple glaze for the top instead.

OH MY GOODNESS. These were so good and so easy. Dave liked them, too.

Dave: What's the name of that cookbook again?
Me: Dessert for Two.
Dave: It should be Dessert for Four or Six!
Me: Then it would be a regular cookbook.

Hahaha!

Devil's food cake for two

I made another chocolate cake from Dessert for Two.



This one was a devil's food cake, and it had two layers.



We didn't like this as much as the other one, but it was okay. The icing was a little too sweet for our taste, I think.



It's so nice to be able to make dessert that's sized for two!

More pandemic planting

We don't just have a well mound. We have a weird mound. There's a mound on the front lawn, and we don't know why it's there. At least, we didn't know before I did this. This was even more of a weedy mess than the well mound, but I forgot to take a before picture. The sellers had planted ornamental grass and a small bush there. I took them out in favor of native plants.



This has some of the same stuff as the other mound- bee balm, phlox, aster, purple coneflower, and amsonia. It also has coreopsis.



Oh, and I found out what's in the mound. See that empty spot? There's a tree stump buried there.

Mini Texas chocolate sheet cake

Chocolate cake! This was another recipe from Dessert for Two by Christine Lane.

This was fast and easy. It made a 6" chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

The icing poured on like a ganache and thickened more as it cooled. You can see it's shiny and not like a buttercream. Anyway, it was tasty. It was even better the next day. So, I don't recommend eating almost the entire thing the night you make it and only having one piece each the next morning, like Dave and I did.

So far, this cookbook is two for two!

Pandemic planting

Time for more native plants! Our well mound was looking sad. Do you see the bit that looks cut off in the left of the photo? That's from Dave crashing into it with the mower. Haha!

Maybe I should back up a bit. We have well water, and the access cap has to be in a mound. I don't know why. I also don't know when we'd ever access the water that way, since it comes into the house underground via the pump.

Anyway, it gets a lot of sun and seemed like a great place to plant some stuff. So I dug everything up and added some soil before I started planting.

Tada! There's columbine, aster, bee balm, salvia, purple coneflower, crocosmia, phlox, and something else that blooms in the spring that I can't remember right now.

Our township turns yard waste into mulch and compost, which we can then take for free. People really make the most of it. Sometimes there are cars waiting to grab some from the piles. It's a cool program. I grabbed a bit to top off the mound.

Before I planted the stuff in the well mound, I put some aster with the coral honeysuckle.

It's wood's blue aster, a compact, native variety. This weekend I hope to start the next gardening project!

Coral honeysuckle

We had an unusually cold spring, and I've been itching to transform our property to be more bird, bee, and butterfly friendly with native plants. There's also a ton of landscape rock that I need to remove before I can replace some invasives with natives. The first project: coral honeysuckle!

Dave took this pic. Jedi is checking out the plants.

Hummingbirds are amazing. We've seen them randomly a couple of times in the yard since we got the house last year, and they've come to the hummingbird feeder a few times. But not enough! Haha. This plant is supposed to be great at attracting them, plus other pollinators. I got the "Major Wheeler" variety, which is native and is supposed to have more blooms. It also has berries that other birds may eat in the fall.

Tada!

I removed the sod, put down a little bit of new soil and compost, and planted the vines. Whew. With our rocky soil, this took much longer than I was expecting. It was getting dark when I was done. I hope they grow!!

Brownies for two

I like to bake, but I usually don't want to make a big cake or batch of cookies for just the two of us. Enter the book Dessert for Two, by Christina Lane. Perfect!

I made these brownies quickly, in one bowl, mixed with a spoon. They were baked in a loaf pan.

YUM. Needless to say, we devoured them.

Pandemic painting project

I was determined to blog more this year, and now we're all stuck inside because of the pandemic. I hope everyone is safe and healthy and that this is all over soon.

I've done some pandemic painting over the past couple of weeks. First I did the dining room. Before, it was green with brown trim.

Sherwin Williams Secure Blue, with Extra White on the trim

I love the blue! Yep, that's paint on the floor. I had a little bit of an accident with the paint tray.



Oops! I tripped on the sheets on the floor, landed in the paint tray, and catapulted paint everywhere. This photo was taken a few days later. I was much more covered in paint after it happened! Haha. I'm not upset about the floor. I plan on putting in hardwood floors eventually. Until then, maybe we'll put a rug over it. Or not.

The next room I tackled was the downstairs bathroom. It's a small half bath. It originally was beige with brown trim. I went with lilac.

SW Inspiring Lilac, with Extra White trim

I like how this turned out. The next room to paint will be the upstairs hallway bathroom. I'm doing that in SW Lighthearted Pink. Most of the house is beige, so I need to add some color to the place. The white trim really brightens up the rooms compared to the dark wood.

Philadelphia Flower Show: Riviera Holiday

At the end of February, my mom and I made our annual trip to the Philly Flower Show. This year's theme was Riviera Holiday. It smelled great as we walked in.

So many colors! So many different flowers and plants! This was one of the best flower shows yet.

I couldn't stop taking pictures.

One display was particularly neat. It was supposed to be rows of buildings with flower boxes.

It was very original. You could walk between and see the flowers close up.

So pretty!

The flower show had plenty of lighting this year. One recurring issue is that there's never enough light, so sometimes displays are very dark and it's hard to see. Not this year!

Everything was well lit.

There were a lot of lemons.

And succulents!

I'm a fan of succulents. I have a bunch at home. This display was supposed to represent the ocean.

Nice!

Princess Grace of Monaco (Grace Kelly) was from the Philadelphia area, and she loved roses, so there was a special display with a replica of her wedding gown.

It was very popular. They had a video of her wedding playing, too.

My mom and I had a great time enjoying one of the best flower shows in years. Next year's theme is "Habitat." It's about pollinator- and wildlife-friendly gardening, as well as sustainable gardening. I wish that had been this year's theme! I'm in the process of figuring out plants, trees, and bushes to plant at the new house, and it's important to me and Dave to plant native plants that are good for pollinators and birds. We're also not going to use pesticides or other chemicals. I'm looking forward to next year's show.

Naz-O-Nut

I had read about Naz-O-Nut, a local doughnut shop in Nazareth, a few times and wanted to go there. I'm a big fan of doughnuts but have never made them myself. Since Dave and I were out and about on a Sunday morning, we stopped in. Everything looked delicious! It was a tough decision. I had to try my favorite kind, Boston cream.

OH MY GOODNESS. The delicious icing. The pastry cream filling- so full of it and so good. The other one I tried was the caramel with glaze drizzle.

That's icing from my Boston cream that fell on this one...oops...

Wow! Melt in your mouth. These were the best doughnuts I have ever had. Hands down. Amazing. If you're anywhere near the Lehigh Valley, definitely stop in here and try some. The shop is near downtown Nazareth. YUM.

Jack's Pumpkin Glow

Last fall, we went to Jack's Pumpkin Glow with my parents.

It was cool. There were jack-o'-lanterns everywhere.

What's this?

We saw elaborately crafted scenes.

Take me to your leader.

The volcano by the dinosaurs periodically blew out smoke.

It was a fun fall outing.

If it comes around your neck of the woods this year, I recommend it.

Candytopia

When I heard that there was an exhibit called Candytopia and that it featured free candy, I was there.

I guess I'd call it an art installation. There were rooms with different themes, each room filled with things made from candy, and each one featuring free candy.

made of candy

Dave isn't that into candy, so I got DOUBLE candy. Wheeeee! Needless to say, I ate too much candy and felt sick. That is not Candytopia's fault.

I love dragons.

This was my favorite thing in all of Candytopia, and it was in the first room. Candy dragon!

me and Dave

It was pretty cool.

Of course the Candy Man himself made an appearance...

Willy Wonka

All in all, it was a worthwhile experience.