Some food-related (mostly) things we enjoyed this past week:

We hope everyone had a lovely Easter weekend, as we did.  We boiled and colored eggs this year, and tried a new-to-us dish for Easter breakfast — Scotch Eggs.  Basically you take hard boiled eggs, encase them in a layer of sausage (we used hot Italian turkey sausage, casing removed), then lightly coat with flour, dip in beaten eggs, coat with breadcrumbs and deep fry.  Serve with mustard for dipping.  They were really good, and a festive way to enjoy our Easter eggs.

We planted the rest of our garden this weekend, including okra, several different types of peppers, Japanese eggplant, pickling cucumbers, mini watermelon, and some 1015 onions interspersed throughout.  We have a bunch of herbs growing in cinderblock “pots” along one side of the garden box (oregano, thyme, dill, mint, parsley and cilantro), as well as a little spinach seed experiment happening in the big pot containing our grape vine on the other side.  We look forward to seeing how everything turns out this summer!

We took a break from gardening for a little chips-and-dips snack on the patio at a nearby taco joint.  If you have one in your area, we highly recommend Torchy’s Tacos for deliciously inventive tacos and some of the best queso around.

Sometimes the smallest things can make my day.  I found a set of four little ramiken-sized, hard plastic bowls on sale at Target the other day and had to have them, despite the fact that we already have more than enough ramikens that we use for ingredient prep nearly every time we cook.  But the new bowls are pretty as well as functional, and add a nice pop of color to the narrow little bookshelf (actually an old CD tower) in the corner of our kitchen.

Some food-related (mostly) things we have enjoyed this past week:

We stayed at a hotel last weekend while visiting family in Brooklyn, and our room had the largest balcony/patio for a hotel room (especially by New York standards!) we have ever seen.  It may have been bigger than the room itself, and had cool city views.  It’s probably for the best that cold and rainy weather kept us from spending any time out there, since the priority of our visit was hanging out with the world’s cutest red-headed nephew.

Strictly for burger research purposes, we squeezed in a quick trip to Shake Shack while in Brooklyn.  Similar to In-N-Out and Five Guys, the eatery is famous for its legendary burgers, but unlike those other two, Shake Shack’s menu has more variety, including hot dogs and frozen custards.  We went with the basic cheeseburger, which was definitely comparable to that of In-N-Out and Five Guys.  But which burger do we ultimately prefer?  Inconclusive.  The Best Burger Inquest continues and will require more extensive investigation.

Not much makes Dan happier than when people enjoy his cooking, even more so when one of those people is his 2 year-old nephew.  We cooked our beef taco recipe (minus the cayenne pepper to make it less spicy), used ground turkey instead of beef (still delicious!), and told the little guy that it was chicken (per his dad’s instruction.)  I originally made the rookie mistake of spooning the taco meat over rice, which apparently is not very appealing to the toddler palate.  But our nephew tasted the “chicken” anyway, loved it and asked for more, but “no sauce.”  He probably ate four or five (kid-plate-sized) helpings, much to his aunt and uncle’s delight.

After an embarrassing number of failed attempts, we finally trapped a feral cat in our backyard, for purposes of getting her fixed and preventing future feral cats.  She was a trooper throughout the whole thing, and didn’t make a peep during the car rides to and from the vet.  Outsmarting an alley cat with some tuna and a spring-loaded wire cage feels like a far greater accomplishment than one might expect.  Take note, feral cats in our neighborhood:  have trap, will spay and neuter.

Some food-related (mostly) things we enjoyed this past week:

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year, we made homemade corned beef.  Quite a change from many, many years ago, when we marked the occasion by attending the annual local parade, then doing some serious day-drinking at the block party event that followed.  With age comes wisdom.  And less hangovers.

We took advantage of the recent warm weather (and hangover-free Sunday morning) by planting our tomatoes for the season.  We filled 3 big barrels with good garden soil and planted a couple varieties of grape/cherry sized tomato plants, along with a few basil plants.  Fingers crossed that we have as much success with them as we did last year.

I attended a lovely wine tasting with old friends (thanks for the invite, Sue!) the other night at a cool little venue.  The wines (from Benovia Winery) were outstanding, I had one of the best bites of lamb ever, and catching up with people I love but don’t get to see nearly often enough made my heart happy.

Also heart-happy, Lowly the Worm is super excited to be all packed and coming with us on our trip to New York this weekend to visit with our adorable (and adored) nephew T and his parents.  Can’t wait to see you guys!