Fish Wednesday

A movie nite tonight.... Before I start fixing supper early so we can make it to the 6:30 show, I'll quickly post our last night's dinner. It was a Fish Wednesday because Joe really doesn't care for "Fish Friday" from all these years of Lent tradition. He insists any other days but Friday. On top of it, because it's not during Lent, a Fish day doesn't mean no meat, either. That's my rule.
Above is the bowl of stuffed cabbage soup. A little bit of ground pork and scallop inside.
The main dish was whitefish fillets cooked in sweet chili/ soy/ ginger Asian style served over simple veggie stir fry. Joe liked the fish mainly because the fish didn't taste too much like fish!
As always with cooking Asian, I had quite a few dishes to wash afterward. It was worth it, though. And thank-you to my dish wiper, Joe!
We'll see what day is going to be our Fish Night next week.

Not Just Ordinary Meatballs!

My plan was to utilize our good stock of morel mushrooms. I decided to make spaghetti and meatballs!! It's a surprise because we hardly ever do pasta dishes at home.
I put chopped morels both in the meatballs and in the tomato sauce. I was that serious.
I actually cooked the meatballs in tomato sauce yesterday, so it had a chance to rest before served up for dinner tonight. YUUUMMMM. The sauce had mellowed nicely. It might have been the BEST spaghetti and meatballs... that I can remember, which is not much. Wish you could have tasted it and be the judge.
For dessert I made super easy cheesecake balls... to pun on meat "balls." They were good, almost dirty.
Lastly, we'll post a picture of our new (old) car, the Duke. It's a 2000 Chevy Cavalier. Our namesake was because we bought it from Joe's brother Luke, aka Duke. Last week we went to the other brother Mark's last high school concert and ended up buying the car, totally unexpectedly. The price was irresistible for its good gas mileage. We are really hoping it will serve us long long time.

Welcome Birds!

It's gotten cold again, even with a possibility of frost. Still, the sunlight is warm and friendly. Birds seem to enjoy the spring as much as we do. Usual morning doves, robins, chickadees, gold finches have been around. But yesterday morning I spotted a few not so usual birds in our back yard. First, I spotted an indigo bunting. I thought I saw an all blue little bird and had to grab my binoculars. Sure enough.
Also in the above picture was an evening grosbeak, eating Joe's sunflower seeds. We actually have Mr. and Mrs. E. Grosbeak.
And Baltimore orioles are back again (below). Birds love our cherry blossoms. So are the hummingbirds. I saw them!! Of course, no photos. They are too fast.

Cherry Blossoms

Once again our cherry trees are in bloom on our back hill. It's safe to say spring is here, finally. This means our spring is about 2 months behind compared to my home in Japan.
And Joe's grape vines are getting full of promising buds. It's just amazing how these still dead looking vines are in fact well and alive.

Mushroom Hunting

On Saturday Joe chauffeured me and my artwork to a gallery in Harbor Springs, about 4 hours away. It had gotten cold again with rain. A good day to be on the road, for we wouldn't have been able to enjoy outdoors anyway at home. We had a good trip, though in rain, and a nice visit with people from the gallery. But the highlight of the trip was on our way home. As we headed north, the rain diminished and the temperature must have gone up. We decided to check out one of Joe's morel picking spots. Within an hour we filled a lunch bag with fresh morels, easily over a pound.
You can try counting them in the photo. Joe gave up after 75, figuring 100+. The best pick in many years he says. It was worth getting side tracked. Not only did we get to stretch our legs and loosen our flat butts, but we came home with a wonderful souvenir of the north woods in spring.

'Tis the Season!

After only a few days of spring weather with some warm rain, you almost forget about the winter, until of course the weather goes back to the high of 40 degrees, like today. But the amazing nature doesn't take much to bring its gifts back to life under the right condition, above 60 degrees temperatures and enough moisture.
Yesterday Joe and his dad went out for morel mushroom hunting after work, without much expectation (for the last couple of years have been poor for morels). Within an hour they picked three dozens of mushrooms!!
This weekend sounds like a chilly wet one, but we'll have to check out some other spots for morels. Definitely.
Tonight I sneaked some of these fresh morels in the egg rolls. I must say you couldn't quite taste the mushrooms, but they were good.
The main course was shark kebab with grilled veggies and rice. 'Tis the season for grilling (even if its 38 degrees outside), and was a fish Friday!

Happy Gardening!

Here's part of our wedding anniversary presents... we spent the weekend with Phil and Judy and made a trip to St. Croix (fishing rod factory/store), then to Winter (the name of town) Green House. No photos from the trip; our camera got left behind. Everywhere we went, we had a wonderful meal and dessert, too.
Most of all, the weather turned very nice and spring-like. Still no leaves on the trees, though very close to budding. But you just can't resist the urge to start gardening. These scrawny seedlings too look anxious for spring air.
Yesterday Joe tilled and expanded our garden in the backyard with the help of his cousin Al. And Joe is hoping to extend his grape vines up on the one side of our hill.
Tonight we planted rhubarb, chives (both from Phil and Judy) and some asparagus on the edges. Soon Joe will have to put up the fence to keep you-know-who.