To the Moon and Back!

As we’re staying with our tempered program of self-isolation, (94 days as of today), I’m still cobbling together miscellaneous photos from home and, in this instance, also outer space in my effort to design and publish posts for my blog site.   Recent visitors (who also social distance and wear masks) will provide some varied material in the near future…

So…into space!  This was a recent photograph of the Moon that Laurie captured last week.  Whereas the last photo of the Moon showed a ‘whitish’ half-moon, this time our nearest natural neighbor in the sky was yellow-orange and full!  Laurie's only using a simple digital camera with a 10:1 zoom lens for her Moon photos.

Laurie’s purple coneflowers have bloomed in the circle garden in our front yard.  These flowers are favorites for butterflies, once the flowers are finished blooming, the gold finches love the seeds.

 

Coneflowers are found only in eastern and central North America.  Its generic name is Echinacea and it is derived from the Greek Word ‘ekhinos’, meaning sea urchin…due to the spiny central disk in the flower.  The coneflower family (Echinacea) has been used by many people and has been touted as being effective against the common cold, respiratory infections and cancer…as well as for providing some positive immunological effects.  None of this has been proven and the claimed positive effects of coneflowers are dubious at best. 

We have 2 planters by our front porch that are filled with an array of different colored pansies.  This planter looks great…but the other one has been invaded by some type of snail that has destroyed the plants.  The same thing happened to this planter earlier this year but was a small beetle.  Time to change to different plantings!

Laurie’s circle garden in the middle of our front yard has been doing very well this spring.  The coneflowers are now mixed in with drift roses, pansies and lilies.  That big white rock in the middle was dug out when the house was built.  The larger natural depression serves as a temporary bird bath after a decent rain.  Why is the rock white?  Apparently, it was hit by lightning at some point before we bought the house. (That’s the story we were told…and we’re sticking with it!)

This lily is a recent addition to one of our flower beds.  I just noticed it the other day…and I like that soft yellow color.  It’s a nice contrast to all the bright yellow-orange Stella de Oro day lilies around the yard.  I couldn’t find out much about it but I did note that one on-line listing simply called it an Asiatic Lily.  

We continue to eat simple meals at home.  The other day, it was freshly prepared servings of chicken cordon bleu sided with fresh asparagus.  Both items were purchased at the Fresh Market in Farragut Tennessee.  The best news is that I’d purchased 4 servings of the chicken and we cooked all 4 at one time.  My intention was to eat two of them for dinner but after having 3 times as much asparagus as is pictured above, I was full!  So…lots of leftovers for me!

A cordon bleu or schnitzel cordon bleu (blue ribbon) is a dish of meat wrapped around cheese or with a cheese filling.  The origins of cordon bleu as schnitzel filled with cheese began in Switzerland in the 1940s.  The first reference to chicken cordon bleu in the New York Times was in 1967.  That was a surprise for me…as I assumed it was a much older creation.

So…it follows that I had to put together a breakfast creation using one of my servings of leftover chicken cordon bleu.  First I toasted a nice slice of bakery bread, buttered it and then melted shredded sharp cheddar cheese over it.  In the meantime, I’d sliced up the chicken cordon bleu so I could heat it in the frying pan with a little butter.  Place the hot slices of chicken on the cheesy bread…add a little more cheese and then top it all with an over-easy egg.  It was good but it needed two eggs to make it perfect!

How’s this for a nice rasher of bacon!  This is Benton’s smoked bacon.  It has a strong smoky and very distinctive flavor.  We use it primarily for two things.  First, it’s great for adding flavor to a dish that calls for bacon or to enhance items like roasted Brussel Sprouts or roasted turkey.  In a recent post I mentioned that I’d added some Benton’s Bacon crumbles to cheesy scrambled eggs…the best yet!  

Benton’s bacon and other pork related products can be purchased on-line.  In business since 1947, Benton’s could use the business.  Normally, 80% of their smoked ham, prosciutto and bacon is sold to restaurants and with the pandemic that business has mostly disappeared.  Benton’s website is at https://shop.bentonscountryham.com/.

However in this instance, the Benton’s Bacon was intended as the vital topper for our favorite Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwiches.  That bacon adds so much flavor!  Of course it didn’t hurt that we also built our sandwiches on locally baked Mennonite toasted sourdough bread, added fresh tomatoes from the same market…and topped it all off with romaine lettuce.  It was a great meal but, we both ate more than we should have…

I started with one of Laurie’s Moon shots and I though it appropriate to end with one as well… Perhaps due to a cleaner atmosphere because of a huge reduction in human activity, our current views of the Moon seem much clearer.

The Moon is the fifth-largest satellite in the Solar System.  It is in synchronous rotation with Earth and consequently, it always shows the same side to Earth.  All those craters were formed when asteroids and comets collided with the lunar surface…creating visual images in our minds such as ‘the man in the Moon’.  It is estimated that there are about 300,000 craters measuring at least .6 of a mile (1 kilometer) on the Moon’s near side alone.  The moon has long been associated with insanity and irrationality.  The words lunacy and lunatic are derived from the Latin name for the Moon…Luna.

That’s it for now… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave