The Blessing of Good Friends

Today friends came for lunch!  One of my dear friends brought along her husband's grandmother who is visiting from Mexico.  We had a wonderful lunch experience with great fellowship and delicious food!

Our menu:

Portobello Sandwich 

Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Lemon Pound Cake

Lemon Squares 

Iced Tea

Water

I had this sandwich recently in a local restaurant and it was delicious.  I recreated it from memory so I'm sure it's a little different from the original.  Ours had mushrooms of course, garden fresh little yellow squash thinly sliced vertically, onions from our garden cut in rings, green peppers, roasted red peppers, spinach, and Swiss cheese.  I sauteed each vegetable (except the red pepper which I roasted) separately with a little olive oil.  I chose a rustic bread for the sandwich.  Each sandwich was toasted in a skillet with a little olive oil. 


The salad had cinnamon and sugar toasted pecans and poppy seed dressing that I made from a recipe from the internet.  Yum!

The homemade lemon pound cake had lemon flavoring and lemon juice along with lemon zest.  I love lemon anything and my family is partial to this pound cake.  My friend's lemon squares were delicious.  What a pleasant surprise!

We had our lunch in the dining room and moved outside to a shaded area next to our goldfish pond.  Right on queue, the Lord provided a welcome breeze and we were cool enough even though it was about 95 degrees.  It was such a peaceful way to put the finishing touch on our meal.

After lunch we returned inside to the sun porch and 1 of the ladies made a terrarium while the rest of our little group encouraged her and made suggestions.  She and I are members of a local garden club and we learned recently about terrariums. 

Our time together ended much too soon, but we have plans to meet again soon to paint a flower pot with chalkboard paint so we can put greetings, little messages, etc. on it.  It's a fun thing to do and brings a smile to the face of our garden visitors.

Isn't it fun being a woman?!  Good friends, summer time, lazy afternoons--what could be better!