A Hike and a Picnic

My sister Michelle and I had made plans to put together a picnic lunch and go hiking sometime in the summer, but I kept postponing it because of the bathroom. I wanted the remodeling to be done so that we could just hang out with no awkwardness in the house. That did not happen, so we planned for my birthday weekend instead, and I was of a mind that if the bathroom was still being worked on FUCK IT.

The bathroom still wasn't done, but Neil and I decided to have the contractor come back after a month because we needed a break. All summer! Every weekend! THREE MONTHS AND IT STILL ISN'T DONE. AHHHHH.

So.

We put together a random menu based on things we (and by we I mean me) wanted to try to make:

Key Lime parfaits
Vietnamese Coffee
Thai Iced Tea

And then we got stuck on what the MAIN part of the meal should be. We settled on sandwiches, but with restrictions from both sides (her: no mustard, cheese/dairy, tomatoes. me: vegetarian or vegan only. honestly I feel like her list is more restrictive, ha) it was difficult to decide. So, in the end, I bought deli turkey anyway because I wanted to make sure she would actually eat it.

It turns out my sister doesn't seem to like ANYTHING on her sandwich, ha. She put a scant amount of mayo and some turkey. With pickles on the side. That's it!!!

The parfaits turned out... weird but tasty. We tried to make whipped aquafaba for the first time and didn't get the proportions right... but I would attempt to make these things again. Tart and sweet! I wasn't that organized in the kitchen, I wish I had already brought out all of the ingredients so I wasn't hunting around in the pantry so much while we were in the middle of making stuff. Plus my husband was trying to catch a fly and was in the kitchen 1000x more than normal which was a bit frustrating.

My sister brought some tasty honey she bought at the flea market, so we made a quick snack bento of honey, Teddy Grahams, and apple slices. This was actually my favorite part of our lunch.

I'm hoping to plan a baking day with her, but will be more organized!