While it might not be accurate to state that Clif and I eat lunch at the little house in the big woods 365 days a year, it’s not far from the truth.  Clif and I live on a tiny budget, and eating at home is far more economical than eating out. The upside of this is that when we do eat out, we really enjoy it. The downside is that sometimes it’s a challenge to come up with different lunches that don’t require a  lot of time to fix and can be made from ingredients we have on hand.

Yesterday I said to Clif, “I’m in the mood for a tortilla pizza.”

As we have never made tortilla pizzas, this was a strange thing to say, but we had all the necessary ingredients—pizza sauce, cheese, and tortilla shells.

However, “All the sauce is frozen,” I said.

As I have mentioned previously, one of the things I love about Clif is that he is always ready for a cooking lark. “No problem,” he replied. “We can microwave the sauce until it’s thawed.”

This we did, and then came the next phase. “How about we grill them?” I asked. “Everything tastes better grilled.”

Clif was agreeable, and we were off. He spread sauce on the tortilla shells, sprinkled a blend of cheese—mozzarella, cheddar, and Parmesan—and out to the patio he went. I followed with plates, drinks, and napkins. We were not going to miss a chance to eat outside.

 

 

 

To borrow from Clif, those grilled tortilla pizzas were pretty darned good—brown and crunchy on the bottom with a pleasing blend of sauce and cheese on top.

As if that weren’t enough, while the pizzas were cooking, the sun went behind a cloud, and I could tell that the lighting was perfect for taking pictures of buds and blooms.

 

 

 

But the cherry on the sundae, so to speak, was when a small monarch winged into the garden. No, not a butterfly. Instead, a dragonfly burnished with gold.

Quite a day at the little house in the big woods.