We don’t get a lot of time to play games just the two of us in the summers. Monday-Wednesday we work pretty solidly in the mornings and afternoons, and in the evenings I have a solid schedule of teaching while Jon researches/writes. Sundays and Thursdays we’re often hosting, sometimes Fridays too, and Saturdays are usually for relaxing, hiking, skyping with family. But, we try to squeeze in a quick one when we can, and today was such a day!

At a Glance…

Pesto & Peach Pizza

Rather than making more sweet treats when we still have so much leftover ice cream, I thought I’d write about this new-to-us flatbread pizza from The Banana Diaries that used up our leftover basil from the pinwheels the other day. This pesto is super easy to whip up, and with just the right amount of basil already laying around, it was a no brainer. I grabbed a couple of peaches and some of our favorite fluffy naan since I didn’t have time to try to make flatbread. We swapped the tomatoes for bell peppers since Jon has an aversion to tomatoes and we need to use up the bell peppers before we leave town. We also added some vegan frozen chicken to give it a little more protein, and then it was perfect! I didn’t notice the recipe said it made four flatbreads and we only wanted two, so we have some leftover pesto, but I think we’re ok with that! These were soooo good and the peach added a fun flavor to it!

Planets

Stellar is one of my favorite little crunchy card games, by two of my favorite designers (Pinchback & Riddle!). They have designed other hits for me (Piepmatz, River Valley Glassworks, Holly Jolly) and have this quintessential thing about manipulating the cards in your hand to get what you actually want/need. In Stellar, you are playing cards to both your telescope and your notebook. There are several categories of stellar bodies (asteroids, planets, moons, interstellar clouds, & black holes). At the end of the game, you score points for the stars on the cards of each suite in your telescope multiplied by the number of cards in that suite in your notebook. You also score a bonus if you have each suite in your telescope, and if you got the majority of strength in each section of the telescope. How do you do this? You start with two cards in your hand. On your turn, you’ll draw a card from the display, and play one of those 3 cards to either your telescope or notebook. The number on that card means you must play the card in that numbered spot to the other place (telescope or notebook). The lower numbered cards have more stars, but aren’t as good for area majority. In your notebook, you can only count them if they are in chronological order. It sounds like a lot, but it’s actually really smooth but crunchy! My favorite combination!

Want to buy these games? Check out your friendly local game store (FLGS), Amazon [here], or get a first-order discount at Board Game bliss [here].