Don’t let the title fool you, we did *not* mix cinnamon & saffron together in one dish. 😂 The cinnamon is referring to the two baked goods I made, the saffron is referring to a game we played. Two treats, two tabletop games. Read on for the details and check out those At a Glance tables for the stats!

At a Glance…

Apple Cinnamon Scones

These Apple Cinnamon Scones from Vegan Richa were more complicated than the typical scone I make! It required making a milk/applesauce/lime juice mixture and freezing it (“buttermilk” concoction?), as well as freezing the scones before baking them. Why?? It was so tricky sliding them into my narrow little freezer lol and required two of us to do it successfully. They were quite tasty though! The recipe gave instructions for a gluten free flour, but I just used my standard all-purpose gf mixture and it worked great! (I did add the 2T extra butter that was recommended). For the icing, I did a heaping tablespoon or two of vegan milk, 1 C of powdered sugar, and a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon. These were super well received and we made enough to take with us on our trip and leave some for the dog sitter! Not sure how important and worth it the various freezing steps were, but these were quite delicious.

I also made Happy Herbivore’s Apple Crisp Muffins, which I’ve previously talked about here . It was my first time making them gluten free, and they did alright. They were a bit wetter/softer than usual, but maybe I should’ve just cooked them another minute or two. I’m always nervous to overcook gluten free things since they tend to dry out faster, and I’d rather have a moist muffin than a dry one!

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a classic! It was one of the first modern games I ever played, introduced to me by Jon’s family when I went to their house while we were dating. It is also the first game to coin the term ‘meeple’!

It is a super simple tiling laying game, where you draw a tile, play a tile, play a meeple. You’re playing to a central area that you’re building together, working to complete and compete for roads, cities, farms, and monasteries / cloisters. Once a meeple is on a thing, it is claimed, and someone else can only share the points if they edge on to the thing sneakily. Once a thing is completed, you remove your meeple and score the points! Roads are one point per tile, cities 2 points per tile plus more for shields, cloisters are a point for each surrounding tile, and farm are special. Those meeples never get removed, but score at the end of the game 3 points for each completed city touching their farm. There are tons and tons of expansions you can add to spice things up, or keep it simple with the base game. If you like tile laying games and haven’t played this yet, what are you waiting for??

Herbaceous Sprouts

Herbaceous Sprouts is another great chill weeknight kinda game that we ended our evening with. You’re planting herbs and a few flowers in a shared garden, racing to get to the best spots. Each round, you draw cards (number of players + 1) and put dice on the indicated spots. Dice give you herbs and abilities, and cards have abilities as well. They let you do things like re-roll, plant a flower, draw more dice, chance dice, etc. Once you have enough herbs gathered from your dice, you can plant in the garden and put your token to claim a spot. The garden has four quadrants to score in: 1) all alike 2) all different 3) pairs 4) flowers. Once all the cards are gone the game ends and you score! Very simple but a pleasant theme and combination of things.

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].