This year, I greeted 2018 by going on a “Moon Walk” in Matanzas Pass Preserve, a sixty-acre transitional wetland preserve on Fort Myers Beach. My in-laws were contributors to its purchase in 1979! Since then, the site has added a pavilion overlooking the bay and boardwalks over the mangrove swamps making an alligator-safe (just kidding!) walk to the pavilion.
Throughout the year, volunteers lead nature hikes through the Preserve, and one couple specializes in conducting “Moon Walks,” nighttime walks on the evenings of the full moon. Experiencing the Preserve at night features sounds and smells that are often overlooked on daylight walks. The “Moon Walk” is timed to reach the pavilion just as the moon is rising in the east over Estero Bay. This year the full moon occurred on New Year’s Day and was a Supermoon that happens when the moon is closer to the earth and appears bigger and brighter than usual. What can be a better way to start the New Year than by seeing the light of a Supermoon! 
People: People with vision who preserve endangered lands for all to enjoy and volunteers who share their time, expertise, and enjoyment of nature.
Places: Matanzas Pass Preserve, Fort Myers Beach, Florida. 199 Bay Road, Fort Myers Beach, FL 33931 http://www.leegov.com/parks/facility. The Preserve protects the wildlife and native plants of this area, is a geocaching site, and offers guided tours and relaxing self-guided strolls. When grandchildren and young friends visit, I take them on a treasure hunt here with a checklist of things to identify such as mangroves, hermit crabs, pelicans, white ibis, feathers, palm fronds, and panther tracks!
Pies: In honor of the New Year’s full moon, I made a Full Moon Pie. If you search the Internet for moon pies, you will come up with recipes for Harvest Moon Pie (see October 2015 blog) or Over the Moon Chocolate Pie. But, once in a blue moon (or a Full Moon in this case) you will find a recipe for a Full Moon Pie that is not really a pie, even though it is round and tasty. Traditional moon pies are chocolate-covered graham cracker cookies with a marshmallow filling.
My recipe (well, Betty Crocker’s,) celebrates the brightness of the moon and is made with white cake-mix cookies filled with marshmallow crème, and topped with white frosting sprinkled with gold glitter! Happy New Year!
- For the Cookies
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 1 box moist white cake mix
- 1 box (4-serving size) vanilla instant pudding and pie filling mix
- ½ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- For the Filling
- For the icing
- ½ cup white frosting (from 12-oz container)
- ¾ cup marshmallow crème (from 7-oz jar)
- For the Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 4 teaspoons milk
- Gold edible glitter
- Heat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheet with cooking parchment paper.
- In large bowl, beat butter with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy. Add cake mix, pudding mix, ½ cup milk and the eggs; beat on medium-high speed until blended.
- Using 1½-inch scoop, drop slightly mounded scoops of dough about 1 inch apart onto cookie sheet.
- Bake 10 to 12 minutes until set (do not overbake). Cool 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 20 minutes.
- In medium bowl, mix filling ingredients until well blended. For each pie, spread about 1 tablespoon filling on bottom of 1 cooled cookie. Top with second cookie, bottom side down; gently press cookies together.
- In small bowl, mix powdered sugar and 4 teaspoons milk with spoon until smooth. Drizzle icing over sandwich cookies. Sprinkle with edible glitter.
