holy jungle fever, batman! those herbs are HUGE!!!!!

my FB status tonight reads: that very night in heather's kitchen, a forest grew... and grew... and grew until her table hung with vines and the kitchen became the jungle all around... (translation: heather brought her herbs in tonight, and didn't realize quite how big they were till they were sitting on her kitchen table. LOL)

well, it's late october in ontario, which means it's gonna be getting cold soon. :( which means, also, that my wonderful herbs needed to come indoors for the winter. because really, is there anything better than fresh herbs? i don't think so.

anyway, it was gorgeous out today, hitting 15 degrees this afternoon (or about 60 degrees F, for my non-celsius readers). so i thought today would be a good day to do some outdoor work. and wow! it was glorious! feeling the earth between my fingers one last magnificent time!!! so this evening, after supper (it was still pretty warm out), i went outside and got to work.

now, i'll be honest here. other than moving the original tiny plants from those itty-bitty container things you buy them in at the store, i've never transplanted anything. so, you can imagine, i'm a little freaked out right now. these are wonderful plants, my favourite herbs, and i really hope i didn't kill them. but you know, this sort of fly by the seat of my pants kind of approach to planting herbs obviously hasn't failed me before, so let's hope it works this time.

oh, i guess i should tell you what i have: the itty bitty one is rosemary, the giant tree-ish looking thing at the back is parsley, and the giant, viny monster plant on the left is oregano. mmm.... oregano...

but really, what else would i be doing at 5am?

so, here i am, awake (on purpose) at 5am. i have to get out early this morning, so i'm up early. and of course, since there's really nothing else to do at 5am (well, i think i vaguely recall something called "sleep" but i'm not entirely sure, having been awake so often at this hour anyway...), i'm going to make my lunch for today. and what am i making at this hour? well, let me tell you:

TACOS!!!!

from scracth, no less!

proud? why, yes, i am, as a matter of fact. here's the ingredients:
my "honourary" mom taught me how to do it. and like most real cooking, she taught me without a real recipe. she said, "about half the package of flour, and then some water and salt until it's right." now, that, my friends, is my kind of recipe. how much to add? until it looks right. seriously, that's how i cook, so those are instructions i understand (especially since she told me what it should look like. otherwise, what does tortilla dough look like? i don't know).

anyhoo... i'm going to get working on this now. i'm going to make my own corn tortillas, pressed in my very own tortilla press (which i picked up at mennomex in aylmer), and then fill them with refried beans, which i am going to cook up with a bit of onion. then i'm adding cheese and tomato and maybe some peppers.

and yes, in case you're wondering... the tomatoes and peppers are from my garden. awesome. ;)

anyway, i've never really done this before. so i'll post later and let you know how it all turns out. i'll try to remember to take a picture of it all when it's done. talk to you later! :)


UPDATE: the tacos turned out great. i will never again buy corn tortillas. they're so easy to make, and i did up the tacos in about half an hour this morning. this means:

1. make the dough, and roll it into balls
2. press the dough into flat tortillas (thank-you, tortilla press!)
3. fry the tortillas on a dry skillet
4. add cheese and beans to the tortilla, fold it, and place on baking sheet
5. broil until done (well, this was done while i dressed the kids)

and they were so yummy! i didn't quite use Mom R's recipe, but only because it would have made a billion tortillas, and i wanted about a dozen. the recipe on the bag makes approx 16 tortillas. i got 15 out of it (i guess i made them a little big). i still have 4 balls of dough in a container in the fridge, so maybe for snack tomorrow or something... anyhoo... i highly recommend making your own tortillas. give it a whirl! so easy, so yummy, so healthy, so cheap. good, all around. ;)

zucchini bread recipe, as promised

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups grated zucchini
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sour cream

Directions:

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). grease two 9x5 loaf pans.
2. beat together eggs, sugar and oil. blend in the grated zucchini, and then the sour cream. mix in the flour, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon. pour batter into prepared pans.
3. bake for 80 minutes. cool on wire rack.

the original recipe called for 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips as well, but i think that's disgusting, so i'm leaving it out. call me crazy, but i just don't think chocolate and zucchini quite mesh. so, yeah, i'll post my review tomorrow, and let you know how it all turned out. and i'll post some pics of us all cooking and baking, as well as a list of all the things we made.

ps - here's the link to the recipe on allrecipes.com

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Zucchini-Bread/Detail.aspx

check it out and read the reviews. sounds like a good one to me. i'll let you know.

the first real harvest from my garden... 2 zucchinis! and check out the size of them! seriously, i'm so proud! we're going to use these tomorrow in our cooking and baking. i just printed off a recipe for zucchini bread, which i'll post next, then review tomorrow. i'm also going to use some zucchini in some pasta dish, either lasagna or some other noodle concoction, which i'll likely freeze and have on hand for the coming week. so there you go. i'm going to use food i grew myself. eep! i'm so excited! giddy, almost! anyway, got to type up a recipe, so i'll stop this post now. :)

finally... a garden update...

ok, yes, i know it's been a while since i posted an update on my garden. well, there's not really all that much to say. but before i continue, i'll admit, i've been a little neglectful toward it over the last week or so especially. lots going on at home, and since i'm the only adult here, i easily get pulled away from my beloved garden.

what else can i say? well, the non-picture update: my cucumbers are dead. they did well there for a while, but apparently they don't like the lots of rain then lots of wind combo or something like that (i don't know, ask a farmer). so, yeah, no cukes for me. the peas are coming up nicely, albeit surrounded by clover. i've simply got to do some clover-pulling. i've also got a couple carrot plants coming up, which is exciting. um, what else? hot peppers are doing ok, as are the potatoes. but they're not so exciting, so i left them off. but, i've learned what does really well in my soil here:

squash!!!! pictured above, in no particular order (mostly because i can't tell them apart anymore, since they've all mixed together), zucchini - 2 plants, acorn, butternut and pumpkin. ok, i'll do my best here and tell you which is which in the pic: way at the back and in the bottom left corner is the zucchini. in the middle somewhere is the acorn squash. the giant leaves, that's the pumpkin plant. and down in the bottom right, with little leaves and looking very "don't mind me"-ish, is the butternut. you might remember that i moved this one a while back, and since then, she hasn't done much. but when i checked on her tonight, i was thrilled to see that she's now spreading! go butternut go!!!
again, more pics of the pumpkin plant. seriously, those leaves are enormous! but this picture is really of the raspberry plant. doing quite nicely, don't you think? it'll still be a couple seasons before i get any berries from her, but that's ok. this garden is teaching me patience.
here's my giant tomato plant. it started to tip over the other day, so i had to stake it. it's huge! and earlier this evening, it had 17 tomatoes. but, i accidently knocked one off, so now we're down to 16. but it's all doing rather nicely! :)
ok, on to the herbs. oregano, lavender and rosemary are doing doing pretty well. in fact, i have already used the rosemary a couple times. yummy! :) as for the others, well, earwigs got at the dill and cilantro, so they're pooched. and the basil, well, i think that was my fault. i think basil might actually like water or something silly like that. i don't think it likes drying right out repeatedly. oops. :( and i really like basil. maybe i'll see if i can find another plant, or maybe some seeds, and grow it again. and water it. and take care of it. you know, learn from my mistakes and all that.

anyway, there you have it. my garden, such as it is. well, i'm heading into another not-so-simple week, but lots of fun planned. a trip to toronto for a couple days. first we're to the ROM to check out the dinosaurs, then swimming at a hotel, then clinic on wednesday. while we're in TO, i'm hoping to see a friend who's there with her baby after his open heart surgery the other week. well, i'll talk to you later! :)

the garden this week

the weekly garden update. this week i'm showing off the peas, which were only planted a week ago, and we have 13 little sprouts. only one hasn't popped up. i'm assuming a bird or sqirrel got to it.
















then the squashes. look at them! the pumpkin is the one with enormous leaves. i moved the butternut squash to the front corner; it will get more sunlight there. but the squirrels seem to like that corner, too, so we'll see what happens there. but the good news about the squashes: the zukes are already starting to grow, i must have 10 already, though they're still in the very early stages. and the pumpkin and acorn have the beginnings of flowers on them.

next up: cucumbers, which are doing wonderfully. especially the middle one. it's huge, so we've moved it so it will climb up the fence instead of over the peas. three of the plants now have flowers, and there are several cukes in the making. ooh, i'm so excited!








then there's the tomato plant - huge!!! one of the branches actually broke off this week, because it was so long and heavy from the leaves. but, if you'll notice in the pic, there's a tomato now! actually, there's 2, but i only shot one.














at the bottom here, you'll see the full garden, in all its glory. i'm proud (and yes, i know i need to do some weeding this week. probably wednesday).

so there you have it. lots of progress this week. woohoo! :)

but one quick thing: it seems i have a problem with earwigs. they really like my dill, and they've gotten into the basil and oregano. if you have any solutions, please let me know. thanks! :)

weekly garden update

my tomato plant (from plant). it's huge!
blithe's tomato plants, from seed. doing really well!
zucchini. there's a bud on there, not quite a flower yet, but it's coming.
hot banana peppers. lots of flowers on the top plant, and a pepper is starting on the bottom one.
there are now 6 potato plants.

these are the highlights from the garden this week. but there were a couple of other exciting happenings: 3 of the cucumber plants now have flowers, and there's a couple buds starting on the pumpkin plant. as for the beans i had planted, yeah, nothing's happening there. so, this afternoon, i dug up the 2 rows (and found nothing - i'm guessing the birds ate them - i need a scarecrow), and the kids and i planted one row of peas and one row of carrots. i had no idea carrot seeds were so small! they're tiny! did anyone else know that, or am i the only one who didn't? i don't know what i thought they would look like, but they're even smaller than sesame seeds! who knew?!

anything else this week? well, um, i removed my acrylic nails. i don't mean i had them removed. i mean, i removed them. snapped/pried them all off. now, before you ask why i would post this on my simplicity blog, there's 3 reasons i took them off:

1. they kept peeling off at the ends a bit, and dirt was getting in between my nails and the acrylic ones. so, even though they made my nails so much stronger the rest of the time, they really weren't practical for gardening, which is my new passion.
2. i really felt they were the antithesis of all things simple. they represent a lack of genuineness, a dissatisfaction with the natural, and an elitist "ok, so, like, you mean you want me to work? like, seriously?" kind of approach to life. and is that really what simplicity is? is that what i'm aiming for in life? um, no. i'm the girl who was on her hands and knees in the garden this afternoon digging up the rows for seeds. so the whole pretty-girl-refusing-to-work-and-wreck-her-nails image just wasn't jiving. the nails had to go.
3. i was too lazy to get them filled.

anything else going on in the house this week? my mom is working on stripping the paint off the banister in the front hall. some of it was coming off anyway; it looked like they had put latex paint over oil paint, and that's not the best combination. so, it's coming off, slowly but surely. and mom and i are working on a plan for the front hall, mainly involving what to do with the stairs (that carpet has to go!) and paintable wallpaper for texture, since the hall is too narrow for art, but it's so boring in there.

so that's the house this week. hopefully in the next month or so, i will be painting the bathroom a delightful powder blue, and i'm working on gathering what i need for the master bedroom, which has not been re-decorated since we moved in. so that's the house at the moment.

well, that's all i got right now. have a delightfully simple week, if i don't "talk" to you sooner! h

holy beefsteak, batman! check out that tomato plant!

as above. the big one is my plant, and in the bottom left, you see 2 of blithe's seeds.

new today: a row of green peppers! just as i'd given up hope! sheesh! :)















my herbs, including a few newbies. the full list is below.















this would be the pumpkin plant, i believe.



















and the garlic - 10 plants!

ok, so i learned something new this week about the garlic. apparently, if i had planted them in the fall, they would be garlic. but... since i only planted them in the spring, they will be onions this year. but if i leave them in the ground, or re-plant in the fall, i'll have garlic next year. but, lesson learned. and in the fall, you can bet i'll be planting a ton of garlic! i mean, seriously! look how much it loves my soil!!!

and seriously, i had about given up on the green peppers. a whole row, wasted. or so i thought! imagine my surprise this afternoon when i spied all those little delights! honestly, they weren't there this morning. how exciting!

and let's see, what else... my squashes are all doing very well. the zucchini and pumpkin especially. i think i'll be planting quite a bit of squash-type things next year, since they seem to do well. and the tomatoes! even the ones from seed are doing well! how thrilling!

and i promised a full list of my herbs. so, as per the pic above, clockwise from left:

1. oregano (in the blue tin)
2. marjoram
3. lavendar
4. rosemary
5. cilantro
6. dill
7. basil

so, there you go. my garden this week. check back next week and see what's growing! toodles! ;)

my garden - weekly update. and a couple lessons in weather watching. first of 2 posts today. but they're different, so make sure to read both.

garlic! i have 9 sprouts!

pickling cucumbers. doing great!


i have 2 yellow bean sprouts

hot banana peppers. still doing well!


pumpkin's doing nicely, too. starting to spread!


that's right, folks, there is progress and growth in my garden this week. i'm not kidding when i say that the garlic has grown noticeably just this afternoon! the plants are loving this heat and humidity (they'll learn, lol). i wanted to show you our tomato plants, but my camera died, so i have to recharge the batteries, and i'll try to get pics for next week. but they're really growing! in fact, not only is the plant doing well, but we have about 7 plants starting, too, from the seeds that blithe planted in there. so exciting!

i wanted to take these pictures and post them this afternoon, you know, just in case. we've got a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch here at the moment, so i thought i'd do this before we lose power or something. (i didn't think it'd be fair to asher if i used up the power from the solar generator so i could update the cyber-world on the garden when i should have been using the generator to, oh i don't know, feed him. lol)

but, you know, we're ready for the big storm now, if indeed it happens and is as bad as "they" predict. mom and i put everything thing away that we could. all the herbs (which are also doing wonderfully, by the way) are in the kitchen, all the tools, toys, balls etc are in the shed (the last thing we need is a pitchfork to come flying through the kitchen window). if the weather gets really bad, we'll probably bring the barbeque inside, too. keep it safe a bit, in case we need it later for cooking. we have a few extra mini-cans of propane somewhere (i'll have to get ed to dig them out for us, or at least tell me where they are). we've stockpiled some water, and we've got cans of beans and rice already cooked. we pulled out the candles, and have the lighters and matches present and accounted for. we couldn't move the sandbox, so we put the picnic table over top of it. i think we're good (or at least, as ready as we'll ever be).

i also gave blithe a little lesson in meteorology this afternoon. she's worried about the storm, so i took her outside and told her a little bit about clouds. i explained to her the 2 types of cloud (yes, uncle ed, i know there's more, but she's 5, and read on to see how i explained them). i told her that the great big ones that look heavy and fat, the ones off in the distance that are kind of grey, those are rain clouds. they dump rain on you. the two or three little one overhead right now, those are "pretty clouds." know what they do? they look pretty. no rain. just prettiness. there you have it: Meteorology 101. i told her that the weather man isn't always right, sometimes he's wrong, but we have to be prepared when he tells us things like today. but the best way to know the weather is usually to look up. if the sky is blue, it's not raining. if you look up and get water up your nose, it's raining. mom also suggested we make a weather rock. i'd love that, but i don't have a big enough rock. i'll have to keep my eyes open for one. so i'm on the look-out for one now. lol

anyway, that's our life at the moment. the kids are stocking up on some good ol' fashioned TV time (we'd have to turn it off during a storm, and it's too humid to play outside right now). but it's Thomas, so the boys are happy, and it's a welcomed distraction for blithe, too. so, i should go. i have to post a video of asher on his blog, then maybe i should spend some time with my family (novel idea, don't you think? lol) ttys.

IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!!!!!

garlic.
hot banana peppers, look there's a bud-type-thingy (i'm so not a farmer-type).
that's zucchini you're looking at here. grown from seed. yup, i'm good. lol
i'd like to draw your attention to the bud there in the middle of my tomato plant.

some of my herbs. the 2 you see here are rosemary and lavender. in the yellow pot i have sweet marjoram, and there's oregano in the blue one.

that's right, folks, my experiment in gardening is WORKING!!!!! i'm so excited! i've actually got a garden, and there's stuff growing in it! woohoo!!!!!!! next year, i'm gonna have a bigger garden! i have declared! lol

i have a number of things going on in the garden, and a couple things in pots. here's the list:

1. cucumbers (slicing, pickling). growing from plants.
2. yellow beans. growing from seed.
3. lentils. from seed. (giving this a whirl, don't know if it'll work, but hey, you never know.)
4. pinto beans. from seed.
5. garlic. i had a few cloves, so i planted them. and they're working.
6. potatoes. dunno how it'll work out, but i'm trying it.
7. hot banana peppers. doing rather well, if i do say so myself. from plants.
8. green peppers. from seed.
9. zucchini. 2 plants, both doing well. several seeds, one is pictured above. :D
10. butternut squash. from plant.
11. acorn squash. from plant.
12. pumpkin. from plant.
13. watermelon. from plant.
14. cantelope. from plant.
15. honeydew melon. from plant.
16. tomatoes. one plant (bigger ones), and some seeds (grape, i do believe). they're in a whisky barrel, at least for now.

a lot of the plants are doing well, although i think a little intruder has nibbled on my melon plants. i'm not impressed. i'm thinking of building a scarecrow. how ever so Little House on the Prairie. i just hope it doesn't turn into that Simpsons episode where Marge built a scarecrow but then Homer came home drunk and thought it was an intruder or something and he beat it to a pulp and then all the crows loved him and followed him everywhere. that was creepy. i hope that doesn't happen here. i know it's not likely, but hey, you never know, you know?

anyway, that's my garden. i've decided to post its progress here weekly. so, every sunday night, check in and you'll see how things are coming along.

as for the whole domesticity thing, well, today i canned some pinto beans for quickie suppers, made some rice to have on hand for the week. i love rice, but i'm too impatient, so i make it ahead of time and keep it in the fridge. then when i want it, i just pull it out and do whatever to it, and then i'm happy. also, i did the Day 5 thing on an amish bread starter i got. and i'm thinking of starting my own in a couple days. i looked up the recipe on allrecipes.com (i'm really digging that site!). i just want to give it a whirl, having never done this before.

and i just realized, that i may have given the impression that i don't do anything in the kitchen. so sorry, if i have. in fact, i love being in the kitchen. i love to cook. i could cook all day if i had the chance. rarely use recipes; no, i check out food at my favourite restaurants and then come home and make it myself (and mine's usually better!). that's the type of cook i am. i love it. very creative and soothing, in a lot of ways. very pleasing. just baking... ugh. but i'm trying it. tonight i'm trying annie's homemade granola bars, and i'll let you know how they turn out. i'll give you the link to her recipe below. (there you go, annie, a little free advertising there for you! lol)

so, that's going to be my evening.

here's the links i mentioned earlier (just to give credit where credit is due):

1. http://myrecipestash.blogspot.com/2008/04/chewy-granola-bars-recipe.html
2. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Amish-Friendship-Bread-Starter/Detail.aspx