the drink edition

right on time, my christmas cactus is blooming with cascading beautiful fuchsia blooms.  additionally, one of the orchids i've had for over 2 1/2 years is finally blooming.   it isn't as profuse a bloomer as my other 3 phalaenopsis but I love the color.  

during these chilly winter days, i am usually content to just keep a mug of hot tea or coffee close at hand.  but lately i've been exploring some other drink options.  some for breakfast, some for a lazy afternoon, and some for curling up on the couch in the evening.  i'll let you decide which is best for each occasion.

kale banana smoothie - i love the color of this vibrant drink.  i also love kale, but don't go too crazy with the amount you use.  the first time i made this, i was a bit over zealous.

makes 1 large glass

in a blender mix together:

- handful kale, about 2/3-3/4 cup very loosely packed (i usually take out the big stems and coarsely chop the leaves) 

- 1/2 banana

- 1/3 cup apple juice (you could probably use a couple tbsp of agave syrup instead)

- 1/3 cup water

- 3 ice cubes

blend for about a minute

hot vanilla- this year i started seeing recipes for this alternate to hot chocolate so i had to try it.  

serves one

- heat 6 oz of milk (i used 1% milk and added a little bit of half and half to make it a little richer)

add:

- 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar, to taste

- 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- dash of cinnamon

mix together.  i have a nifty little frother that is a small stick mixer that can go right into a glass.  it's intended to make the frothy top of a latte or cappuccino.  it's great using it for this.

* it's also tasty to add a splash of cognac*

tequila lime cayenne cocktail - i'm a big fan of tequila lime combinations.  i also love cocktails with a peppery kick.  having a ton of dried cayenne peppers from the garden this summer, i took a bunch and ground them in my spice grinder creating a powder that is easy to add to soups or drinks. 

makes 1 cocktail

mix together in a cocktail shaker:

- 1 shot of tequila

- scant 1 tablespoon of agave nectar

- 1 tablespoon lime juice

- pinch of cayenne pepper

- few ice cubes

pour into a glass, top with seltzer water

butternut squash deliciousness

it's been awhile.  no big reason for my hiatus...just found other ways to spend my time.  but i'm feeling inspired again.  here we are again near the beginning of winter.  i'm not a fan of cold weather, but i am a big fan of winter veggies, i.e. squash, root vegetables, greens.  a few nights ago i was looking at a butternut squash, wanting to come up with some different way to prepare it.  soups are good, but i've already been eating a lot of soup and it's still not technically winter yet.  so i decided to go more for a dish that can either be a main course or side dish, with big chunks of roasted squash, chick peas, and avocado all tossed together with a chili lime dressing.  the result was absolutely delicious.  this would be the perfect dish for a holiday pot luck because i think it is best eaten at room temperature.  plus it's full of gorgeous mouthwatering colors.  yum, i can't wait to make it again.

 

this makes about 4-5 main dish servings
1-1/2 lb to 2 lb butternut squash, peeled and diced into 3/4 in pieces
1 red onion, sliced thinly (about 1/8 in thick)
1 can of chick peas (or about 3/4 cup dried chick peas, cooked)
couple tablespoons balsamic vinegar
olive oil
1-1/2 to 2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
hot sauce (i use sriracha)
juice of 1 lime
1/3-1/2 cup slivered or sliced almonds, toasted
1 avocado, diced
salt to taste

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees
- Toss red onion slices with 1-2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and a drizzle of olive oil
- Toss butternut squash pieces with a drizzle of olive oil
- In separate dishes, roast the squash and onion (the squash takes about 30 min and the onions about 15-20 min.)
 - heat a small skillet, and dry roast the cumin.  you have to watch it carefully because it will burn easily.  either stir or shake the skillet while roasting.  it usually takes only a minute or so, but is worth it to get the best flavor from the cumin.  add the chili power and dry roast for another fifteen seconds or so.
- mix together lime juice, a few tablespoons of olive oil, cumin, chili powder, and hot sauce to taste
- stir together squash, onions, chick peas, almonds, avocado and mix in the dressing
- serve room temperature.  i also toasted some pita wedges to eat with it.

stuffed bell peppers

yes, i know it's been awhile.  i wish i could say it's because i've been travelling around the world for the past 2 months.  but no, i've been here in dc with our record setting summer temps.  the garden doesn't seem to have suffered much from it.  aside from some occasional watering, it still is producing enough that it's hard to keep up.  so far i've canned about 7 quarts plus 10 pints of whole tomatoes, and 3 quarts and 4 pints of tomato sauce.  

the bell peppers have started to ripen nicely the past week or so.  faced with an abundance, an easy fix is to prepare stuffed peppers.  i really like them because once prepared, they freeze easily; and you can pretty much fill them up with any number of combinations.  i usually start with a base of brown rice as the main filler.  then i add some other sauteed veggies, such as onions or squash.  i also had some vegetarian sausage in the freezer that i had made a while ago, so i chopped that up and added it to the mix.  it's a little time consuming but makes a lot which can be frozen easily.  then i add fresh herbs and some kind of cheese.  in this case, i had some ricotta that needed to be used.  i steamed the peppers for a few minutes first, cook all the goods for the stuffing, mix them all together, and then stuff the peppers.

i like to stack them in mini loaf pans.  usually 2 peppers fit perfectly and it helps to keep them upright.  you can them bake them for 15 minutes at 350.  if you freeze them, defrost them in the freezer the night before, then bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.  since all the ingredients are already cooked you just want it to fully heat through and lightly brown on the top.

it's always a bit of a guessing game as to how much stuffing you need.  in this case, here's what i used for the 6 peppers:
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/2 large onion
1 hot pepper
3 cloves garlic
1 pint of slow roasted cherry tomatoes
1/4 - 1/3 cup ricotta
chopped oregano and basil
grated parmesan

the roasted tomatoes lend a deliciously sweet flavor.  i was roasting some of my large ones, so i went ahead and roasted the cherries too.  it's super easy, but requires a lot of time.  heat oven to 275 degrees.  in a roasting pan, add halved tomatoes (cut side up - except for the cherries, i just cut a slit in them rather than cutting all the way in half).  drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  bake for about 3 hours (the cherries took about 2 hours).  after about 2.5 hours, i turned the tomatoes over to let the juices run out more.  then the last 5 minutes i turned on the broiler to get a nice brown on the skin.  they are so intensely flavored.  would be a great addition to pizza or a regular tomato pasta sauce. 

Weekend Project

Well, okay, it really took 2 weekends, but that was because I could only work on it one day each weekend.  For awhile I've been wanting to clean up a small hillside in my side yard.  It had become difficult to maintain, even though I would usually plant some vegetables in it each year.  So with the help of my friend, Jim, I took to the task of putting in low terraces.  I originally hoped it would only take one day to complete (despite all the skeptical looks from others).  But as is typical for home projects, the first day took 3 different trips to the hardware store alone.  Fortunately the second day of work went more smoothly since we actually knew what we were doing.  It was a lot of work, but I'm really happy with the result.  I was especially proud since I calculated just the right amount of building material to use.

before any work

the end of the first day of work

the final product.  i relocated some ornamental grasses to the back and planted some squash on the back tier.
i still haven't decided what to put in the bottom tier.

salad fixings (or fixins)

this year i'm growing radishes for the first time. they are incredibly easy to grow. i sowed them directly into the garden about 6 weeks ago, and now they are big enough to harvest. the variety that i have is called 'watermelon radish' (thanks for the recommendation liz!). as you can see the color is the inverse of regular radishes.  they have a wonderfully spicy flavor - perfect for adding another dimension to salad.

i also have lots of lettuce and arugula ready to be thrown into a salad.  i brought back some arugula seed packets from my trip to italy last fall.  it's quite tasty and seems to have more of a bite to it than the arugula i get here at the grocery store.  i did initially have a problem with slugs eating the lettuce and arugula plants. i had heard that slugs can't resist beer, so i strategically placed some containers of beer around the plants. i was amazed how many slugs drowned themselves in the beer within a day or so.

swiss chard that wintered over in my garden

from seed to garden

it's been a while.  it's been a bit difficult to motivate this spring to do much to the garden or the blog.  there are the normal excuses: work has been overwhelming at times; the weather is either too gross to be outside; or it's  too nice to be doing anything but sitting in a park or hiking in the woods. i also feel overwhelmed sometimes looking at all the projects around the house and yard that i'd like to get done. it's hard to narrow the to-do-list into something that seems manageable.  but regardless, of these obstacles, i did manage to get some plants started in the basement in late winter.

i just had to keep reminding myself of the delicious bounty to come in the summer for all my early season efforts. so with that, i started my tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, & basil in february.

another thing i did was to get my soil tested.  the report came back generally good, the nutrient content and soil texture are still in the right range. the one thing that i did find out though was that the soil pH was high - 7.5.  most plants like a more acidic soil.  the sulfur content was low as well.  luckily adding sulfur to the soil brings down the pH, so it was easy to take care of both things with one effort.

the mild spring got the plants off to a strong start once. i think this is the tallest they've ever been. one thing that  also might have contributed to their height is that i put foil around the trays under the grow lights, helping to reflect more light back to the plants.  

dinner in 20

i don't have many full fledged dishes that i keep in constant rotation.  but one that i keep coming back to as a quick easy meal is a simple tomato pasta sauce.  it's perfect for a weeknight meal when you want something to throw together quickly, or perhaps on the weekend when the cook has had a couple glasses of wine and realizes she needs to put something together with relative ease (not speaking from experience, of course).

beside the quickness of this recipe, the other thing i love about it is that the ingredients are ones that i almost always have on hand.  

start by putting a pot of water on to boil for the pasta.  i prefer to use penne for this recipe, but this evening only had spaghetti on hand.

while the water is heating prepare the following ingredients:

- 1 jar of tomato pasta sauce (i've used everything from just a can of tomatoes to some homemade sauce i canned from my garden tomatoes) 

- 1 onion, chopped

- 2 to 3 cloves of garlic, diced

- 1 hot pepper, diced

- can of sardines (i've also done this recipe with 1 can of anchovies.  the anchovies tend to disperse more evenly, so if you are turned off by chunks of sardines, it may be a better option)

- 1-2 tbsp of capers (i think this is essential to the sauce)

- grated parmesan (parmesan reggiano of course...life is too short to use any other type of parm.  life is also too short to eat cheap chocolate, but that's for another post)

while the water is boiling, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a pan.  add chopped garlic and hot peppers and cook for about a minute.  add the onions and saute for another 8 minutes or so.  after about 10 minutes, the water should be boiling, so you can add the pasta.  while the pasta cooks, add the tomatoes to the onions.  when the pasta has about 3 minutes left to cook, add the sardines (i usually drain off some of the oil from the can) and add the capers.  stir the mixture and break up the sardines.  when the pasta is done, drain it and then add it to the tomato sauce.  serve with freshly grated parmesan.