root vegetables with quinoa and rice

spring is in full force now and the spring greens are growing seemingly without bounds. but i know it will still be another 5 weeks or so until the main summer event even begins (tomatoes, peppers, squash, cukes, eggplants, etc.).  in the meantime, i still have cravings for some of the winter offerings, especially root vegetables.  the other night i roasted some beets, sweet potatoes, and parsnips and mixed them with some quinoa and bhutanese red rice, a wonderfully nutty rice with a gorgeous reddish brown color. it proved to be a delicious dinner, and quite colorful too.     

cut up a few parsnips, one large sweet potato, and 3 medium beets into small pieces so they will cook relatively fast and evenly.

toss the veggies in olive oil before roasting them at 400 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes.

half a cup of bhutanese red rice and half a cup of quinoa.

the rice and quinoa cook the same amount of time, 20 minutes in the same proportions with water (1 part rice/ quinoa to 2 parts water).

while the veggies roast and the grains cook, thinly slice an onion and saute it until golden brown.  then push the onions to one side of the skillet. heat some additional oil in the empty side.  to the oil add cumin, paprika, ground ginger, turmeric, coriander, and cinnamon, stirring the spices in the oil for about a minute to develop their flavors before stirring them into the onions.

mix all the ingredients together to combine, add a dollop of hot sauce (my favorite is sriracha, commonly found in vietnamese restaurants), and then top with fresh cilantro.

Salad Days

 

i couldn't resist cutting a few of my irises and chives for a bouquet.

 

with the past few rainy days and mildly warm temps, my lettuce has been going crazy.  in my limited gardening experience i feel like lettuce gives you the biggest bang for the buck.  the seeds are ridiculously cheap, easy to sprout, and once they get going, well you better like eating a lot of salad.  fortunately i do.  there's something wonderful about just going into the yard, picking some leaves, washing them, and tossing them with some oil and vinegar.  now i know home grown lettuce isn't as dramatically different from store bought lettuce as say homegrown tomatoes are.  but there is a sweetness and tenderness to lettuce that has just been picked that i think is missing from store bought lettuce.  

 

 

freshly harvested cilantro

  

chives i started from seed last year.

 

lettuce ready for the salad bowl.

i rarely use store bought dressing unless i'm feeling exceptionally lazy.  lately my favorite dressing has been to mix some good extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, and a pinch of salt and pepper.  the pomegranate molasses gives the dressing a tangy sweetness.

Worms!!

everytime i go digging in the dirt i'm amazed at the life that is teaming just below the surface: worms, millepedes, roly polys, spiders, grubs, ants, ants, and even more ants.  the soil is alive! - and that's just the stuff that i can see with the naked eye.  granted most of these i'm not keen on finding in my house (still wondering how so many roly polys end up in my basement), most of them help make the soil a richer place for plants. 

last week i ordered a box of 500 worms online (www.unclejimswormfarm.com) to start composting with worms. it's kind of amazing sometimes what you can have delivered to your front door.  i have a regular compost pile in the corner of my yard, but i have to confess, i'm not that skilled at it.  in fact i find it a tiresome chore to deal with.  it seems i never have the right mix of 'green waste' to 'brown waste' and turning the compost over is a task i never quite seem to find the time to do.  so why not let the worms do all the work?  i tried my hand at vermiculture while in grad school and found it to be a pretty easy way to deal with most of my kitchen scraps.  back then though i didn't really have a garden, so i didn't take much advantage of the nutrient rich castings the worms left behind.  so now here i am with a wonderful garden, and i hate having to buy soil amendments when i know how easy it can be to get my own.  i recently got a plastic bin, drilled some holes for drainage, added a few shovelfuls of soil along with some dampened newspaper and some kitchen waste to make a cozy little home for my little squiggly invertebrates (eggshells and coffee grounds are especially loved by the worms, citrus peel not so much).  now they are happily eating my garbage.

    The worms arrived packed in a cloth bag.   

 

The worms are becoming acquainted with their new home.

Into the ground

last weekend (april 23), i transferred my tomato seedlings into the garden.  i had been putting them out during the day and bringing them inside in the evening for a couple weeks to harden them off.  the truth is though that they had run out of space under the lamps, so i didn't have much choice but to start putting them outside.  i gave a number of the plants to friends and neighbors and kept 10 for myself.  when i plant my tomatoes, i plant them deep enough to cover the first couple branches of leaves.  the tomatoes will put out roots anywhere along the stem that is touching dirt, and this helps to make them sturdier.  i also put a shovel full of compost/ manure into the hole to give some them some good organic matter to feed off. 

about half an hour after getting the tomatoes planted, a fierce thunderstorm rolled through.  i watched the plants from my kitchen anxiously as the rain beat upon their leaves.  they all seemed to have survived the thrashing, and i thought to myself, "oh well, welcome to the real world now."

i'm still waiting a bit more on getting the peppers and eggplants into the ground.  they could go out now, but they really like the temperatures to stay consistently warm.  i'll be getting them into the ground sometime this week, now that we're into may (unbelievably).    

It's amazing how tall the tomato seedlings have gotten.

These are the tomatoes I selected for myself

A tiny pepper is starting to form.

Ok, so not all the plants are perfect. This one is bound for the compost

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spinach is emerging

Tiny Kohlrabi

It's time to harvest some lettuce.