Ok, not quite. But he's the biggest pepper on our plant right now. Probably cause he's the first one to sprout.
It's been so exciting to watch this li'l guy grow in the last few weeks, compared to the uniformed herbs...yeah, not as exciting on their part. As much as I love our herbs, their appearance really don't change. Yeah, they get bigger in size, they grow more leaves...but that's about it.
But these little babies...
Well, to watch them blossom and then all of a sudden have a teeny tiny pepper appear?? Oh so exciting! I can't wait to harvest these bad boys. But apparently that's not going to happen 'til next month, maybe October?
Oooohhh...the suspense and anticipation 'til then!
Another week of not much blogging or crafting. My little one is still not liking the heat, and to top it all off, he's teething! I just wish that a tooth would cut through already just so that he can get some form of relief and knowledge of what's going on, rather than just being fussy and overly crabby!
I was out on the balcony earlier today cutting out some herbs for our dinner, when I realized that I haven't given an update status on how my little balcony garden was doing! So here it is. My little lovelies are not only alive still, but they're thriving and growing!
My little Micro Toms are sooo sweet. The first time I popped one in my mouth I was surprised as to how sweet they are. Brett doesn't like them. He thinks they are too sweet and that tomatoes shouldn't be like that. They are seriously like little balls of sugar. The leaves hate the sun, and even though I've been trying to keep them in the shade, the leaves are still somewhat dying. I'm wondering if it's this heat wave that we've been having that's making the leaves die?
You can't tell from the photo above, but we use the lemon thyme a lot. And I mean a lot! As in almost every day. And the mystery plant next to the thyme - which I think is Cuban sage, thanks to minutes of Google-ing - has gone from being a little teapot to a nice tall bodum size height!
At first I didn't think the rosemary was growing at all, but then when I turned the planter to the other side I realized that it was growing alongside the length of the planter! Brett had to remind me that the rosemary wasn't the normal, typical kind that we used to have growing in our backyard at our old place, but was in fact "creeping rosemary".
We haven't been using the cilantro. I think we've used some of it twice in our cooking. Brett doesn't like it, he thinks it's too strong and spicy. I love it. Again, this isn't the normal cilantro, but I can't tell the difference like Brett can. I just wish I could find a good yam and cilantro soup recipe so that I can use some of it up without feeling guilty for neglecting it. I'm a little hesitant in using a recipe off the internet cause the last time I tried a soup recipe from searching online, I ended up not liking it and was a little miffed that so much time, effort, and money went into making it.
We're kind of regretting getting 2 types of parsley, especially since you don't need that much of it in a recipe to get the full flavor of it. But at the time we were so over the moon about starting up a herb garden that we got carried away. We've been trying to garnish almost everything with the stuff, but it still looks like we haven't touched a single leaf.
My basil plants are coming along great. For a while there I couldn't eat any of it cause I was eating it faster than it can grow. Brett didn't believe me when I told him how much I love basil and how I could eat a huge lot of it every day. Now he knows. So a few weeks ago when he went to Thrifty's he saw basil plants on sale, so he got me another one:
This time it's in its own pot and for some reason, the leaves grow much, much, much larger than the other plant. I'm not complaining, but I find it weird. I've managed to eat a lot of Caprese salads from this and am hoping to make some more pizzas next week with it. Man, I love this stuff!
We also have a new addition to our bacomy garden family. Brett had been eyeing it since we started our herb garden and then finally broke down and just bought the thing. What is it? A Cubanelle pepper plant!
He was bummed out for a while there cause nothing was happening with it. Just a bunch of leaves. Then finally a few days ago some flowers started to blossom and now we are starting to see the peppers forming! So exciting!
Unfortunately our marjoram seedlings didn't make it. They were thriving for a while there, then one by one they died. I blame Brett and he's now taking full responsibility for their demise. He wasn't being gentle when watering the tiny things and was literally showering the fragile plants to the point where they were beaten down to the soil from being manhandled by the heavy water. We thought about re-starting over, but then decided to just wait 'til next year to try again. We figured we've gone this long without marjoram that we can forgo it. Oh well!
So I don't think I'll be blogging this weekend at all. We have friends in town so this long weekend will be spent catching up over coffee and beers (obviously not to be consumed at the same time!).
Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!!
...On a warm, sunny, summer day is a caprese salad. I don't know what it is about the combination of baby bocconcini, fresh basil, and cherry tomatoes, but their co-mingling together results in pure yumminess. I used to make it with large tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, both thickly sliced and layered with ribbons of basil sprinkled on top. Then one day I just got too lazy to do any chopping, yet I needed to bring something for a dinner. A quick trip to the grocery store and I came back with cherry bocconcini, whole leaves of fresh basil, grape tomatoes, and a container of toothpicks. Voila! Classy and yummy!
Last summer I had gone to a house warming party in Vancouver and the hostess had very innovative ways of serving her edibles. One of the ideas that I took from her was serving the salad in shot glasses. How cute is that idea? A must-do for the next dinner party, for sure. Just not sure if we have that many shot glasses! But if I'm making the salad for just me, well, a shot glass won't be able to hold enough for my appetite!
I love this salad with olive oil, lemon, and salt and pepper. But I love and adore it even more when there's some balsamic reduction drizzled over! In the words of Rachel Ray: Yum-O!!!
You seriously have to try it. This version is the best summer-y salad in the world! And trust me, your taste buds will thank me for it! Here's a recipe for my version of a balsamic reduction:
In a small sauce pan, pour double the amount of balsamic vinegar that you'll be needing for your salad. Make sure to use good quality balsamic vinegar here, as you'll be able to taste the difference! Bring the vinegar to a boil and turn down the heat to a simmer. Stir constantly, unless you are using a Teflon coated saucepan. When half of the vinegar has boiled away, remove from heat and add a sprinkle of brown sugar. Allow the reduction to cool. Don't worry if it doesn't look thick, it'll become deliciously syrupy as it cools. You can omit the brown sugar if you want, but I find it adds a little kick.
Enjoy!!
We finally did it! We finally started our little herb garden! On Monday we picked up a few herbs that we knew we really wanted and then we headed over to Capitol Iron to pick up some planters. Sorry, I completely forgot where we had picked up our little seedlings. We didn't get everything we wanted on our list, we wanted to start out small and see how it goes before we went all out. Not to mention we wanted to make sure that we had enough room on our small balcony/patio (to me, they are the same thing). I'm trying to convince Brett that we have plenty of room, and if need be we can always build some sort of shelving to house our green babies. I'm also trying to convince him that we should take advantage of the wee one's balcony (yes, our 8 month old son has a little balcony attached to his bedroom...why does a baby need his own balcony?? So weird). As practical and convenient it is to have all our edible plants located right outside our kitchen, I think there would be no harm in putting the yet-to-ripen and yet-to-sprout-anything plants in the upstairs balcony. To me, this seems reasonable.
Anyhoo, above is the before I re-potted the herbs into the planter shot. Brett and I couldn't decide which herb should be where, so we had to "plan" what each planter should look like. On the far left there are 2 chive sprouts. We weren't sure how fast they grew back, and with the amount of potatoes that Brett eats, we figured it wouldn't hurt to get 2. Just in case. In the middle of the photo there's some Delfino cilantro. The place had run out of regular cilantro so we settled for the Delfino. On the right is sage. I don't really cook with sage, and I can't recall when Brett has either, so we'll see how the sage plant works out for us.
The place we went to also ran out of regular thyme, so instead we picked up the lemon thyme (the last plant on the right). While I was re-potting everything all I could smell the entire time was the yumminess of the lemon thyme. It's so sweet and, well, lemony. Brett was curious as to how it would taste mixed with everyday foods, so that night he used some in the roasted potatoes. I'd have to say that I'm glad that the regular thyme was sold out cause this stuff is so dee-lish!!
You can't see it in the above photo, but there's a little stubby herb behind the lemon thyme. I can't remember what it's called cause the sign for it fell off on the way home, but Brett picked it out after shoving a leaf in his mouth at the store. It reminds me of an aloe or a cactus, cause the leaves are thick and according to Brett, "juicy". You also can't see them, but we bought a few sprigs of "creeping" rosemary. At first we weren't going to buy rosemary, since our last landlord had insisted that we stop by whenever we needed some as her backyard is full of more rosemary than she knows what to do with. But at a dollar, we couldn't resist.
Brett and I both wanted parsley. But we both wanted a different kind of parsley. I wanted flat-leaf Italian, and Brett wanted curly. After a few minutes of trying to persuade each other which parsley to get, we gave in and just got one of each.
And of course we got some basil!! It's the whole reason why I wanted to start up a herb garden in the first place! I never knew there were so many different kinds of basil until I did some research on it. My plan was to have a whole planter dedicated to nothing but basil. Unfortunately, that was not Brett's plan. We compromised and I ended up leaving with 2 basil plants that have to share a planter with the parsley. The place we went to only had 2 types of basil, but I walked away with the one I wanted anyways, which is the Italian large-leaf variety. I had also wanted the sweet basil, but I'm not sure what the difference is between the two. All I know is that I'm heading to the grocery store sometime today to pick up some bocconcini, cherry tomatoes, and a new bottle of balsamic vinegar. I wish I could find fresh mozzarella, the kind that is stored in water in a plastic bag, at a reasonable price. I haven't been able to buy fresh mozza since I lived in Europe. So sad.
Speaking of cherry tomatoes, after rushing home and re-potting all the herbs in their new homes, I had confessed to Brett that I would love to try my hand at growing my own cherry tomatoes. My cousin Tracy had started growing her own and told me that the first time she ate one it was like a party exploded in her mouth. She now calls these little gems "sugar bombs" cause they literally burst juicy sweet yumminess every time you bite into one. Well, Brett made a quick trip to Thrifty's that night to pick up a few items for his work day lunches. He had also picked up a little cherry tomato plant to surprise me with! I can't wait for them to grow and ripen!
I don't have any photos of it, but when I was in Nelson I had found some marjoram seeds at an outdoor market (or the "hippie market" as my aunt puts it, since everyone there either has a head full of dreads, haven't showered in weeks, of smells of patchouli and sandalwood mixed with BO) where locals sold their goods. For some reason, we couldn't find marjoram seeds anywhere here in Victoria, nor could we find seedlings for it. So when I spotted packets of marjoram seeds at the market, I snatched up a few. Brett is excited about growing something from seed. I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about it, but it'll definitely test out our yet-to-be green thumbs. Using a few of the little pots that our herbs came in, Brett sowed half a packet of seeds. They now sit on a window ledge where the sun hits the most. As an experiment, 1 of the pots is covered in a plastic Ziplock bag while the other 2 are uncovered. We wanted to see which one will grow the fastest.
Now that our mini garden is underway, we have plans on getting some more. Brett wants to try his hand at growing peppers. What kind of peppers, I'm not sure. I, on the other hand, was thinking of a strawberry plant (my cousin's plant was so cute, it made me want one...her testimonial about how yummy they are sold me even more), and maybe some lavender and a variety of mint. I saw several different kinds of mint at the store, as well as spearmint, and it made me think of fresh salads laced with mint, tea, and mojitoes! I'm getting so excited!!
I'm also excited that I'm finally fulfilling a to-do item from this year's as well as last year's Earth Day posts. I had cited that I wanted to start growing my own herbs and was convinced that it would never happened and would be something that would forever be on my to-do list. How good it feels to be able to cross this off my list!
Now I just need to do some research on community composting...
Ok, not quite. But he's the biggest pepper on our plant right now. Probably cause he's the first one to sprout.
Well, to watch them blossom and then all of a sudden have a teeny tiny pepper appear?? Oh so exciting! I can't wait to harvest these bad boys. But apparently that's not going to happen 'til next month, maybe October?
