Showing posts with label vegetables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegetables. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Garden Photos.

My garden is doing beautifully so far this year! I actually have two gardens now, much to my delight: the same little patch of the backyard we've been using for three years now plus a new bed along the side of the house. (Once I have access to my own land you can bet none of it will be wasted on grass, but I'm very grateful to have any space at all to grow while living at home, not to mention my step-dad's expertise and help!) I've never quite gotten the hang of taking good garden photos but there's only one way to get any better at that, so here are some from this morning:


As you can see, the bell peppers are really coming in! We've never successfully grown them before and the plants barely seemed to grow early on, so I was nervous. Clearly I had nothing to worry about. We have three plants, each stunningly productive. I think a large part of it has to do with my three fantastic, heavenly-smelling lavender plants, which the bees have been loving as much as I do. The cucumbers by the lavender are flourishing, too, in contrast to last year's cucumbers which never seemed to get pollinated. Thanks bees!

We've got some sweet banana peppers, too!

It will be some time before the cabbage is ready, but isn't it pretty? I love the color it adds.

Sadly, strawberry season is well past. This photo is from June, during which we harvested tons of strawberries as beautiful, juicy, and delicious as these two. The strawberry plants are making a valiant effort to take over the entire garden as we speak. It's tempting to just let them but I am holding them back as best I can.

That's just a fraction of what we've got, so I'll aim for more/better photos soon!

Monday, December 17, 2007

Gifts & Food.

Yikes, again it's been a while since I posted! I have to admit I didn't knit a whole ton this week - first I had finals, then some of my friends came home from school for break, plus there was a snowstorm. So I had hanging out & sledding that needed to get done! But Brian's gift is halfway finished, at least:
P1050261 P1050259

The thumb is a little funky (I haaaate doing thumbs!) but I'm overall pretty pleased. I am slightly nervous that they'll be too small for him, but we'll see...

Today I started & finished one ridiculously cute little gift, but it has to stay a secret until after the holidays!

A few days ago I finished my brother's hat, but it seemed too small so I ended up ripping back to before the decreases & picking up again there. I haven't worked on it in a while because ribbing = tedious.

I have been baking a little and cooking a lot, though. Last week my grandma gave me a copy of The New Laurel's Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition. I am obsessed with this cookbook, guys. I don't even really know why -- so far the recipes aren't really that great, but something about the awesome hippie vibe of the book just puts me in a good mood every time I look at it. And the use of the word "Cookery" in the title! Seriously, what a great word. From it I've made Cranberry Squash (not bad) and "Everybody's Muffins," the very name of which makes me laugh. Those had a good flavor (in a super-healthy whole wheat kind of way) but definitely didn't rise enough & were therefore much too dense. I am a failure as a bread baker, dudes. Nothing that needs to rise ever rises under my watch, no matter what I do or how high my hopes of delicious, rewarding homemade bread are (very high, for the record). I also suck at kneading. One day I will accept these facts and just move next door to a lovely bakery or something, but for now I will probably keep trying...

I also ate brussels sprouts for the first time in my whole life last week! Yeah, my parents had such bad childhood memories of being forced to eat them that they never even tried making me do it. In fact, they're the only food all the tough "I'll eat anything" manly men in my family say they can't stand. But this recipe looked really appealing, so I bought some & gave it a shot. I was nervous about it but they were actually delicious! For the record, I used a bit of pecorino romano (purchased on accident when I'd been looking for parmesan, ugh!) & a lot of mozzarella. Parmesan would've been better but they were still tasty & I'll definitely be using that recipe again soon.

On the less healthy side, I made oatmeal chocolate chip peanut butter cookies last week. They were excellent, if I do say so myself! Or half of them were, anyway. The other half went in the cookie jar right after I tossed some stale mint Milanos. They became infused with the flavor of mint in a way that can only be described as revolting, and so half the cookies were wasted. Lesson learned!

And now I'm thinking that, even though it's late, I probably need to whip up a batch of these because don't they look heavenly? Yes, yes they do!