Garden Update

Well, almost a month has passed now since the city finally turned on the water at our community garden and Katie and I were finally able to plant. We have a 25 by 15 foot plot and 8 garden beds to fill and a limited budget so things have sort of gone in stages. However, we put in the last of it last weekend and stuff is sprouting away!

The final list includes: Strawberries, 4 different kinds of peppers, tomatoes, green beans, sugar snap peas, carrots, buttercrunch lettuce, spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, basil, chives, oregano, rosemary, thyme, lavender, straweberries, marigolds, nasturiums & chamomile.

In a strange way, I feel like I have been transported back to the 2nd grade when we had a class "garden" sprouted in dixie cups! I feel that kind of ridiculous excitement. I also feel strangely maternal over all my little plant "babies" (although I recognize that it is a little sick to be full of anticipation over the prospect of eating the objects of my maternal affection!)

Anyway, things are mostly growing good. A few of the herbs have not come up yet and only a few of the carrots and lettuces sprouted. But the peppers, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, brussels sprouts and strawberries are all doing beautifully!

Some nasty little aphids have been attacking my broccoli and green beans and I have started researching how to wage full out war on them. Would you like to know what my weapons of warfare will be? Soapy water and manure tea! Muuhahah! (That is my poor attempt at an evil laugh...) The soapy water, in theory, will destroy the oils on the outside of the aphids and keep them from being able to stick to the underside of the leaf. The manure tea (literally, manure steeped in water with a tiny bit of molasses - yum!) will help speed the growth and replenish nutrients that the aphids have sucked out. We'll see how it goes!

I know these pictures are not very exciting yet, but I will share them anyway.

The beginnings of some nasturiums, marigolds & chamomile - all very pretty flowers that happen to be edible!



Walla-walla (sweet) onions, a bell pepper and serano chili pepper:



Lettuce, spinach and some itty-bitty carrots that are too small to see in the picture:



Broccoli & Brussels sprouts:



Tomato plants:



Herb garden bed:



Our plot at a glance:



I am an utter beginner at all of this, so if any of you have gardening tips that you would like to share, I would gobble up any advice (particularly if it has to do with growing tomatoes in our climate or annihilating nasty aphids)!

Shrimp Ceviche

Food always gets bonus points for me if it is pretty! And my dinner last night might have been the prettiest meal I have made in a while. It was also quick, healthy and quite conducive to a kitchen that faces west and gets quite toasty as the sun is going down without adding additional heat from the stove!

It is called Shrimp Ceviche. I had seen recipes with "ceviche" in the title before and I always figured it was a Mexican food dish that included beer. That just shows how rusty my Spanish is! Ceviche, (not cerveza) has nothing to do with beer, but rather it is a method of cooking seafood by using the acid in citrus juice instead of heat. A true ceviche recipe will marinate fish or shrimp or scallops in citrus juice for several hours and then proceed. That made me feel a tiny bit creepy and so I liked that this recipe included cooking the shrimp first and then adding in the flavors from a traditional ceviche recipe.

This has some great summer flavors and I hope you enjoy it!!

Shrimp Ceviche

1 lb. raw shrimp (shells and veins removed)
juice of 2 limes, 2 lemons & 2 oranges
1 c. diced cucumber
1/2 c. finely chopped red onion
2 serrano chiles, seeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced (optional)
1 c. diced, seeded tomato
1 avocado
1 T. chopped cilantro
1/4 c. olive oil
1/4 tsp. salt

- Bring 2 quarts of water and 1/4 c. salt to a boil. Add shrimp and immediately remove from heat and cover. Let sit for 3 minutes and then remove shrimp. You could also buy cooked shrimp and skip this step all-together if you want!
- Chop shrimp into 1 inch pieces and combine with juices, cucumber, onion & chiles. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Add remaining ingredients & toss to combine.
- Serve plain, with crackers, over rice or even rice noodles.

Bourbon BBQ Baby Back Ribs

I passed a small, personal milestone this past week. I made ribs for the very first time! Over the last couple of years, as I creep closer to 30 years old and I am still single, I have become aware of a “list” of sorts, buried deep in my unconscious. It is the list of the things that I have been subconsciously waiting to buy or do or enjoy until I am married. What is strange is that I am not really aware that something is on “the list” until I have an internal dialogue like the one I had this week:

Me: “Sigh… I am totally craving ribs!”
Me: “You don’t know how to make ribs.”
Me: “Men know how to make ribs.
Me: “Then you’ll just have to wait until you have a boyfriend or husband and then he can spontaneously grill you some ribs when you get a craving.”

Awareness of the totally irrational nature of these thoughts suddenly dawns…

Me: “HECK! I don’t have to wait for a man! I know how to cook! I can make ribs all by myself!”

A couple years ago, I had a similar internal dialogue to the one above regarding using a grill/bbq and I am very proud to say that I can grill a pretty good steak all on my own! I have no idea what other kinds of irrational thoughts are hanging out on this list, but if more pop up and they pertain to food, then I will be very proud to share my new accomplishments here with all of you!

In the meantime, here is the rib recipe that I used and it was YUMMY! I no longer have access to a grill and needed something that could cook while I was at work. The slow cooker did beautiful things to the meat! By the time I pulled them out, the meat had literally fallen off the bones for several of them. It was super tender!

Bourbon BBQ Baby Back Ribs
(From Cooking Light website)

5 lbs baby back ribs (beef or pork) – I used about 3.5lbs because a girl just doesn’t need that much beef all by herself, even making multiple meals!
1 ½ tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 c. ketchup (I used ½ c. ketchup and ½ c. prepared bbq sauce because I ran out of ketchup)
1 c. loosely packed brown sugar
½ c. bourbon whiskey
¼ c. prepared horseradish (not the creamy kind, the minced/pulpy kind)
½ tsp hot sauce (like Tabasco)

- Place ribs, meaty side up in a roasting pan, sprinkle w/ salt and pepper & roast at 475 degrees for 30 minutes. The point of this is to make the outside of the ribs all brown and crunchy. I was doing this step before work and for some reason, despite the total absence of visible smoke, turning my oven this high set off the smoke alarms in my old-house kitchen, at 6am!! (Don’t you wish you were one of my housemates??!). So I ended up skipping this part and just going straight to the slow cooker after only about 10 minutes in the oven. They still turned out good and also looked very pretty – so I might skip the roasting step all together next time.
- Meanwhile, combine the ketchup/bbq sauce, sugar, bourbon & horseradish in a measuring cup and whisk until blended.
- Arrange ribs in a 6-qt slow cooker and pour sauce over each layer. (You will have to cut them up)
- Cook on LOW for 9 hours.
- Remove sauce from cooker, skim off the fat that rises to the top and simmer on the stove until it thickens and reduces by about ½. This took me roughly 20 minutes.
- Pour sauce over ribs and serve with lots of napkins!!

Lastly, I have a question for those of you who might have an opinion. I simmered the sauce until it thickened and poured some over the ribs, but still had quite a bit left. So I refrigerated the leftovers and put it back in the crock-pot today with some chicken. Was that okay? Do you any of you know of any health safety reasons why a sauce that has already been cooked and then refrigerated, shouldn’t go back into a slow cooker?

Shrimp & Rice Noodles with Garlic Chili Sauce

So I have to post fast this afternoon because I am at the library and need to get home in a few minutes to meet up with a friend!

But I wanted to share my dinner recipe from last Friday night. I had a friend over and tried a new recipe and it was wonderful! The recipe is basically a sauce recipe and then you can put it with anything you like. The original version came from Cooking Light and called for the sauce with shredded pork and fettuccine. I needed it to be gluten-free and had some shrimp on hand so I went with shrimp and rice noodles. I have leftover noodles and am going to whip up some more sauce and do stir-fried veggies with noodles and sauce for dinners this week. I was thinking next time I might add a little more water and make it into a soup with some veggies and chicken. See? Super versitile!

Garlic Chili Sauce

1/4 c. almond butter
2 1/2 T low-sodium soy sauce
2 T rice vinegar
1 T minced, fresh ginger
1 1/2 tsp garlic chili sauce (I used the bottled Sriracha sauce that I LOVE!)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 c thinly sliced green onions
1/3 c chopped, fresh mint (optional)

- Wisk together everything except the green onions and mint with an additional 2 T warm water.
- Pour over your noodles or veggies or meat or whatever and top with the onions and mint.
- I had everything on hand for this except the mint so I skipped that part.
- This sauce was super flavorful, but also quite spicy. I think it would still taste good if you left the chili sauce out or you could mix it up and then add a little chili sauce at a time until it has the desired heat.

Happy Sunday! I hope yours has been as lovely as mine :)

Home Sweet Home

So I promised some pictures of my place and here they are! I still have a few things to hang on the walls, but you can see the gist of it. I ended up painting in the living room, kitchen and my bedroom and I am thrilled with how it turned out. In addition to the rooms below, I have a second bedroom which will serve as dining room/guest room/craft room. However, for now it is my "box" room as I finish getting unpacked, so it wasn't really worth a picture. I considered taking a picture of the outside of the house, but since this is a public site, I decided not to. So far, my experience here has been wonderful! My neighbors have been incredibly quiet and mostly friendly and my commute to work is only about 7 minutes! I am also within walking distance of downtown, the library and a couple nice trails and parks. The Lord really has given me a sweet gift in this new home!

Welcome to my very cute, little apartment!

This is the hallway you see when you walk in the front door:



My tiny kitchen:



Cozy bedroom:



I'm still adjusting to this little bathroom. You'll notice the conspicuous absence of a shower...



Lastly, my living room:



For those of you who live in town, I am looking forward to having friends over soon! For those of you who don't, you'll just have to come visit me!

Happy Friday :)