Welcome to the garden!

I am welcoming two new friends to the garden!  Please make the acquaintance of Basil and Sage. I hope they choose to stick around for a while and grow happy, healthy and hearty. Cheers!

A few new flowers are blooming!

Over the past few weeks a few new things have started blooming.

The sweet peas are lovely, coming out in red and purple and smelling so fresh and sweet.

The cornflowers are a rich blue and they have become quite prolific; I am excited to see them all in bloom together.

Finally, the calendula has made an appearance and it is a stunning yellow. 

I am still hoping for appearances from echinacea, ruby red swiss chard and little finger carrots. I will keep you posted.

Spiced Banana Muffins

Spiced Banana Muffins

I have a weakness for baked goods. I love the whole process. I love gathering ingredients from the various cabinets and drawers in the kitchen. I love pulling out the mixer and feeling its solid heft as I place it on the kitchen counter. I love pouring the batter into trays or muffin cups and I especially love the smell that wafts through the apartment after only a few minutes in the oven. Once again, I wish I could digitize a smell and attach it to this blog; that delicious spicy smell of cinnamon and warm apples, roasting in the oven. Mmmm. Finally, I love eating. I love the first bite when it is still warm from the oven, but not so warm that it burns my mouth.

These muffins have been a work in progress for the last 4 years. The original recipe came from my mom, but I doubt she would recognize that recipe in here after all the changes I have made. This posting is vegan, can easily be gluten-free, and is utterly delicious.

Happy baking!!

Ingredients

• 1 cup applesauce 
• 2 Tbs vegetable oil 
• 2 Tbs Ener-G egg replacer 
• 8 Tbs water 
• 1 1/2 cups sugar 
• 4 large, soft bananas (6 medium-sized) 
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 cups gluten-free oat flour (can be regular oat flour too) 
• 1 cup fine sorghum flour 
• cooking spray or paper muffin cups

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Mix the applesauce, vegetable oil, egg replacer and water on medium until well blended
3. Mix in the sugar and each banana one at a time until well blended
4. Add the baking soda and cinnamon
5. Add the flour one cup at a time - mix until all is well blended
6. Spray each muffin tin with cooking spray or use muffin cups - fill each cup approximately 2/3 full 
7. Bake for 45 minutes (or until the muffins are springy and slightly browned)

Yield: approximately 24 muffins
Time: approximately 60 minutes (includes baking time)

Rooftop Garden Harvest

Apologies for the lag between posts. Below are pictures of the sunflowers, the chives, and the radish harvest to-date. Enjoy!

It's been exciting!!!

First, there is finally some color in the garden!

Second, I harvested my first radish!

And third, I have a new friend in the garden... a ladybug!!! This is such a good good sign!  It means things are healthy. It means the good bugs (like ladybugs) want to come hang out. I hope this one brings a few friends the next time he visits. It means the ladybugs will potentially eat and keep away any bad, predator-type bugs. Yay!!!

How does my garden grow?

Cioppino

Cioppino

I think this may be one of the easiest meals I have ever made (and one of the most delicious). The ingredient list may seem long, but most of the items you will already have in the kitchen and nearly all the rest can be bought at a fish market. I think the trip to the fish market was one of my favorite parts of this process.

The recipe is adapted from "Cooking Light: Annual Recipes 2004" and is a recipe from Mothers Restaurant in Portland, OR. From what I read cioppino goes really really well with a fresh loaf of crusty french bread or a batch of french fries. Since Will and I cannot eat wheat, we skipped the bread and ended up pairing this with rice and a side salad. I also changed this recipe so that there is more broth than other cioppino recipes.

Ingredients

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper 
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups clam juice 
• 1 cup water
• 1 Tbs dry parsley
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 of a 26 oz bottle of tomato-basil pasta sauce 
• 10 littleneck clams 
• 10 small mussels, scrubbed and debearded 
• 1/2 cup dry white wine 
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper 
• 1/2 # of lean white fish (cod, halibut) - cut into 1 inch pieces 
• 1/2 # of medium shrimp, peeled & deveined 
• 2 cups torn spinach 

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. 
2. Add the red pepper and garlic - saute for a minute. 
3. Stir in the clam juice, water, parsley, basil, thyme & tomato sauce - heat for a couple minutes. 
4. Add the clams & mussels - cover and cook for 10 minutes or until the shells open (Discard and do not eat any unopened shells). 
5. Add the wine, salt, black pepper, white fish & shrimp - simmer for 5 more minutes. 
6. Stir in the spinach - cook for one more minute. 
7. Serve and enjoy!!!