What’s growing in our garden

I wanted to share what our garden is giving us. It’s such a source of joy! This year most of our vegetables are heirloom varieties and of course they’re grown organically. In fact I’m waiting for next year when (hopefully) we’ll have our own compost from vermicomposting! That’s another post I want to do sometime.

The joy cooking doubles when you go to the garden, pick the vegetables and then decide what to cook. The aroma of fresh oregano, the juicy homegrown tomatoes, soft and tender summer squash – sounds like a recipe for pasta :) Without much ado, here are the photos.

Marigold… lots of it!

Some basil

Little bit of green peppers

Bountiful summer squash and zucchini

Aromatic oregano

Loads of tangy tomatoes!

Mother's Day

When God Made Moms

When the good Lord was creating mothers He was into His sixth day of overtime when the angel appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." The Lord said, "have you read the specs on this order?

• She has to be completely washable, but not plastic.
• Have 180 moveable parts... all replaceable.
• Run on black coffee and leftovers.
• Have a lap that disappears when she stands up, a kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair, and six pairs of hands."

The angel shook her head slowly and said, "six pairs of hands...no way." "It is not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have." "That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. The Lord nodded. One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks "what are you kids doing in there?", when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't, but what she has to know; and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say "I understand and I love you", without so much as uttering a word."

"Lord", said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "go to bed, tomorrow....". "I can't", said the Lord, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick, can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger, and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower." The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft", she sighed. "But tough!" said the Lord excitedly. "You cannot imagine what this mother can do or endure." "Can it think?" "Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise", said the Creator. Finally the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. "There's a leak", she pronounced. "I told you, you were trying to put too much into this model." "It's not a leak", said the Lord. "It's a tear". "What's it for?" "It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness and pride." "You're a genius", said the angel. The Lord looked somber. "But I didn't put it there".
-By Erma Bombeck

I read this somewhere and decided to post it on Mother's day. I think it's so close to describing a mother - at least I would describe mine in the same way! Happy Mother's day!

The Perfect Peanut Chiki (peanut brittle)

Sometime back I posted a recipe for peanut brittle and emphasized on what place the chiki holds in our house. Given that it should come as no surprise that we’ve finally mastered the recipe for peanut chiki!
At home, we’ve always made chiki with just jaggery and peanuts. The problem with jaggery is that it doesn’t has the crunch that professionally made chiki does. After making the peanut brittle I realized that if I were to merge the traditional recipe with the one for the brittle, I might end up with what I’m looking for.
The credit for this recipe really goes to my DH because he was the executioner and the decision-maker. I just planted the seed for the recipe. I wish I could post an audio of the crunch when you bite into the chiki – it’s drool worthy!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup jaggery
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1 cups 1.5 cups crushed peanuts

Method:

1. Roast the peanuts: You can use the oven or do it the microwave way as I did here. Since my oven was already preheated I piggy-backed on it.
• Preheat the oven to 500F. Then turn it off.
• Spread the raw peanuts in a single layer on a baking sheet.
• Keep checking after every 5 minutes.
2. Shell the peanuts. We just did it by hand by rubbing them against each other.
3. Crush the peanuts in a food processor. Lightly crush them, as you can see in the photo, most of the peanuts are almost halved.
4. Heat the oven to 200F and keep a parchment paper lined baking sheet inside.
5. Add everything except the peanuts to a utensil and heat it at medium heat.
6. Stir often and heat till the mixture comes to a rolling bowl.
7. Let it boil a few seconds. Do the candy test (look at Note below for how to do the candy test) and then add the peanuts.
8. CAUTION: the moment you mix the peanuts in, the mixture will come together. So you’ve to be quick.
9. Get your baking sheet out and spread the mixture on it.
10. Grease the bottom of a flat-bottomed bowl with ghee and use it to thump down the mixture into a layer.
11. Make indentations using a knife so that once the chiki hardens it would be easier to break it up.
12. Let it cool around 10-20 minutes.
13. The most delicious chiki is ready!!

Note:

Candy test: Take cold water (from the fridge) in a small bowl and add a drop of the boiling liquid to it. Wait 20-30 seconds. If the drop of liquid forms a hard candy after that then you're ready. Otherwise keep stirring and boiling.

Update on the seedlings

Remember the seedlings? Well they've grown!

 

 

 

 

Those are the beans at the lower level. The upper level mostly had marigold.

 

Those two plants with the big leaves - they're summer squash! Don't they look handsome?!?! All the others are marigolds.
The plants seem to be doing fine. We do wish we'd planted them earlier but given that this is our first year from seeds I think it's ok.
 

Where'd you go Bernadette?

I don't know how I came upon this book. Probably I searched books similar to Sex Lives of the Cannibals and this was one of the suggestions. Whatever it was, I'm so glad that I got to know about it! It is such a pleasure to read this book!!! The story, the author's writing style, her humor - everything is just awesome! Oh and not to mention that the story is set in Seattle! Brownie points for that :)

The story is about a family - Bernadette the mother, her husband and her daughter. Bernadette is shown to be socially awkward and her husband with his position and his bank account - the envy of all the women. The book abounds in Bernadette's antics which keep you entertained. Her behavior is strange to the extent that her husband thinks that she should be sent to a caring facility! However before he can do that, Bernadette disappears! What ensues is engrossing and adds an element of mystery!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! The way the author writes makes you feel that you're right there with the characters of the book and her sense of humor is just amazing!
 

The Timekeeper

I've been quite a fan of Mitch Albom's since Tuesdays with Morrie and then Five people you meet in heaven. So it was no surprise that when I came to know about this new book from him I tried to get my hands on it!

It's a nice book - not up there with the other two but it's ok. Using a fable the author illustrates the importance of time. The story begins with the person who invented measurement of time and that was like opening Pandora's box! Once people could measure time everybody was complaining something or the other about time - either there wasn't enough time in the day or that it wasn't the right time, so on and so forth. Little did the inventor realize the hazards nor the implications. To make teach him a lesson he's sent to Earth amidst two diametrically opposite people. One who thinks there isn't enough time and another who thinks there's too much of it.

My summary probably sounds a little confusing but I'm trying to divulge as much as I can without telling everything. The story is more like a fable or fantasy.

My favorite quote from the book:

It's never too early nor too late. It is when it is supposed to be.

 

Seeds springing into seedlings

This year we're trying to plant our vegetable garden right from seeds - yes that's a big risk we're taking and I'm keeping my fingers crossed! To add to our experiments all our seeds are heirloom seeds - good luck to us!

Like the vegetable garden, for germinating the seeds too we followed the instructions given by Mel in his SFG book. For the containers, as you can see, we used some disposable bowls and yogurt containers. DH drilled some holes in all of these. It took at  least a week for the first sprouts. Since NW is on the colder side, we kept them inside the house.

Spinach seeds

Cherry tomato, stupice tomato, summer squash, zucchini, basil and oregano

Marigold

Bush beans

When waiting for these seeds to germinate, I realized that it's not only the investment of money that worries you. When you invest your time and energy in something it's equally important to you. I read somewhere:

Don't read a child about miracles, plant a garden.

That is so true. One day you see a seed. Another day you've leaves coming out of it. It's like magic.