Our Garden

For the past few years, I have been growing 2-3 pots of vegetables (tomatoes and peppers that Zach's grandmother starts from seedlings each year), and we continued the tradition this year, too! We started some plants from seeds, and others we bought from a nursery. Here's an update so you can see what green thumbs we have.

These are 2 little pots of hot peppers that we started from seeds. They grow slowly, but they're really cute. Their home is on a windowsill in the kitchen. This seems to be perfect because they like the sun, just not the heat that comes with the California sun.

These 2 tomatoes were also started from seeds. They are called "sweet tomato hybrid." They are indeterminate tomatoes, meaning that the plant creates a vine, up to ten feet tall. They flower and produce fruit all season until killed by frost (or squirrels). These two plants haven't started blooming yet, but hopefully soon they will! They are growing so fast. We planted them at the same time we planted the peppers above, can you believe that?!

Next is our basil plant that we bought from Trader Joe's in August when Zach moved to Pasadena. We transplanted it to a bigger pot in January. Since then, it goes through phases of doing well, then not so much. It turns out, the basil does best when we water it very little, and we keep it next to a window instead of in direct sunlight, and it seems to like that. We have made pesto many times, and threw some chopped leaves in spaghetti sauce and other dishes.

Oooh, our lettuce. Also grown from seed, it's growing like a weed! It's a "looseleaf type" (whatever that means) that we found at Target. It also sits in a windowsill, and is growing so quickly!

It's hard to tell in the picture below, but there are 2 pepper plants in that pot. Both plants we got at Whole Foods for 99 cents each when they were about 4 inches tall. Since then, they have flowered and started producing a ton of fruit! Each plant has about 6 peppers on it.

This pepper below is the biggest one!

This tomato plant was also purchased at Whole Foods. It is also indeterminate, and has grown so fast that Zach tied some rope to our roof for the vine to grow up on. We have to pick "suckers" each week off of the vine. "Suckers" are shoots that develop from the main vine and branch. Pruning the plant keeps it less enormous and the fruits on the vine will be bigger than if we left the suckers on. Zach did a lot of research on the plants to figure out how to grow them well, and the tomato is succeeding as a result.

[Not pictured: cilantro. The camera wouldn't focus the leaves very well. We only have about 8 cilantro leaves started from seeds, it's not that impressive, and it's sort of dying. This is unfortunate, though, because we use so much cilantro in our Mexican dishes. I think we will eventually buy a started cilantro plant from a nursery, though, and it will be more fun!]

We water our outdoor plants daily because it gets so warm here during the day. Hopefully, when it gets hotter in the summer, all of our plants will continue to do well. Zach and I look at them daily (we're so proud of them!), so we'll be able to catch them if they get droopy or start to look funny. We will definitely post updates as the summer goes on about our garden!

Anyone else gardening this summer?

Hearty Meals

Jambalaya

Zach has been wanting to make Jambalaya for a while now, and we have a great cookbook with a fabulous, easy recipe (Better Homes and Gardens cookbook). Since I have been working in the evenings, Zach has really taken over the cooking, and he deserves mad props for this meal. The recipe called for chopped onion, celery, red pepper, and okra along with some garlic, vegetable broth, diced tomatoes, kielbasa, and some dried herbs (thyme and basil) and ground red pepper.

I have to say, the okra was my favorite part. I haven't had it in a really long time, and I think it's underused these days (at least by us!). I think I would add more vegetables in the future, too, because the recipe was a bit heavy on the meat, even though we reduced the amount anyway. This was an amazing recipe that we ate for a few days, and was just as delicious the second and third day!

Spicy Vegan Potato Curry

Pasadena has an awesome farmer's market Saturday mornings that Zach and I bike to every week. I go for the strawberries and homemade tamales, but we usually pick up any vegetables that look good and find a recipe for them during the week. Last week, we picked out some good looking yams, and found a recipe for potato curry on allrecipes.com. (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spicy-Vegan-Potato-Curry/Detail.aspx)

We used 2 sweet potatoes, and 2 russet potatoes, but otherwise stuck to the recipe. Below are the spices we used: cayenne pepper, cumin, garam masala, and curry powder. Since we last made Daal, I have been obsessed with garam masala. It smells soo fragrant and delicious, and tastes even better.

We boiled up the potatoes after cutting them into cubes, and drained them when tender. In a large pan, we sauteed the onion and garlic for a few minutes, added the spices and fresh minced ginger root and stirred it around for a few more minutes. Then added a can of garbanzo beans, diced tomatoes, peas, potatoes, and a can of coconut milk.

After simmering for 15 minutes, we served it over some rice.

Okay, I have to say it was waaay too spicy for me to handle (and we followed the measurement for the cayenne pepper). Which was a little depressing since I love curry and I love yams, so the combination should have been heavenly. Zach didn't seem to mind the spice, and when I added more rice, I could handle it a bit better. Other than that, it was a great recipe. Some of the comments from allrecipes.com were to use less garbanzo beans, but we love them so we kept it at a 15 oz can. So, my suggestion? Start with less cayenne, and add after taste testing. Yes, I have learned my lesson...

Healing Cabbage Soup

We have been wanting to make a cabbage soup ever since we have been eyeing big heads of cabbage at the farmers market for a steal. After investigating some cabbage soup recipes, we made our own combination and came up with our own recipe, which I wrote down, and Zach made one evening I was working.

Zach started off by sauteeing onion, and garlic for a few minutes, then added in 2 quarts of water, vegetable bouillon, a head of cabbage, green beans, and carrots and simmered for 20 minutes. Then he added a can of diced tomatoes, simmered for 30 more minutes.

Served with a slice (or two) or bread (we like olive bread), it was a delicious and hearty meal.

Have you seen a theme with our recipes with this post? We like one pot meals that are easy to pull together, and are filling with lots of vegetables. I would like to start making better lunches (since Zach is able to come home for an hour or so daily) together instead of focusing on dinners for our homemade meals. Since I am only home 2 nights a week, it might be fun to make salads or cool sandwiches (mmm, paninis!) for lunch. We tend to eat the same thing every day at lunchtime - green salad with a turkey sandwich and a side of fruit. Some added variety would be nice. Plus, Rick Bayless has some good lookin' salad recipes we need to make!

Go eat! :)

Catching up!

Hey guys, we haven't posted in a while, but we've got plenty of new recipes to share with you! We also forgot to e-mail our last post around, so if you didn't see that one, be sure to check it out!

Chicken, Spinach, and Cheese Enchiladas with Chile Verde Salsa

Gina has got this great green chili enchilada recipe stored in that amazing brain of hers. My mom, sister, and niece (Grace!) came out for a visit not too long ago. We thought it would be a good idea to pre-prepare an oven baked dish that we could just throw in the oven. The enchiladas were a great idea! We wanted to give them a taste of all the great Mexican flavors that we've been exploring.

Raw ingredients

We grilled up a few chicken breasts on the George Foreman grill and shredded them. Assembling the enchiladas was very easy. We coated the bottom of an casserole dish with some salsa then rolled up some spinach, shredded chicken, and a Mexican cheese blend, in corn tortillas. We placed them into the pan, covered them lots of green chili and cheese then stored in the fridge until we were ready to cook it.

The assembled enchiladas

We also, per Cati's suggestion, made Grace's favorite: Mexican rice. Grace really enjoyed the meal, as did the rest of us.

White Chili

Making a crockpot dish is the way to go when life gets too busy to cook. This took no time to prepare.

What went into the crock pot: great northern white beans, cannellini beans, pinto beans, yellow pepper, onion, jalapenos, cumin, garlic, oregano, and vegetable broth.

We forgot to capture a picture of the cooked chili because we were so hungry, but it was so delicious!

Grilled Pork Adobado with Smoky Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Guajillo Salsa p 183

So Rick Bayless' recipe (Mexican Everyday) has quite a few good grilling recipes. Now, we don't actually own a grill, but we do own a George Foreman grill, so that's what we decided to use.

First, we'll talk about the yummy tomatillo salsa that we made. We started with some fresh tomatillos (husked and washed).

We pan roasted the tomatillos (cut in half) with some garlic cloves.

We also fried a couple dried guajillo chilis in oil (only for like 60 seconds). We pureed the roasted tomatillos, garlic, and peppers in a food processor and came out with a nice salsa that we used with chips and on top of our yummy pork.

We made a marinade for the pork, it was pretty straightforward. Oil, garlic, red chili powder (we subbed New Mexico for Rick's recommendation of Ancho because that's what we had on hand), apple cider vinegar,  Mexican oregano, and sugar. We boiled it down a little bit, then slapped it on the meat.

Rick Bayless has some really great tips for grilling to keep the meat very moist, but these aren't applicable here since we used the George Foreman grill. He recommends grilling over a hot flame for just a few minutes, then moving to the cool side for ~20 mins, but since we have an electric grill, the meat finishes in 7 minutes regardless. So we just slathered the meat in marinade and put it on the grill (put it on again about half way through cooking). The finished product is shown below.

We plated it up w/ some of the guajillo tomatillo salsa and some sweet potatoes that we baked in oil and salt. Rick also recommended grilling the sweet potatoes, but the baked ones were also very good. Overall, the meal was very good. The marinade on the pork gave it a nice spicy flavor, but it was a little dry (the salsa definitely helped though). We would like to get a real grill to use in the future!

Here is a picture of some yummy wine that we had with the meal. 

Red Chile Chicken and Rice with Black Beans (pg 266)

Since Gina's been working in the evenings, I wanted a recipe that wasn't too difficult, but gave a lot of food to eat through the week. I came across this recipe in the book, and I thought  that it looked perfect! Rice and beans is always good.
So, I roasted some onions and rice in olive oil until translucent then covered with chicken broth, water, New Mexico Chili powder, and . Once the rice had cooked for a while (~15 mins), I added the uncooked chicken to cook while the rice was finishing (~10 mins more).

Once everything was pretty well cooked, I added a can of drained/rinsed black beans and added a ton of fresh cilantro.

While the dish was cooking, I roasted up some tomatillos and made some roasted tomatillo and chipotle chili salsa (so easy, and sooooo good!). Below is the resulting yumminess. We ate the dish for several days, it was really easy to make in a large batch.

Guacamole - poach the eggs with vinegar potato pancake

So, recently I've been informed by my lab mates that there's a really good Pasadena farmers market on Saturdays! We decided to go by and pick up some fresh vegetables. The prices were reasonable, and the quality was VERY good. We also had a great experience with the Tamales there, and would recommend them to anyone who goes there. Anyways, some of the fruits/veggies/fresh garlic are shown below for our latest concoction.

So I'm sure that you all are tired about hearing about Rick Bayless, but his book is full of fabulous recipes. This one was actually tacked on as a side point in the last paragraph of his guacamole recipe. It's super simple, but very good. We shredded some red potato and pressed them into small pancakes. We then cooked them in a lightly oiled pan and sprinkled them with salt. In the meantime, we poached an egg. We put it on top of the potato pancake and topped with some guacamole (which we made from the above ingredients). I'm a big fan of the simplicity in many of Rick's recipes, but this one's the easiest one I've come across yet! Very few ingredients, but loads of flavor. Highly recommended.