How Does Her Garden Grow

When I moved into my house last summer there was a neglected garden in the back. It was somewhat cleared and had a rosemary, thyme, and a mint plant growing in it. Well I neglected it more over the summer due to heat and mosquitos. It turned into a weed's paradise!

This February I took it upon my self to reclaim the garden! I enlisted the help from my Husband and our son JB.We used every gardening tool my garage had to offer rakes, hoes, pitchforks, and shovels. We started by turning the soil to break up all the roots. The rosemary was the only plant that survived our neglect from the previous year so we worked around it. You can see there is still a lot of plant matter left behind at this point (and a very white fluffy dog, she enjoyed the free range digging we allowed her).

Here is another shot of our progress this time with JB doing his part to help.

Next we took rakes and hoes to the garden. This removed the plant matter and its roots so hopefully the weeds don't come back. That large plant in the center is the rosemary I mentioned earlier, you can see why we didn't want to remove it.

There were some paver stones left in the garden from its previous owners. I used them to make a path for the garden for easy care and harvesting.

Finally I was ready to plant! I bought some starter plants; I chose curly kale, dino kale, romonesco, and green cauliflower. I chose these because it is February and they are hearty winter vegetables that can withstand short periods of freezing weather. In fact this was put to the test the very next weekend. Im happy to report they are all alive and well.

There were some seeds left in the garage from the previous owners. From them I chose to try my luck with broccoli, onion, two types of lettuce (red leaf and green leaf, I believe) and green beans. We will see if anything sprouts. In this photo their bed is on the left side of my path way.

Here are my efforts from a very labor intensive weekend! When it gets warmer I plan on putting in a herb garden around the rosemary and some more summer vegetables. I will post more about my garden as it develops!
-LMC

Roasted Vegetables

I love roasted vegetable. They get crunchy on the outside or even a little crispy at the tips. I'm using brussel sprouts and romanesco as an example, but you can use this as a blueprint for any vegetable.

Heres what you will need:

Vegetables (I used 1lb of brussel sprouts and 1/2 head of romanesco)

cooking spray (the olive oil variety is my favorite)

adobo seasoning 

First I start with my over preheated to 400*

I use what I believe is called a jellyroll pan (a cooking sheet with half inch or so edges). I spray that down with cooking spray.

First start by chopping the brussel sprouts in half (or quarters if you'd like). To keep the cooking times equal I chopped the romanesco in roughly the same size pieces.

When putting them on the pan I kept a little space in between each of them as I have found I get better results when my vegetables aren't crowding each other. At this point I spray down the vegetables with cooking spray, you could toss them in olive oil. I feel like I use less oil this way, plus it is much easier.

Once the vegetables are thoroughly covered in cooking spray I sprinkle this spice called adobo over them. Adobo's ingredients are salt, garlic, oregano, and turmeric. You can find it in the hispanic section of your grocery store. The brand I am using was brought back from Puerto Rico by one of my co-workers, she swears this is the best. When buying adobo make sure it doesn't contain MSG (monosodium glutamate), my personal preference is to buy the variety without pepper.

I toss them in my oven and wait for the magic of roasting to take place. I have found with my oven 30 minutes is a good starting point for my vegetables. I believe this batch too about 40 minutes to reach their potential.

My perfect roasted vegetable is crispy on the outside and soft and tender in the center. This is truly one of my favorite ways to eat them, I have literally just eaten this for dinner before!

-LMC

Indian Style Curry

I LOVE Indian food, most of it I leave to the experts to make. However I feel fairly competent with making this curry. I initially got the basis of this recipe from a book called "Curries Without Worries", this is my variation of it.

Here's what I used for this meal:

2 small/medium onions

Garlic (as much or as little as you like)

1 TBS ground ginger

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/8 tsp ground cardamon

3/8 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp garam masala

1/4 tsp tumeric

1/2 head cauliflower

1 chicken breast 

1 medium zucchini

1 head broccoli

2 large leaves of curly kale

I start this curry by prepping my aromatics; garlic, onion, and ginger.

I ended up throwing the garlic and onion in a food processor so it turned into a paste. I had previously done this with my ginger and froze the excess for easy use later. I'd say the ginger-cube was equal to about 1-1&1/2 TBS.

While I was pureeing my aromatics I was also heating oil in a pan over med-high heat (I used about 1 TBS). You can tell your oil is at a good temperature because it will look like its rippling in the pan.  I added in my cumin seeds at this point. I cooked them alone until they were darker in color.

As a note: To make this dish healthier this is the only oil I added for the rest of the meal. When ever my curry started sticking in the pan I would add a couple of TBS of water to deglaze my pan. The deglazing also gives this dish a depth of flavor that I don't think can be achieved without it. The water also steams my vegetables so they cook even faster.

I added in my pureed aromatics to the cumin seeds, cooking them until they started to "tan". At this point I added my other spices to the pan.

Starting at the top going counter clockwise I used cardamon. Which is actually a pod that is ground up it has a very floral taste, I'm not the biggest fan of this spice so I only used about 1/8 tsp. Next spice is coriander, this one has a citrus note to it which I like, so I used about 1/4 tsp. Next spice up is cumin; cumin is one of my favorite spices, as it blends well in many different dishes. Since I like cumin so much I used about 3/8 tsp. Garam masala is next, this spice is, I believe, a combination of a couple of spices. To me it smells like cloves and cinnamon. My final spice for this was turmeric; in my opinion turmeric doesn't have much flavor, but it has amazing health benefits. At some point in the future I will devote a whole post to the benefits of turmeric, until then take my work for it or google it yourself.

*Remember I add water whenever I feel like my food is sticking in the pan. When I made this particular curry I ended up adding water after each vegetable.
Next I added cauliflower, because I only use fresh vegetables I have a very precise order of adding them, as they cook for different amounts of time and I am not a fan of mushy vegetables! I cooked the cauliflower for a couple of minutes  until it was warmed and my aromatic and spice mixture coated them.

Next I added in my chicken. *I tend to cook with more vegetables then actual protein. This was one chicken breast roughly 1/2lb. I Cut it into bit size pieces so it could be incorporated throughout the dish.

Once the chicken was about half was cooked I added in my zucchini, as you can see I cut the zucchini into 1/4-1/2in crescent pieces.

I let all of that cook for about 5 minutes or so then I added my broccoli. I cut the broccoli into med/small florets. Immediately following the broccoli I added kale.

At this point if the pan is dry and not giving off steam add more water. Once the water is in and mixed around a bit cover the pan. This will help the kale wilt.

You will be amazed at how fast the wilting happens; once wilted you can stir your curry so the kale and broccoli get cooked in the bottom of the pan where all the flavor is.  Once the broccoli and kale are cooked to your specification your done, enjoy your dinner!

This meal is great served with lentil dal and rice. I will have a follow up post for the dal soon as well.
Enjoy!
LMC