The World’s Smallest Organic Garden

All we’ve got is a 10′x10′ deck and a tiny patch of grass that doesn’t see sun, so growing our own food is pretty limited for now. To get the most yield for our tiny space, I’ve found growing herbs to be the best bet. They’ve come in very handy when making salsas, egg salad, and pasta salads.

This year I decided to be fancy and separate the herbs that don’t need a lot of water (rosemary, lavender) and give them their own pots filled w/sandy soil. The lavender has grown flowers, the first time in the four years I’ve had the plant (most of the time in our kitchen window). In the big wine barrel I have herbs that need about the same amounts of water – cilantro, dill, mint, oregano, chives, and tarragon. I had a little room left so I put in a tomato plant and made a chicken wire cage for it for support and keep critters out. I’ve been fertilizing it every other week w/my old coffee grinds. So far so good.

Making Tasty European recipes

Since we can’t afford Europe I thought I would try to make some food from some UK food magazines I have. The metric measurements throw me off though – sorry, I don’t remember what I learned of metric measures in the 4th grade when we were told that the metric system would take over. I tried Apple’s converter widget, which works for oven temperatures but it doesn’t convert grams to cups. I did find a converter on GourmetSleuth that did the job.

I also have to look up names of ingredients quite a bit. Here’s a glossary, although they left out rocket (arugula), which shows up a lot. 

I admit this is a lot of work for getting a recipe for carrot lentil soup, since I have a lot of both to use up, though I’m sure it will be worth it. From what I’ve seen, recipes in European magazines use a lot more Indian and African spices, both of which I love. This is another BBC-affilated food magazine site I like a lot.

100 degrees outside? Stay in and cook

It’s been oppressively hot this weekend, gas is expensive, and so I have a case of cabin fever. So I’ve been making food for the week today without heating up the kitchen. 

I got some sprouted wheat bagels for breakfast this week – fewer calories, more protein. To put on top, I mixed some salted cashews and raspberry jam in w/some cream cheese. This made me think of all the goodness that can be had @the Bagelry in Santa Cruz – I miss my Hum & Egg sandwich in the morning (1/2 hummus, 1/2 killer egg salad) as well as the not-quite-day-olds @6/$1. I googled tofu curry and found this recipe, which is essentially a vegan version of egg salad. 

Next I wanted to emulate a Chipotle steak burrito bowl (we’ve got some steak marinating now for the grill). I found a couple of jalapenos, so I defrosted some corn, added red onion, cilantro from the garden, and juice from 1 lime, and I have a good imitation of Chipotle’s corn salsa.

Lastly, I made some granola on the stovetop – I’ve tried making granola in the oven but the temperature isn’t accurate and it’s gotten burned on me. I started from this recipe, but I made a few deviations to add some pumpkin goodness:

• I replaced 1/2 of the brown sugar with pumpkin butter;
• I added pumpkin pie spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom) to the butter/sugar mixture;
• Before I added the toasted oats to the butter/sugar mix, I threw in a handful of raw pumpkin seeds and let them toast for a couple of minutes;

And here’s how the granola turned out (yes, I love me some pumpkin):

How to eat in NYC if you’re broke

This is in response to this NYTimes article, which wasn’t quite what I thought it would be. Not that it was bad – it was about making meals based on finds from a place called Jack’s 99 Cent Store, and there is no DC equivalent. The article suggested a couple of soup recipes and recommended Goya Dulce de Leche wafers. What I got from it was that the best finds were in the international food section. I thought everyone knew that there are great food finds in the international sections of stores.

I also can remember when I was a college student in NYC. I paid my own way for food & lodging, and the food plan on campus was ridiculously expensive, so I made do on 5$/day like this:

• Breakfast: Columbia (R.I.P.) hot cinnamon raisin bagel w/cream cheese and diet Pepsi ($1.50)
• Lunch: falafel stand ($1) or pastrami on rye ($2-$2.50)
• Dinner: monster-sized slice of Koronet pizza ($1.60) or mac & cheese (3/$1) closer to paydays
• Treats: occasional spaghetti carbonara, grilled chicken in lemon juice/cayenne pepper marinade, grilled italian sausage.
• Produce: sucks in NYC, main source of vitamin C was juice and going out for Chinese food w/friends @the place that gave you free wine w/your meal. Didn’t go out that often.

I’m sure the prices on most of these things have gone up since then due to inflation as well as the gentrification of Morningside Heights. Campus meals were truly awful, however – often the only thing edible was Cap’n Crunch. In the rare cases where I had to eat on campus I had a bad case on Cap’n Crunch mouth more often than not.