The Promise of Noms to Come

I have been MIA! We are having huge issues with our internet that began when we moved back in June. We are going on a month without internet in the apartment so I am online much less often. What has happened in that time?

Drake the cat has been helping us set up the nursery.

• We have eaten delicious homemade food- without the internet, we have spent a lot more time cooking and baking.
• I bought and fell in love with the Peas and Thank You cookbook. Everything has been delicious and I am saving these meal photos for a separate post.
• I re-visited an old cookbook- College Vegetarian Cooking. It is simple to vegan-ize all of these recipes and with most we have had great luck! 
• I stopped eating dairy after having cheese for a few months. The exception right now? Nutella. :o/
• My diet has become a lot more raw and heavy on fruits and veggies in an attempt to do a low salt diet because my blood pressure is starting to send up some red flags. 
• Second trip ever to Whole Foods. Worth the two hour drive! My only qualm is how expensive the buffet food was, but it was delicious, especially the Indian options. 
• Our old slow cooker broke and my mom has given us hers! Lots of slow cooker meals in our future for yummy fall food especially now that I am working again. 
• I have been planning many blog posts and I promise to upload them soon!

Cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

I think we are finally over our muffin-phase. These are peach cobbler muffins!

Not the prettiest food, but hubby loved this slow cooker chili with TVP!

Egg-Less Eggplant Parmesan

Semi-Vegan Eggplant Parmesan. We nix the eggs but keep the cheese- however, the cheese could easily be Daiya or some nutritional yeast concoction! We don't really follow a recipe but this is how we have learned to make it work:

The eggplants or aubergines were long and skinny so we ended up cutting strips. On the left if the egg replacement. The proportion we use for this is:

1 tablespoon ground flax seed ~ 2 tablespoons water

Stir and let it sit for a few minutes. It was soak and become thicker. Dip in the strips and then drench in breadcrumbs. 

Set in the frying pan on a high setting, otherwise they will become soaked in the oil. Flip when golden brown.

Ian whipped up this sauce. It is just tomato paste, basil from the garden, oregano, sugar, garlic powder, and onion powder.

The finished product with a couple servings missing! Basically, layer eggplant, sauce, and cheese or cheese-like substance. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Let sit before serving. Nom!

Come Into My Garden

We have three containers of strawberries. We had delicious strawberries for a while and we are hoping the new green leaves will mean new flowers and new fruit!

Catgrass gone to seed. Dying lettuce. Basil we grew from a seed, trying to prevent it from flowering! Need to pick it more.

This basil plant was old and time for it to floewr. On the side you can see a baby basil plant we grew from a seed.

I've had two hibiscus plants for over a year.

Tomato pot #1! These just keep growing tall without many flowers yet.

The lettuces we grew from seed tasted great at first but are not doing well. This looks diseased. 

Tomato pot #2! The first and only tomato!

Here it is! This tomato has been going for about 3 weeks.

Progression of the Garden

We no longer have to awkwardly store our plants indoors! The frosts have passed, everything has sprouted, so we have a very small amateur garden on our apartment balcony. We are in need of some more pots and potting soil, so this is not the finished look.

Variety of lettuces in the bigger pots. Sprouts for different herbs, wheat grass for cats, and catnip are sprouting in the Keirug coffee cups.

Tomatoes, strawberries, basil and other herbs, and some type of flowers given to me by a parent when I completed by Kindergarten student teaching.

Tomato plants (don't tell, but I actually do not care for tomatoes)

On the left: two Hibiscus plants from our wedding rehearsal dinner, about 11 months old. Unfortunately not in bloom at the moment.

Ian has also begun raising herbs in an aeroponic planter! Pics from that soon. 

Sprouts!

Not the eating kind- the beginnings of an awesome balcony garden.

Hubby/partner and I got excited at the end of a week of warm weather, in seventies, and began sprouting seeds and setting plants out on the balcony of our one bedroom apartment. Biiiig time fail. Then, we have had two continuous weeks of thirties and forties including snow. We pulled almost everything inside and saved most things.

Squeezing sprouts and plants on the stovetop, of course.

The problem is indoor space and sunlight. We keep everything in the bedroom while we are at work where they sort of get sunlight. When we are home and the sun is down, they are on the kitchen counters where the cats do not go.

Strawberries we bought as small plants. A little blossom!

I will do another post about our sprouting methods because we tried about five ways, some successful and some cumbersome.

Can't wait for summertime veggies and herbs and kitty treats!

 

Our garden at my parent's house in 2009 which was brutally eaten by deer