Tea-se Me

I am just getting over a rather nasty cold (hopefully the last one of the winter!), but it's such a beautiful day, I thought, even if I'm homebound with the sun shining outside, I can bring a little lovely spring to me!
I have had a bag with Lychee Jasmine flower "performing flower tea" in the tea cupboard, waiting for just such a day.
Argie has had this kind of tea before, at a bubble tea place up in Markham, so I've seen it in action, but that doesnt mean it wasn't as cool doing it at home.
When you put the tea in your cup (I recommend a see-through cup so you can see the action), its a small, dense ball. Slowly it blossoms, and the aroma is lovely as it expands in your cup!
We got this particular kind at a local tea shop in Waterloo, Distinctly Tea.

Spice up your home cookin'

Argie and I live in an apartment building, but we are lucky enough to have a relatively large balcony with our unit (much larger than our TO digs, anyways). This is the time of year I like to start thinking about what I want to have in our balcony garden.
For the most part, we plant edibles, because, well, we're obsessed with food. Its nice to have some flowers in your garden, but to me there's nothing sweeter than the sight of a tiny yellow tomato blossom!
Balcony gardening is challenging, you have to think about space, lighting and keeping things organized. Luckily there are plenty of resources out there that give plenty of advice and inspiration!
There is a definite trend toward greening small urban spaces, and for some ideas on how to get started, check out BalconyGardener ; Urban Gardening ; for the international urban greening movement: City Farmer
For us I like to keep things simple, and fairly low maintenance. My usual balcony suspects are cherry tomatoes, basil, lemonbalm, and mint (although last year we also had bell peppers and even and eggplant!)
Use your imagination then get dirty! The best tomato you will ever taste is the one you grow yourself :)

Ah! Spring is in the Air

The days are getting longer, and the light spilling in through the windows is making me think about what we eat at home, and where it comes from. We try to eat locally whenever possible, but during the winter, its difficult to find fresh produce in southwestern Ontario.
In the fall we try to load up on certain "seasonal" hard-to-finds, like bell peppers, etc. We clean and prep them and keep them in the freezer so they can provide a tiny bit of colour during the dull winter months.
For anyone trying to be more mindful of what they eat, I would highly recommend reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This book documents Kingsolver's family's year of living off the land. Of course for the average family, especially here in Canada, this extreme a lifestyle change is not feasible, but the book provides lots of great suggestions for how we can all reduce our negative impact on the environment, and even come to enjoy and appreciate our food even more.
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

Saturday March 22

We're having people over, so we decided to see if we could do some home cooking for them to enjoy. So far on the menu, we're planning to do Lumpiang Shanghai, Pork Adobo Ribs, Chicken Barbecue Skewers, and Turon.

We're going to see if we can use new recipes, or do a take on old ones for this foray.

The first one up is pork adobo ribs.


I like doing things simple. So a lot of the recipes are easy.

• Cut up the ribs length-wise, stick them in the crock pot, add a few cloves of garlic, minced and peeled, a 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar, and 1/2 a cup of soy sauce.

• Set the crock pot on high, and let the ribs cook for about 6 hours (or until tender, I like it when the meat almost falls of the bone).

• I added some green onions to the top for added flavour and scent.

• Finally, stick 'em in the oven and broil it for about 5 minutes, just to dry it out a bit.

Next up, is chicken skewers. I like to mix my chicken up between dark and white meat, to add more flavour.

• I got 4 chicken breasts, and 4 de-boned chicken legs.

• Marinate (or in this case cover) the chicken in a mixture of garlic, parsley, olive oil, and salt (which mixed in a food processor until paste-like).

• Cut them into bite sized cubes, stick them onto wooden skewers (cover skewers in water for at least 4 hours prior to this), then add to a barbecue.