thankfully

meet the babies of the garden..

lettuce above and in the foreground below
beets
radishes
little baby radishes

the lettuce is taking off the most because it's in the sunniest spot. pretty excitinggg.

time to make crepes. happy thanksgiving :)

weekend

so this weekend jeff and i made a feast of greek food. falafel. tabouli. tzatziki (which i challenge you to type. it's hard.) all of it was relatively easy. in the great purge of 2010, i convinced maj that we never use the food processor and could therefore get rid of it.. but i was kind of missing it as i blended chick peas for the falafel in the mini chopper. but it worked out.

jeff and i were unprepared for how the oil temperature shot up when we threw the falafel in. maybe because of the baking soda in them? or is that normal? i've never fried anything.
but yuuuum was it tasty.
easy tzatziki. yogurt, sour cream, cucumber, dill, garlic, lemon juice, oil, vinegar, salt & pepper.
and i've been pestering my friend dave for ages about what to do with bulgher wheat, which he's a big fan of. he suggested tabouli (which is what started the whole idea of the feast). it is so easy and fresh and good. i had a huge bowl of it for lunch with a big dollop of tzatziki.
and maj and i planted some more of the front beds. neither of us really like how it turned out. but i'm just glad we got rid of the creepy vine that took over the beds.

kitty's favorite spot is the pot. he doesn't care if there are flowers in it or not.
..and now for the most exciting news of all! we have little baby lettuce coming up in one section of the garden. i don't know if the rest isn't getting enough sun or what, but only one patch has sprouted so far. they're very cute though.

recipes via foodnetwork.com:

falafel

tzatziki (from ina garten!)

tabouli

day is night

maj went to dinner at a friends house and got back on the gardening kick after seeing this woman's pretty lettuce. so we bought some little tiny onion starts.

i think we planted 50 of them.
and carrots, beets, radishes and lettuce from seed. should be interesting. it certainly is much easier than planting real plants. we just threw them on the ground and lightly raked over the top.
this time we got smart and made a map so i don't have to keep referring to the pictures of planting day 1. it's hard to remember what everything is before you get the hang of it. that might be one of the best things about gardening though. aside from actually eating it, it's just fun to be able to walk into anyone's backyard and be able to recognize a tomato plant vs zucchini.

job interview tomorrow! cross your fingers.

why're you always lookin' so sweet

this is a bad picture but look at those teeny bell peppers. they're probably the size of golf balls right now. something is wrong with that plant though. the edges of the leaves are curling up and it isn't because of lack of water.

we had two mushy bananas the other day and i couldn't find a recipe that wasn't full of oil until i came across this recipe on epicurious for 'low fat banana bread.' we didn't have buttermilk, so i used milk with a squeeze of lemon in it.. worked fine. the bread was really good. didn't seem low fat at all.
but the best recipe of the season has been smitten kitchen's watermelon salad. i mentioned it last time i made it but forgot to take/post a picture. it's so pretty and so tasty and fresh. really fun to make too, especially if you love chopping. HEB was out of mint so i used some lemon basil from the garden ( ! ).
and last but not least on this random day is jeff's pictures of the new kitty on the block: our kitty's twin. our kitty is the one by the trash can, the new one is under the truck. we haven't seen either of kitty's girlfriends in quite a while. it's a mystery.
the weather in austin was unbelievable today. i think the high was in the mid 80s. it was crisp and the breeze felt cool. all of the kids at school were wearing pants, and a fair number of them had hoodies. it just felt like fall.

fall garden

it's garden time again! maj and i bought sweet peppers, jalapenos, swiss chard, bell peppers, chinese cabbage, broccoli, lemon basil... i can't remember what else.

it looks teeeeeny tiny.


i have 2 weeks to get it going, and then it's all up to the fam not to kill it while i'm in china for october.