We Get Serious About Our Gardening

Back home in Michigan my mom helped me get Carol's vegetable garden started. Most of the plants we bought needed to be replanted so luckily I was at home where I had all the tools, soil, and pots needed to get the project done.

When picking out the plants for the garden, I may have gotten a little carried away but I don't regret it a bit. I left the store with a cucumber plant, 3 tomato plants, 2 pepper plants, leaf lettuce, oregano, mint, and some Italian basil.

The process for each plant was similar with just a couple small adjustments to help each one grow individually. The cucumber needed something to climb so I re-potted it into something bigger and borrowed and lattice-like thing from my mom. Careful as I tried to be, I injured my poor plant several times in the process, snapping 3 separate leaves off. Given the few leaves it had left I thought the poor plant looked dismal, but my mom says he'll be just fine.

When replanting the rest of Carol's Veggies, if there was no drainage in the pot, I used rocks in the bottom to create a place for water to collect without drowning the roots. I used some mulch at times as filler for the bigger pots but skipped it on the small ones. I pulled each plant from it's temporary pot and then broke up the roots to prepare it for the new soil. My mom explained to me that this wakes the roots up and will help them grow into the new soil.

Once finished potting the veggies, I watered them heavily to welcome them to their new homes. Other than my clumsy breaking of half my cucumber plant's limbs, it all went smoothly.

Since my family lives in Nature Central, my mom also had extra strawberries and chives she offered us to take in the garden. She thought her strawberry plants had died a couple years back and just threw them into the compost pile. This year they have been growing strong and seem to be on path to producing fruit. Nearby the strawberries, my mom threw a couple small chive plants and they spread like wild flower. Though I already had some back in Chicago, there were so many chives I just grabbed some more because why not?

The clump of strawberries I reclaimed from the compost heap.
When chives are allowed to grow without being harvested they grow purple flowers. Who knew? Not me.
My small chive clump.

Thai Green Curry, Round 1

In our first attempt and green curry, we looked at a lot of different recipes on the internet and determined that we might as well work with the ingredients we have and the ones that were available. Since we couldn't find kaffir lime and we had tiny stalks of lemongrass, ours lacked those essential Thai flavors but we tried to make up for it by using some Thai egg plant.


The curry ended up great, but it definitely lacked the strong flavors we were looking for. Next time we make green curry, we're going to use way more green curry paste, more lemongrass, and hopefully find some kaffir lime leaves.

Pimp My Ramen

We aren't afraid to pimp any classic easy-make meal. Bagel Bites, pizzas, and as seen here, the college classic, Ramen. Here is Carol's classic Ramen with egg, but she's also taken it to the next level adding mushrooms and some green onions.

Debut of Food Death Row

As I mentioned in our recent post about using up what we have left in the kitchen, we recently used our chalkboard to keep track of all the ingredients we have and help plan meals for the week.

Dogs Are Not Allowed In Our Aparment

No matter how friendly they are.

First Attempt At Cooking Thai Food

For most of 2005 and 2007, I lived in Thailand. Each year I lived with a family and learned to enjoy some classic Thai dishes. Since coming back to the US, there have rarely been opportunities to enjoy some of my most favorite traditional Thai dishes. This is not because of a lack of Thai restaurants, just a lack of traditional or even street food style of Thai cooking.


And then I found this blog. She Simmers. She writes about several of the best Thai dishes around: som tam, jaew Sauce, street fried chicken, and even Thai fried beef.


Despite needing to go out to the legendary H-Mart to get all of the necessary ingredients, I got aggressive with my Thai cooking and decided to try all of the above recipes.

Carol's Garden Begins With Herbs

Despite being one of the more underrated parts of our apartment, our back porch is large and receives hours and hours of direct sunlight every day. Taking our "eating local" initiative to the next level, we've started a small garden out on the porch.


I was at the Green Grocer and these herbs were on sale for around $2 each. I grabbed chives, thyme, sage, oregano, cilantro, parsley, Thai sweet basil, and rosemary. That same day while at Joong Boo Market, I saw some Korean peppers and felt like I had to pick them up as well.


I drilled holes in this flower box for drainage and planted everything except for the Thai basil and Korean peppers. I then planted my Asian herbs together in a small pot.


The amount of sunlight they will get on the back porch will be great for them, but we're worried about the wind beating them up. I guess there's one way to find out. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of our garden. Updates to follow.