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.

Using What's In Our Fridge

A great time to start new habits is when you move into a new home and to some degree that's some of our motivation for this blog and all the content in it. We both want to be better cooks, we both want to eat healthier meals, and we would both appreciate saving money and creating less waste in the process.
One of our problems in the kitchen has been buying new ingredients -anything from oyster sauce, to cilantro, to fruit- using these ingredients once, and then completely forgetting about them. We have been trying to make this into an opportunity to both use up the veggies, fruits and other ingredients we already have, as well as create a challenge to find delicious ways to prepare these items.
As an example, I bought a large bag of apples and ate only a few of them. Before they could go bad, Carol got on the web and found two recipes. One for some apple slaw and one for a butternut squash and green apple casserole. Not only did we use up the rest of the apples, this was the first time for either of us making a slaw or a casserole. The slaw turned out to be very refreshing and clean tasting. It had a strange almost foamy texture with the crunch of the apple, but it's flavor was enough to make you want to keep trying it over and over again. The casserole was really simple and we cooked both the squash and apple just enough to get them soft. That creaminess with the crunch of the breadcrumbs and crushed pecans was the best part of the dish.

Air Plants Moving In

For some reason, when you google "air plants" the top sites are all web 1.0 at best. They all offer the same generic description: Air plants are from Central and South American Rain Forests as well as in Mexico and even up into the southern United States. They collect all their water and nutrients through their leaves and only use their roots as anchors. They don't require much sunlight or water, are easily inserted into terrariums, and don't mind being held by curious people. In other words, they are excellent house plants because they are both exotic and difficult to kill.

Prices can really vary on these plants but I found Carol's for a totally reasonable $4 each at one of our favorite local spots, RR#1 on Ashland just north of Chicago. Both of the gentleman that work in the shop are really great guys who always have great suggestions for whatever gift you're looking for. They'll even help you look throughout the shop to find the best air plants. Another good deal I found that I was tempted to do was this shop on Etsy who will send you 9 plants over 3 months for just $28.

One thing I've noticed is that some sites recommend submerging your plant under water for minutes at a time to water it. One of the guys at RR#1 told me this nearly killed his plants and recommended we just use a spray bottle to water them a couple times a week. So far this has worked really well for us.

Hyping Our Housewarming With An Animated Video Invite

This isn't my first time doing this and it won't be my last. Part of it is a complete boredom with evites and part of it is enjoying the process of making a quick video to get people excited about the party. Start to finish, Carol and I created this in one day.

Adventures In Painting

Painting our ugly walls was the next priority on our list. After trying out some light, gray-ish blues, we started looking at more industrial grays that would match with the loft's natural pallet of wood floors, rafter ceiling, and exposed grout and brick. In general, we wanted to go on the lighter side in order to keep the entire space brighter, especially at night. If we had more patience, or more indecisiveness, we may have gone back to try even more paint samples, but we choose the two lighter of the grays and went after our walls with rollers and paint brushes.



Our choice was to paint all of the main walls the middle gray (matte finish) and use the lightest gray (glossy) for the window sill. Unsure of my own instinct for picking paints, I only moved forward on this with my parent's full recommendation. I think my instinct would have been to go darker on the window sill, but we both love the lighter highlight that keeps that window space even brighter in the middle of the day.

Our First Dinner Party, American Cuisine for French Friends

Most of our recipes come for our homeboy, the Internet, but this round was taken from a couple magazines my mother passed on to us. Overall, the recipes were easy and all surpassed expectations. The avocado butter was the most complicated, necessitating a food processor, but the result was well worth the extra work.


Whenever possible we get our meat from local farms. This isn't too difficult but it often limits our choice of cuts due to the availability or certain meats. I think it's also important to note here that our main objection with the meats found at most local super markets is that they come from factory farms. In short, these factory farms are grotesque places that have no conscious on the treatment or health of their animals. We consider the purchase of factory farm meat a vote in confidence of the system and try to avoid it whenever possible. Our rule of thumb is that if the animal is from a farm we would enjoy visiting, we'll eat the meat. I believe most people would do the same if they were forced to see where their food actually came from but today we have such a disconnect with the sources of our food that the majority of us don't think twice about where our food is from. We always do our research though, even though I can't ask a waitress about where the chicken is from without thinking of this clip from Portlandia:





Our two favorite places to get "happy" meat are the Green Grocer and W Grocer. The Green Grocer has the wider selection of meats and the owner is an extremely nice and helpful lady who is more than happy to special order you cuts of meat, all you have to do is ask. This is where we picked up this beef for our burgers and all I can say is that it was delicious. Though it's the treatment of the animals that is the largest factor in our meat decision-making, I think it's also important to note that not only are we aiming to support other local grocers and farms, but the meat just plain tastes better.

Painting A Blank Canvas Chalkboard

The second Carol mentioned painting a wall with chalkboard paint I loved the idea. The question of which wall answered itself in our space. In our kitchen is a slender wall the "separates" our kitchen area from our bedroom area. The process of painting with chalkboard paint is a little laborious and takes some super human patience. Not only do they recommend 3 coats (and I would recommend using a roller, not a brush) but you also must wait several days before drawing on it. On top of that, you need to completely cover the wall with an even layer of chalk, let sit for day, erase and repeat. This helps the board to look better after being washed.

We painted our 3 coats, waited several days for it to dry, covered the board in a layer of chalk but that's when our patience ran out and we couldn't resist erasing the board and drawing stick people. The result: when we erase our board a chalky residue remains after drying leaving our board a little less "clean" than we would like. But overall, the board rocks.

The before photo


Our new chalkboard with a layer of chalk.


The first erasing plus a chalk ledge.

Here you can see the residue that's left on the chalkboard after we erase it and it dries.

The Move In

Well, I never want to do that again. I can confidently say that next time we move we will, without a shadow of a doubt, hire movers. 4 flights of stairs makes for the worst move in day of your life. We're just glad it's over. Also, we're never moving again.

Pimp My Digiorno

We're putting a lot of effort into becoming better cooks but we just can't try a new recipe every single night. On the other nights we still like to Pimp our ready made dinners to help use veggies we have before they go bad. On top of that, it just plain tastes better. Here's our Digiorno pizza pimped out with onions, mushrooms, avocado, ham, and garlic.

The New Loft

On May 1st, Carol and I moved in together in an incredible loft space in Noble Square. These are the before photos. This space has more character than any place either of us has ever lived and it's on us turn this into a great space to live in. Progress photos to follow...

First Post or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet

Via Asher Sarlin

The Internet knows all, or at least it thinks it does. As Carol and I begin our life living together in our new apartment, it has been there to help with our DIY projects, challenge our culinary skills with new recipes, and answer all those random questions we think up, like "Are oysters sustainable?" (The answer is Yes.) In short, we are the people who google anything we are curious about and count on the Internet to teach us everything. The idea behind this blog is to share some of what we have learned or even what we've been entertained by as we google things we don't know about.