Nasturtiums gone wild!

It is now the end of the season for my tomatoes, and wow, they did great! I started them from seed, and now they are massive, with hundreds of unripe tomatoes still waiting to ripen.

Meanwhile, the nasturtiums I planted from seed have gone completely wild! Interestingly, I plants the same seeds in some of my containers on the deck, and they really did not do much...but the seeds I threw into the ground are quite impressive!

You can see my unruly tomatoes as well:

The nasturtiums have completely covered up part of the path as well:

To compare this to how my tomatoes and veggie garden started out as, look here - early veggie garden.

I am sad the season is coming to an end, and I am going to have to go back to actually buying mass-produced tomatoes at the store.  It was great while it lasted.  And during the season's height, I was picking 20-30 tomatoes a day!

Being that I started them from seed indoors when it was still freezing and snowing outside, I felt really attached to them...my little tomato babies.  I look forward to doing it again next year!

No cook tomato sauce & pasta

I admit I enjoy my sauces warm, but this recipe sounded so easy I couldn't pass it up.  I always joke that I could never be a raw foodist, because I love gooey cheese and warm comfort food.

This recipe is very tomatoey!  I found this recipe in my latest issue of Food & Wine.  I actually didn't make any changes except I used whole wheat fettucine rather than the penne used in the magazine.

And I love that I was able to just go outside and take basil from my garden. I have 100s of unripe, green tomatoes, I can't wait until they are ready to eat!

16 oz pasta (I used fettucine, the recipe called for penne)
2 medium tomatoes, diced
4 oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
2 T tomato paste
4 large basil leaves
1 garlic clove
1/3 C extra-virgin olive oil

1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the penne until al dente

2, In a blender, puree the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, garlic and olive oil. Pour the sauce into a large bowl and season with salt and pepper.

3. Drain the pasta, add it to the sauce and toss well to coat. Serve piping hot.

Tonight, I am going to attempt roasted beet salad (from my friend's garden with goat cheese on arugula.  

My tomatoes and more!

This was my first year starting anything from seed. Last year I grew some tomatoes from plants, but this year, I was determined to do them from seed. As well as zucchini, cucumbers, beets, radishes, beans, peppers and herbs.

As far as the tomatoes go, I am growing brandywine, celebrity, yellow pear, red cherry, super sweet and tomatillos.

I started my seeds in April here.

This is what my veggie garden, mainly tomatoes, looked like the first week of June:




These were taken this morning. Some of my plants are now as tall as me!




Here is a shot of my zucchini plants:

My (old) house.

Last weekend we happened to be in Naperville for a party at a friend's house.  It has been a while as I don't get back very often.

This is the house my sisters were born (well, not in the house..but the house they came to from the hospital), and the house I lived in for almost 18 years.

I remember when we planted that tree in front of the house.  I cannot believe how huge it has become.

I really wish I could have gone inside to see what it looks like. At the same time if I was inside my old house, I would feel like I had every right to go to my old bedroom, and see what was in the fridge...and I guess that would make me seem a bit stalkerish. So, I admired it from the outside. Though, I do think someone from inside the living room saw me, and was looking out the window.

Egg Salad with Tarragon and Shallots

For some reason I was craving egg salad, even though I had never even eaten it before.  So, I went searching, and found this recipe on epicurious.  Being that I detest mayo, I replaced it with sour cream, and some greek yogurt, and made some other changes, so I am posting it here, as I made it.

6 large eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallot
1 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon, or to taste
1 teaspoons tarragon vinegar or white-wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

I then placed the egg salad on rye bread with watercress and cucumbers. Yummy!

New Kitchen!!

I know it has been a while since my last post. I will promise to get back to posting semi-regularly. Part of the reason for my long hiatus was planning and constructing our new kitchen.

We basically set our budget to match our tax return. Of course, a kitchen budget never ends up what you plan it to be...c'est la vie. You just don't realize what goes into a new kitchen until you are in the middle of it.  It is so much more than appliances, cabinets, counter top, sink...items such as knobs, tools, screws, materials, the faucet...things I didn't think of initially. 

I now love my kitchen, which was previously my most unhappy room in the house, especially for one who loves to cook.  It was nice upon first look, but when you really looked into it, you could see how monstrous the original 1936 built-in cabinets were. I could not even stir a bowl with a large spoon on the counter, because it would hit that wall cabinets. And if I ever wanted to use my blender of food processor...forget about it...they didn't fit either!

The oven was stand-alone, which was annoying and unsightly. And not to mention dangerous, as my 3-year old had more opportunity to reach her hand over the side and burn herself. Previously we only had cabinets on one side of the kitchen, and now it is galley-style, with cabinets on opposite side, and the oven built into the cabinets...as it should be. We did keep the oven, which is white, and decided that is something the new owners can replace, as our budget was quickly dwindling.

And my most hated aspect of the old kitchen...we had a dishwasher that you had to roll over and attach to the sink to use!! This was something I didn't realize until we bought the house, I went to turn on the dishwasher in those first days, and wondered why it wasn't working. I literally cried for days over this one fact.  And refused to ever start it.  I admit it, I am a kitchen snob. But those days are over, and we now have a brand new installed dishwasher!! And I am actually starting the dishwasher for the first time in almost 2 years.  I am sure Martin loves this.

So now I love it!! We tried to keep the style of the previous kitchen with the shaker cabinets. Which incidentally is the style I prefer. We were going to stay with white, but decided to do a warm maple. For the counter tops we did a black granite-looking Formica. Of course I wanted the real thing, BUT we didn't have it on our budget, and since we are going to put our house on the market soon, I wasn't sure we would get the money back for it. We also had a large 1936 farm-house sink, that we also decided to ditch. I grew to not hate it so much, but I am still happy we have a new one, even if it is smaller. And though we have more cabinets now, the kitchen seems so much larger than before. Maybe because the space is better used and there is less clutter with the stand-alone appliances.

We were very lucky to have Gary coming over for a 3-week holiday, so we recruited him to help with a lot of the work. His work was invaluable! Everything from demoing to installing the cabinets, and all the stuff in between...he even removed an old ironing board closet that was being used as a spice rack behind the old oven--ewww. And now it is nice smooth drywall.  We did go to the beach in Florida while he was here...so it was not all a working holiday for him.

I am still trying to get used to where everything is, I feel lost in my own kitchen sometimes, but I don't mind, because I love it.

BEFORE:

Before the demo

AFTER:

Need some color.

It might not be Spring yet...even though it is past mid-May..but I couldn't hold out any longer, and wanted to put some color on our front steps. I planted 2 identical ones...one each sire of the entrance. Usually, I prefer more randomness, and less symmetry...but with trying to sell our house at some point this year, I figured I need to do what looks good to others. That is assuming these plants live that long.

Off to make fish tacos!!