05.13.09
Posted in Family, Food at 9:38 pm by loretta
So I’ve got a bit of the gardening bug this year. Our yard is dark and tiny, which usually puts me off. I found a lot of shade-friendly offerings this year, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. To me, a garden isn’t a garden without some veg. I used the internet to find shade-friendlier veg, to plant in the “sunny” area of the yard.
While picking out seeds at Whole Foods, I saw this package of Micro Greens.
They are quite trendy right now, and it seemed a fun and not bitter way to add variety to salads. I dislike arugula/rocket, endive, and the other bitter lettuces. Plus they’re super easy, just scatter the seeds, let grow for 25 days, and done! This one is 20% red cabbage, 20% pak choy cabbage, 20% beets, 20% swiss chard, and 20% kohlrabi.
I used one of the window-style planter boxes upstairs for the first batch. Even though I put 1″ fencing over the top, the squirrels happily devoured anything that popped above it. The soil is fairly close to the top of the planter. So I lost perhaps half the greens that way.
I’ve fixed it for the other planters, which are downstairs. They are much deeper, so I can have the soil level about 3″ below the lip to keep the greens for ourselves. I’m spacing my plantings, so I have one batch almost half done, one I will plant tomorrow or Friday, and the one I harvested today.
Not much, but enough to top two salads, garnish two plates, or eat as a snack. I mixed in some cress seed to the next batch for a little more zing.
Since I’m still trying them out, I’m going to wait until I’ve eaten a few batches before deciding to get another packet of seeds. I should get two or three more plantings out of this one.
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08.03.08
Posted in Comics/Manga, Food, Fun at 2:43 pm by loretta
After years of experience, we’ve gotten a routine down for the procuring of food. Around lunch, we pass around a sheet of paper and everyone writes down what they want from the nearby Ralph’s supermarket. Often it’s sandwiches, but this year, Joe took us in a delicious alternative: chicken strips. Being deli food, though, it’s not very photo worthy.
Evenings vary. Thursday, we ended up at Masala, rated the best Indian restaurant by San Diego magazine. It’s tasty, but pricey. Primarily, it’s convenient. Located in the Gaslamp district, adjacent to the convention center, it’s close by. Fortunately for us, but regretfully for them, most Con attendees are more interested in American or Continental fare. When we eat with Peter, those are the restaurants we usually end up at. Those restaurants pack quickly, but we were able to sail into Masala with a party of 5 and no waiting. ^_^ Eventually, it filled up as the adventurous overflow “settled” for Indian food. Heh, they are “settling” for better food than most of those other places serve.
Indian bread is fabulous. Masala offers a bread basket, which comes with plain nan, garlic nan, onion kulcha, and spinach kulcha. We ordered two. Masala also paid attention to the amount of spice, or lack thereof, that we preferred for our dishes. Joe had a lovely chicken vindaloo, which normally I find too spicy to eat. Shiaw-Ling and David shared chicken tikka masala. Carl had a shrimp dish, which I think was Bangalore shrimp. I had a lamb dish from the Chef’s recommendations, which I can’t find on their online menu.
Yummy, yummy, yummy.
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