Roasted Purple Asparagus

I hate asparagus. 

I love this asparagus!

Purple asparagus from my Dad's garden.

It's the only asparagus I will eat.  I cooked it at 400 F for 15 mins.  First I coated it with olive oil, sprinkled it with salt and lime powder.  Roasted to perfection!

I'm not sure if it is the lime powder or the salt that makes the little red pokadots, but it's cute!  And yummy :)

Garden 2011 - Spring

A lot has changed in the backyard since last year.  I planted grass, for one thing.  This is the first time I have ever planted grass in my entire life.  I have killed a lot of grass over the years, but NEVER planted it.  Turns out it is kind of difficult to grow.  Well, if you have a puppy that insists on running across it and trying to dig it up :)

The pond.  The white trellis fell over a couple days ago.  Well, actually it was picked up and twisted around by the wind.  It was a strong wind, because that is not a light trellis. 

The water lilies over wintered with the fish in the pond.  They seem to be fine.  I replanted them and there are many leaves already floating on the water.  Soon water lilies!  I also added some water lettuce, water hyacinth and parrot feather.  I also added 40 Japanese trapdoor snails.  There is a toad that lives in the rocks around the pond.  So lots of wildlife in/around the pond.  I wonder what happened to all the salamanders and frogs I added to the pond last fall?

Only 6 garden beds.  I took out 7 beds.  I wanted to cut back, because it seems like - yes I can grow a ton of food in my backyard - but why am I doing it?  A lot of stuff went to waste last year, because I didn't have enough time to care for everything.  I want to have a garden that is productive and looks good too. 

View from the porch of the grass.

I'm really happy with the changes that I made.  It's pretty and now I have more time to enjoy it, instead of only having time to take care of it.

Can't remember what the garden looked like last year?  Neither could I :)

Click on the links below if you want to see the yard last year.

Garden Sept 2010

July 2010

June Garden Update 2010

May 2010 - easiest on this post to see the difference between this year and last year

Pike's Market: Savor Seattle Tour Part 2

Pike's Market - Savor Seattle Tour cont.

Amazing selection of pastas. We bought a few and sampled some chocolate linguine. Hmmm? Very different.
Mom and me by a flower stall.

Flowers!

I wanted to buy them all!

Yum!

Look at the size of these shrimp!

We stopped for a break at the Crumpet Shop and had many, many cups of tea, a crumpet with butter and honey and plenty of people watching.

Mural at the Crumpet Shop.

Mom buying some fruits and vegetables from Frank's Market.

We bought some smoked fish here.

Mom and me resting and drinking some more Market Spice tea with our new Market Spice bags.

Mom and Dad.

After all that food what could be better than a nice piece of gum?

Preferably not ABC gum!

Mom and Dad.

Dad and me.

Chickens! Yay!

This shop had all kinds of eggs - duck, quail, goose and chickens.

These are a few of the delicious things we bought (and ate!).

This butter was so, so good. We bought 2 tubs (in 6 days) and ate every bit.

Black velvet plums. So sweet!

A little collage.

Challenge: Can you make a meal from the above ingredients?

Sea beans. These were awesome. Just don't microwave them. They have sea salt ('cause they're from the sea) and the salt sparks in the micro.

Rainer cherries. Really amazing eaten on the beach.

Kumquats. My new favorite food. You want to kill yourself while you're eating them, because they are sour, but then they are sweet and ahhhhh delish and you want to eat another one. And another one and another one.....

Mangoes.

Mom making dinner. Yum!

Morels in sage butter. So, so good. Like vegetarian bacon fat. Crispy, chewy and salty.

Dad and me enjoying our sage butter morels.

Market Spice 'um spices? Tea and nice little tea bags and yeah spices too.

Bread, cheese and tomatoes.

Ah, dinner view!

Don't Be A Hero Pickled Peppers

Someone at work brought in 3 huge bags of hot peppers.

I dried all of the red ones and then pickled the rest.

These pickles are not for me!

They are too HOT!

They will be gifts.

*wink*

Don't Be A Hero Pickled Peppers

3 lbs peppers

6 cups vinegar

2 cups water

Combine vinegar and water in a large saucepot.

Bring mixture to a boil.

Pack peppers into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Ladle hot liquid over peppers, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Remove air bubbles.

Adjust 2-piece caps.

Process 10 mins in a boiling water canner.

Yay! for free vegetables!

Friday's Harvest & De Nile

More Veggies!

I'm loving this endless summer.

The temp. is 80-85F during the day

and 50F at night.

It's better weather than we had in the actual summer.

I know it will all have to end some time soon, but

until then I can live in denial.

For example:

On Tuesday I thought,

"It's so weird - the trees are all losing their leaves.

What's up with that?"

Oh, duh!

It's called Fall.

NO! NO!

Summer will last FOREVER!

*sigh*

I like De Nile.

Cucumbers.

I gave these to my mom.

She's making Virgina Chunks, a sweet pickle.

They're Ok, but I'll more of a dill person.

More tomatoes.

I'm running out of space and recipes.

Nice problem to have.

Peppers.

Finally.

The little one on the left is the

best pepper I have ever eaten.
They are called Zavory or Yummy,

but I can't remember which is which.

The little pepper has a hot bite to it

and then it is tropical sweet with

overtones of mango and pineapple.

So good!

Onions and carrots.

I need to plant more onions next year.

These are Copra onions.

I grew them last year and

they are a looooooong keeping onion.

I gave some to my parents and my mom used up the

last one in July.

It was as fresh as when I pulled them last fall.

Tomatoes again.

That biggie in the left corner is a

Striped German.

It weighs 2 1/2 lbs!