Sadly time kind of got away from me and while I have been keeping up with my crafty creative stuff (cooking mostly) I haven't had time to blog about it. So here goes.
Project 1: The day of Talia's graduation we went out to sushi with her parents. We don't really have that much in common with her parents so I find it hard to talk to them about much. Add on top of that the fact that Talia's mom doesn't speak much English and long lunch/dinners can be very awkward. Luckily this dinner wasn't too bad. We mostly chatted about how awesome Talia is (Cause she is) but also about some of the things we are planning on doing.... like growing mushrooms. That's right I have ordered a shitake grow at home kit and it should be arriving soonish (maybe another week or so). Looking forward to really tasty fresh shitake mushrooms in all of our food for several weeks. It was a little expensive ($34) but it is an investment that I will use to figure out what is needed to grow mushrooms.
With this project I am hoping to figure out how to grow other mushrooms (I know its a tall order but I still want to try). Talia always raves about how amazing these wild honey mushrooms that her parents pick are so eventually I would like to find a way to collect the spores and grow them at home :)
Project 2: While we were having dinner and talking about mushrooms I started to ask questions about "wine making mushrooms" that Talia has mentioned several times before. Specifically I wanted to know if I could get some here. So Talia's dad did some searching on the internet for a couple days and found out that the name of the mushroom is a kombucha. Its not really a mushroom as it is a combination of yeast and bacteria that ferments things but its sort of a mushroom. Anyway, with the name in hand I started to look for places that carried them.
Thank goodness I like in such an amazing city. Several places in Kensington market sell the fermented tea. Not the mushroom per say but the tea that it makes. So one afternoon after work I decided to wander over there and see if they had any that still have the mushroom in the container.... Woot for me, they did. It was unpasteurized so I could be fairly certain it was still alive.
The Kombucha tea actually tastes really nice. Sweet and a little fizzy like a pop. So about a week ago I started to try and make my own using the Kombucha mother from the bottle I bought at the market.
I don't have great pictures because I wanted to keep the tea out of the way while it was fermenting but here is sort of what it looks like
Its hard to see anything but in the last couple of days it does appear that I have a new mother growing on top. I should know how it did in about a week (12-14 days after starting the ferment).
For those that are interested The recipe I used was 2 tbsp of green tea and about 75 g of sugar as a sweetener (and for the old mother to feed on). I boiled a pot of tea and then let it cool for several hours until it was almost room temperature. Then I added in the mother I got from the market along with about half a cup of the remaining fermented tea (that was all that was left after we had it with my parents for fathers day).
Project 3: Not really a project but a really tasty dessert. A couple of weeks ago I went to the St Lawrence market and we found a flower guy selling rhubarb for $5 for more than 2lb. That was the best price I have ever seen at the market or in the stores so I snapped it up really quickly. We also came across cheap strawberries at the local metro so I decided to make some strawberry rhubarb crumble. I used a recipe from a Jamie Oliver book ("Jamie at Home") but modified it a bit because the original one doesn't call for strawberries. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of the finished product (wasn't that amazing to look at but oh so delicious to eat), but I do have a picture of all the fruit in a bot starting to stew :)
Project 4: Worm update. So the worms have been going very well. Whenever I look in I am amazing to see how big the worms have gotten. But I did have an odd encounter the other day. It looks like my bin is growing mushrooms.
I did a bunch of research on the internet and it doesn't appear that I really have to worry that much about them. They start to grow when the bin in rich in carbon an they actually help the decomposition. There were several people saying that the mushrooms actually look over and chocked off worms so I have been turning the mushrooms over just in case.
Project 5: Garden update. Recently I have been having a lot of trouble with keeping my garden watered. Partly because of the heat and partly because I am growing everything in pots. The problem is that on really hot sunny days (like last week when it hit 34C) by the time I get home the tomatoes are wilted. Even when I water them in the morning. The other plants seem to be fairing a little better thankfully.
One of the possible solutions I have been looking into is to put mulch down on top of the pots so they don't dry out as fast. The problem is that I don't want to go out and buy mulch because it is expensive, I don't want to buy plastic mulch because I am worried it will leach into the dirt, and I don't really have trees to collect branches from to create my own mulch. So after much searching on the web I have found that you can actually mulch with shredded paper so I think I am going to try and do that. I am not 100% certain that it will actually help because the paper may not act as a moisture barrier. All the webpages I went to about it talked about using paper to keep weeks down not to keep moisture in but we will see how it goes.
Other updates. Thanks mostly to my friend getting a new car I was able to go and get my third shelf for the balcony garden. Now all the small plants are on the shelves and not on the ground. I also raised the plants so that the tallest plant (tomato) was just peaking over the edge of the balcony wall. Hopefully this will mean better light for the plants.
There is now lots of space for Talia and I to have breakfasts on the balcony :)
Oh, one other update on the garden. I have officially determined that my blackberry and my seconds gooseberry are dead :( No more plants form home depot I think. On fathers day Talia and I dropped by Humber nursery on our way home from visiting her parents and they had much nicer plants that were about the same price as home depot prices.
Project 6: The last one that I can think of right now is Canning. I finally went and got a pressure canner so I could can chickpeas.
I didn't have many dried chickpeas left so I was only able to fill 4 jars but it was fun. Chickpeas expand far more than I was expecting them to even after boiling them and soaking them for almost 2 days so these jars are a little light on the liquid. I need more practice on how much to fill them. But I am looking forward to trying them out. Gonna ask Talia to make some humus later tonight.
Talia keeps wanted me to try and can and sell things on etsy to keep an eye out for my new shop (theGardenGuy). Once I work out all the kinks I should be starting to can some gourmet preserves and the likes :)
So that's it for the last couple of weeks. Thanks to Karen for poking me and reminding me to post some updates. I will get pictures for the home grown mushrooms and the finished Kombucha as soon as I can.
~(' ')~
