Remember our serrano pepper plant? Well, I've waited long enough to harvest the serranos that now they are turning red! Now the question is what am I going to do with all these peppers (~15). 
I am considering Jamie Oliver's cheeky chili-pepper chutney, specifically this modified, and simplified, version from Joanna's Food looks like something I can tackle on a weekend. My goal this week is to find canning jars. Looks like I get a trip to my favorite organizing store.
One of my favorite things about summer is being able to dry my laundry outside. TEB rigged up a clothes line so that it zigzags across our porch. Today I have my linen napkins (made from Lotta Jansdotter remnants) and towels (purchased on Etsy from LinenMe, now selling here) drying out there - so pretty. 
While the container tomatoes were a flop due to some wilty affliction, our peppers are thriving on the patio. These serrano beauties are not ripe yet and are only about 2 inches long. I doubt we can eat all 20+ peppers in one shot so I'm going to have to do some roasting/freezing in a month or so. 
Recently, my bath towels have had an odd smell to them even right after washing them. The most reasonable explanation is that our bathroom does not get enough ventilation causing the terry towels to remain damp throughout the day. I figured that they must be growing mold. Since we rent and our bathroom has no windows we cannot get more ventilation in there.
My solution: linen towels inspired by the Toast UK Clothing & Home Company's catalog pages. The Toast towels were not in my price range (though now some styles are on sale right here) so I ordered similar linen herringbone pattern towels from LinenMe. Been using them a few weeks and I love them. They dry in only a few hours and are easy to throw in the washer. We don't even use the dryer making our new linen towels a bit greener than our old ones.
LinenMe organic linen towels are made in Lithuania and shipping to the U.S. was relatively inexpensive and quick. I was even able to pick colors and patterns not posted in the store - white and charcoal grey herringbone.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Tuesday was the two week mark for how long I have been in the AK. This is the longest I have been here in years, seriously 4 or 5 years. I cannot even remember when I was last here for the budding of the trees. When I got to FAI two weeks ago it was downright ugly. Everything was dirty and NOTHING was green. Now the trees have budded (at least the birch trees have) and the grass is speckled with green patches. The sky has been a lovely blue and the weather warm. 
Beautiful birch leaf on Birch Hill. My dad and I did a 6k jaunt on the White Bear trail (pink trail on the map). I am going to head back up there this weekend. Have a great long weekend!
Gary Fischer Simple City bike. ~1,000$
Paul Frank ladies city bike at Nirve. ~600$
Wilshire by Nirve. ~600$
Vanmoof also found on Areaware. ~600$
If-mode bike, found via re-nest, at Areaware. ~2,200$
Cynthia Rowley beach cruiser. cost??
I don't often drink soda but when I do it is coke. If a restaurant only serves pepsi then I go with water. How is it then that I find myself with a 4-pack of the new Pepsi Natural? 
When the new year started I declared 2009 the year of the budget. I think I am doing pretty good. I am keeping track of my expenses on MINT. I opened an IRA and am making bi-monthly deposits into my high-interest savings account.
I have been sick this past week and am slowly recovering. I should be back to regular posting mid-week. No, I don't have swine flu. I did have strep throat that turned into a nasty cold with coughing and congestion. I have had to restock my natural medicine cabinet. Here is what I cannot live without when I am sick.
On the left are our lovely, flowering tomato plants. We have two kinds heirloom and better boy, both from Whole Foods. On the right is our little Serrano pepper plant. Both the pepper and the tomatoes are going to grow up to 6 feet tall and so we planted them in large containers. TEB scrounged eucalyptus branches so we could make a support triangle for the tomatoes and I suspect we might have to do the same thing for the pepper. I mixed in a bit of compost with the organic soil, 1:7 ratio. 
The compost bin was set up about 8 months ago and the 100 red wriggler worms that we got from a friend have tripled into a nice population of worms willing to eat about 1/4 of our organic kitchen waste, more on containing your kitchen scraps here. The rest we throw in our apartment complex's community passive compost bin. We get rid of about 1 bag of garbage a week and that feels great. Above, you can see our compost bin on our front porch behind our shade-loving, drier dirt herbs (sage, rosemary, and oregano). 
Here is our compost bin after some cantelope fruit seeds were thrown in there. I highly recommend the Wriggle Wranch kit that has several stackable bins and comes with corn husk starter (order your worms separately or snag some from a friend like we did). In the San Diego area you can buy the WRANCH at the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9am - 4pm. 
This weekend I finished reading Michael Pollen's newest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. The book is packed full of good information on eating well, eating balanced, and the history of FDA regulations on "food" labels. One of the points that Pollan brings up in the book is that Americans don't enjoy or value food as much as people in other countries. He cites that American spend 10% of their monthly income on food (MI) while Italians (Spanish and French too) spend closer to 17% of their MI on food and are far healthier than we are. I spend about 15% of my MI on food. Now that made me feel better about my costly CSA box from J.R. Organics Farm.
Spring is here and so is the weekend! 
My CSA, J.R. Organics, provided the recipe and the squash for my first stab at a squash soup. The final product was tasty and I'm looking forward to the 3 servings I stowed in the freezer. 1 pot = 3 dinners! Check out the recipe on the CSA website. 
TEB's aunt and uncle always use the Sunday comics and if we did not read the paper online then I would do the same. 
Posts
All Comments
