sunny & beautiful

sunny & beautiful outside today. hurray for spring!

my sister & i worked on our garden - fertilizing & planting. we planted mint & thyme plants, and seeded some carrots, lettuce, peas. i'm not the most diligent of gardeners, and don't have great luck (examples: my rosemary plants have grown less than a centimeter since i planted them 2 years ago. i frequently forget to water. my mint turns ugly & brown because i forget to water. i don't like it when dirt stays under my nails & in the creases of my hands after gardening, so i use that as an excuse sometimes.)
however, i hope to have a bit more luck in the garden section of my life this year. i love having fresh herbs available anytime i need. and produce straight from the garden not only tastes fresh & delicious, but its also cost-effective.

one thing i really want to plant this year is lemon verbena. haven't found any yet. last year i bought lots of lemon verbena from the farmer's market and dried them to make tea. incredibly delicious & fragrant. if i could grow my own, i could have lemon verbena tea any time. do any of you gardening this year have something specific you'd love to grow?

this is the part where i should be ending with some gardening tips for you. unfortunately, you will be disappointed. i'll try to let you know how things go, though, and tell you what works for us and what doesn't!

our tiny basil (garden)

tiny basil seedlings:

a little bit bigger basil:


soon to come (hopefully): even bigger basil ready for use in a scrumptious recipe

fresh rosemary and some of its glory

last weekend my dear sister and i frolicked to the local farmer's market. i'd been once before, approximately one year ago, and i found the experience this time around much more exhilarating because a)this time i had a job, consequently money to buy local goodies, b)both my knowledge and appreciation of food have extensively increased.

but the point of my little farmer's market story, is that i bought some fresh rosemary. i've never used fresh rosemary before, so i had no idea where to start.

my first attempt with fresh rosemary goodness involved yams. well, technically one yam. regardless, yams are wonderful. i preset the oven to 425 F. i peeled the yam (singular), chopped it, and tossed it with olive oil, salt, pepper, and freshly chopped rosemary leaves. i read that the rosemary should be sprinkled onto the yams (or potatoes, should you prefer them) only when there's about 10 minutes of baking left, but i cheated a bit. i microwaved (gasp!) the yams before i oiled them up to speed the process (i was hungry), which meant i added the rosemary straight away. after this, i spread the yams on a baking sheet and slid them into the oven and somewhat kept an eye on them, turning them over every so often. ...all that to say that the yams turned out quite tasty, despite the few that burnt when i wasn't looking.


another fresh rosemary adventure involved wild bison steak.
i marinaded the steaks the day before with olive oil, salt, pepper, and of course, chopped fresh rosemary. we seared the steaks for a minute on each side, before placing them on a medium heated griddle. i placed a sprig of rosemary, soaked in oil, onto the griddle between the steaks, to 'infuse' the aroma a bit more. i don't know if it actually worked or not, but it sure smelled amazing. because the steaks were sandwiched between the two grill plates, we only left them on for 9 minutes. they turned out quite tender and flavorful, but if we do it again, they probably only need 7 minutes, as the steaks keep cooking once off the grill.

more fresh rosemary infused food adventures to come! my sister and i made an amazing rosemary-lemon white bean dip the other night, but alas, we didn't have the chance to get any pictures...