Eat Dance Live

I think a small part of me has crying been crying inside for a few days now. The weather is getting cooler and cooler and the advent of winter is upon us here in Ontario. Fall, I know, not winter. It's sad, I realized how much I love fall, but farther up North, I just can't appreciate it in the same way because I know it just means soon winter shall come, the snow will pile up and the cold will set in... brrr... Despite the colder temperatures, our little (or rather ginormous) tomato plants are still growing strong and wild. We've had quite a couple harvests by now and WOW are they delicious. I think my favourite tomato has officially become the heirloom variety called Cherokee Purple . It takes like a deep rich sunbeam. It's amazing. Here was today's pick: In other news, my sis and I are in the serious planning phases of our awesome trip to Disney World for our sisters (aka. partners in crime) bachelorette party/ Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon run! I'...

After Yuletide and the turn of the new calendar year,  one of my goals  for 2011 was for us to grow a more amazing and bountiful garden than we have ever had before. In all fairness, that's not a very lofty goal considering that we've never actually had a garden ourselves... We would either make our weekly pilgrimage to the  veggie garden we help set up  at my parents' place or we would grow little things in containers indoors or off of our  fire escape  fancy balcony. This year, living in our first house, the space we have up front is about 190 square feet and our back plot is a mere 45 (and that doesn't even count back porch space), so we're not letting that stop us! We're going big or going home. Sure we don't have that much space, but we're going to make the most of it! This page is going to be a log of everything we're doing when it comes to planning for and growing our garden. It'll be our trials and tribulations, our successes and our ...

Sprouted kamut bread from our favourite bakery? Check. Bread knife and cutting board ready to go? Check. So, what's missing? Why a spread of course. I've always wondered about the hype there is around Rawtella . I mean, if it's anything like Nutella, I can totally understand. Who hasn't dreamt of taking a swim in a big pool of chocolate hazelnutty goodness... okay, or a least just wanted to eat a jarful, whatever. Being the person I am though, I've always figured I could probably just try to make some myself. However, it just never happened, because at the end of the day, I don't actually eat that many "treats" unless they serve some higher nutritional purpose. Tonight, after Andrew bought a yummy loaf of his favourite spelt bread, I decided he needed something to put on it, so the time had come. I've seen a lot of homemade rawtella recipes floating around the web, so I combined a bunch and tried my own. So far, it's still spread...

There is something wholly satisfying about growing your own food. No matter how much or how little you grow, it's always such a delight. The thing I love about having my own mini-garden is that it really gives me an appreciation for the miracle of nature. How cool is it that your plants grow from these tiny seeds with nothing more than water, sunlight, and love? I'm very pleased to say that all of my little herbs have turned into an urban jungle (well, not quite, but I hope it'll get there). My cinnamon basil has grown three extra heads, my stevia is climbing like mad, my mint is well... acting like mint, my pepper plants are flowering and producing like mad, and my thyme is quickly outgrowing its pot. And that's only the beginning! I had to do some serious pruning today before I head out again tomorrow to see my family across the sea. The amount of basil I got from my harvest was so great it was a good enough amount to make a mean pesto. I collected a little bit of eve...

One of the major draws of coming back to the DC area was knowing that we could be close to my parents' place aka. that we would have access to their garden to get back into some serious veggie planting. Throughout my childhood, my family has always stuck to the simple herbs, tomatoes, and sweet peppers side of gardening as those are usually fairly low maintenance plants and are pretty fail safe. But this year? Noooo. Andrew and I decided that this year would be our serious gardener year, our first year of really gardening together, and that we would go big or go home... and it's worked out great! Organic gardening is both a lot of hard work and very little effort all at the same time. It blows my mind how many people (ie. my entire extended family) think that organic gardening comes with all this extra effort, that our garden will be torn apart by bunnies, infested with pests, and grown over by weeds. You know what? When I see 'conventional' gardeners spraying their gar...