En Papillote

With the summer months come delicious grill cooking and experiences for the taste buds. Our grill has been out for a couple of months now and we've cooked several meals on it, but none as good as the one we had today! My favorite way of preparing vegetable is by far "En papillote" (in parchment), where vegetables are cut and placed into an aluminium pouch that is then carefully closed and put on the grill. The steam created allows the content to cook perfectly, and the taste is just awesome! One can choose pretty much any combination of vegetables for a papillote. My combinations are usually dominated by root vegetables.

Vegetables En papillote, served with a yummy, tender steak

I prepared such a papillote today, and both my husband and I were pleasantly surprised at the result, as I tried a combination I had not tried before. Here is the recipe:

(For 2 papillotes / 4 big portions)

- 2 big sweet potato
- 3 big potato
- 2 big parsnip
- 4 small to medium carrots
- a few broccoli pieces
- 1 big onion
- fresh ginger (to taste)
- fresh garlic (to taste)
- fresh chives (to taste)
- fresh oregano (to taste)
- butter
- salt
- pepper

Before grilling

1) Lay out 2 big pieces of aluminium foil.

2) Cut the potatoes, parsnip and carrots in cubes, sticks or slices (Do not mix together)

3) Split each veggie portion in two, and place in layers on the aluminium foil in this order: Parsnip at the bottom, carrot, potato, sweet potato.

4) Cut the broccoli in bite size pieces. Place on top of each pile.

5) Cut the ginger and onions in small fine pieces and sprinkle evenly on top of each pile.

6) Cut small squares of butter and place at various places on top of each pile (3 squares each papillote)

7) Garnish with fresh chive and fresh oregano leaves.

8) Add salt and pepper to taste

9) Close each pouch, folding the paper carefully so all the steam can be contained.

10) place and the grill and cook for 30 to 45 minutes.

And you're ready to enjoy a wonderful bouquet of flavors!

Happy grilling!

My Vegetable Garden

Thanks to my lovely husband, when I came home yesterday, the garden patch had been evened out and was FINALLY ready to receive seeds and baby plants! How exciting! So, based on the needs of each plant I want to grow, I divised a plan that would make the best possible use of my small garden.

I spent the whole afternoon (with some help from my husband) working on the project and am now proud to announce that my very first vegetable garden is in place! :)

Veggie garden - View from the balcony

I sowed and planted corn, cucumber, onion, garlic, tomato, iceberg lettuce, parsnip, carrot, peas, yellow beans, green beans, spinach, zucchini and pumpkin.

I don't necessarily have a lot of each, but seeing as this is my first garden, I really wanted to just explore and see what happens. For instance, I only planned for one pumpkin and one zucchini plant, as they each take up a lot of space. However, I am still waiting for the sprouts to be big enough to be transferred.

I decided to try only 2 of my 4 cucumber plants, as I am not confident they can thrive in their new environment. I have been preparing them for a little while now to be outside, but it is just SO windy here sometimes. We'll see. If in a few days I see that they are still fine, I will add the two last plants.

The onions are just a few onions that started sprouting, so I had put them in a pot until I could transfer them to the garden. As for the garlic plants, they were given to me by my neighbor about a month ago. I had planted them somewhere else until I could also move them to their permanent spot.

Here is the disposition of my garden. Note that he number of icons does not necessarily represent the number of plants / seeds used.

I really really hope this will work out and that at least some of the things will grow and produce successfully. I must say, though, that regardless of the end result, I feel I have already learned SO much this year about gardening. That's how it goes, I suppose... A little experience here, a little experience there, and perhaps at some point, I'll actually feel like I know what I'm doing out there. ;)

Preparing a Vegetable Garden

The month of May has arrived and given us some very lovely sunny days to do some more projects out in the yard. With my baby plants growing fairly well and the temperature getting better and better, I have been trying to plan where I would plant what.

Decorative squash, tomato

Basil and mini cucumbers. The cucumber plants suffered from the temperature fluctuations, so I took them back inside until the outside temperature gets more even.

Chili

Originally, I wanted to use the small beds around the new terrace for growing peas and cucumbers and what not. But I quickly realized that my ideas were too big for the size of these two small patches and a few flower pots. I also noticed that with leaves growing in the nearby trees, my "garden spot" is way too much in the shade!

However, THIS spot is perfectly located!

The future vegetable garden

It has sun all day, is on the side of the yard we use the least (so is out of the way) and is close to the compost corner, as well as being easily reachable with the water hose.

The only issue is that we have never touched this flower bed since we moved into the house, and as you can see, it is completely overtaken by weeds. A huge cleanup is in order! So my husband and I worked on this project yesterday and today. It is not done yet, but I should be able to finish the clean up during the week so that we can do the last details next weekend. This will be just in time to sow, as most of what I want to grow apparently needs to be sowed mid to late May if it is done directly outside in the garden.

Clearing weeds out

I'm still unsure of what we'll do with the small tree. It can't stay there, obviously, so I am hoping we can move it to a new location.

I am so excited about this project! I have never had a vegetable garden before. I am eager to see if anything good will come out of it! I sure hope so. My grandparents used to have a garden and I have such lovely memories of going there in the summer and eating freshly picked carrots or tomatoes. Mmmmm!  I wouldn't mind using my own home grown vegetables in my salads this summer.  

I'll be posting updates (hopefully very soon) about the new garden patch. :)

Seedlings

Happy Friday!

I'm so excited! Ok, I know this is not much but hey, I gotta start somewhere! I recently sowed tomato, cucumber, chili pepper, cape gooseberry and squash. I've tried growing tomatoes before, but the 4 other ones are new experiences to me. I'm so happy to see that tomato and cucumber plants sprouted nicely. I am still waiting on cape gooseberry and chili pepper.

The trays are currently on the windowsill of my hobby-room. Even though there is plenty of sun during the day, I find the seedlings still lean towards the window, as opposed to growing straight up. I read a trick to put white paper behind the tray (opposite to window side) so that the light would reflect on the paper and help the seedlings grow straight by having light from both sides. I tried it a few days but after seeing no difference on the inclination of the seedlings, I decided to take down the paper wall and turn the trays in stead. I will turn them every couple of days and see if that helps better.

Does anyone have experience with seedlings on the windowsill? How do I get them to grow straight up?