Indoor Gardening for everyone

Gardening can be hard, time consuming, and frustrating if you live in cold environments. While the snow is melting down in Montana or Minnesota, Florida is already on the way to have the first harvest ready to pick. So what can you do to still benefit from growing your own produces in cold places? Here some tips that I like to share with everyone.

1. Start small. Pick few items to grow indoor. Herbs do very well. I started with basil and parsley. Parsley literally grows everywhere. It is very resistant. Oregano too is very resistant.

2. Do some research. Find out what climate conditions your plants are resistant to. For example, rosemary and lavender do not do well in humid, high-watery environments like Florida. They like dry climates and a lot of sun. I found out that cucumbers grow very well in FL and you only have to plant them one time. They grow back every year.

3. After you get your seeds (you can also buy a plant that has already been grown), you need to buy some soil. Mushroom based soils have a lot of nutrients. If you have your own compost awesome, but most people living in apartments will not. NOTE: you might be able to get #freesoil or #mulch. Check your city. #Tallahassee recycling center offers free mulch that gets delivered to your house. For free vegetable soil you need to drive to the facility. NOTE: the #mulch and soil is not treated and might contain weeds. If you want to grow organic, you need to ask questions. Don’t assume what is free is good. You will never know what you are getting unless you ask.

4. If you buy plants already grown, when you plant them in a bigger pot make sure you gently cut the roots so that they are not compacted. This is because the roots need to be free to spread. Don’t compact the plants too much with more soil. Let the roots on the top breathe.

5. If you plant seed, follow the direction on the package. Start planting each seed in a recycle, biodegradable pots like this one. There are reasonable priced. Follow the direction on the package. Plant in each pot more than just one seed, because I have noticed that the probability of getting something to grow out of one seed is low. You can always transplant later.

6. If you don’t have money to buy the degradable pots use your imagination. Plastic bottles are good because they keep the soil moist, but drill a hole on the bottom. Also plastic is really toxic when exposed to heat. Plastic is made out of petroleum, when exposed to heat it spreads toxics that go into the water you drink or the soil. So I guess don’t use plastic bottles? You want the water to drain. If you water your plants too much they will die. One of the signs is yellow color leaves on the bottom. More signs are explained here. For more creative ideas please visit this website. They really do a good job in terms of designing indoor gardens with odd objects. This is another website with other tips for indoor gardening.

7. Find a location in your house that gets the most of the sun during the day. Plants need a lot of sun to grow. I keep few small vases on the kitchen window. When it gets warmer you can always put your pots outside and put them back in at night when the temperature drops drastically.

8. Water early in the morning. Water only when needed. Use your finger to test the soil. If it is moist the plant probably does not need water. Water the roots, not the leaves;)

9. Like humans plants need care-a lot of it. They need nutrients. I can’t even name all of the nutrients plants need. You can buy organic fertilizer (e.g. fish emulsion, blood meal) or you can rely on old fashion methods, but I can’t guarantee results. Homemade methods (e.g. ash from the fireplace, any scraps from dinner that are organic, coffee you brewed, tea bags. You get the point). Don’t exaggerate with the nutrients. Read the instructions carefully. You don’t want to burn your plants with fertilizer. I can’t stress enough, but you should ONLY use organic fertilizers. Conventional fertilizers are toxic. During 1950s they were made with nitrogen used during WWII for bombs. For more information visit this website.

10. I can’t think of a 10 point.

Fried Oysters

I am tired. Here another recipe from the Romantic/Valentine’s dinner. It only took me forever to type all the recipes….and I am not even done….

Last night I had a total abandonment of healthy diet. I came back around 8 after having worked out for one hour and half and I was starving. It’s reasonable right? I had wished my dinner would have been ready, but it was not and everything in the kitchen required a lot of preparation. The intention was there. I started baking a sweet potatoe and had half a orange. But that was not enough. For dinner I had one chocolate cupcake that had been sitting in the fridge for one week and a mini chocolate mousse. I know. I did not even enjoy it, but I was hungry. So moral of the story. Rely on yourself for cooking and ALWAYS have a healthy ‘safe item’ in the house.

Fried oysters

8 fresh oysters (we buy them from teh gulf since we are only 40 minutes away)

2 eggs beaten and placed in a bowl

1/2 cup of unbleached flour

1/2 bread crambs or panko

canola oil or olive oil for frying (if you use the olive oil the oysters will have a bitter strong taste)

one lemon, salt and pepper

You will have 3 different bowls each filled with one ingridient (one for eggs, one for flour, one for breadf crambs)

Dip each oyster in flour, eggs, and bread crambs. Then place in hot oil and fry for 2 minutes or until crispy and gold on the outside. Sprinkle with lemon once the oysters are set aside on a plate.

We placed the oysters on top of the filet mignon

Romantic Dinner – Chocolate Delight

We have been planning a delicious and elaborated but fast Valentine’s dinner. The menu` consisted of: 1. Fried Oyesters from the Panhandle; 2. Filet mignon topped with a cream of crab meat and shrimp from Florida and wrapped in bacon; 3. a chocolate frozen mousse with a rasberry and orange sauce; and some sparkling wine with rasberries. We had planned to make green beans but they did not turn out the way we wanted.

First, I will start with the dessert and we will have another post for the meat.

Crazy Frozen Mousse: a recipe adopted by some other recipes my friend Sophie and I made on Monday night. We both had our dinners the next day and we decided to have some fun and cooked together the dessert. We literally made it in less than one hour.

250g of heavy cream whipped

2 white eggs whipped

a chocolate bar of dark chocolate

1/3 stick of butter melted

Fresh rabserry and orange zest (make sure the orange is organic. You don’t want to eat pesticide) —

As you can see this recipe does not ask for sugar, so afterall it’s pretty light compared to other recipes. Melt the chocolate with the butter in a bowl over a pot filled with water. You don’t want the chocolate to have direct contact with fire because it will burn. In the meantime whip the heavy cream and then separately the white eggs. Once the chocolate has melted slowly, I mean slowly, and gently add first the whipped cream (spoon by spoon) and GENTLY stir. Then in the same way add the egg white whipped. Place the mousse in cilinder containers (could be glasses, or cupcake containers) and place in the freezer. To make the sauce that goes on top, smash some fresh rasberry and add a spoon of fresh orange juice. Peel the orange zest (julienne style). Set aside. You have two options here on how to serve it. You can either serve it as an alternative to ice-cream; so place on a plate and top with the sauce and 4 raspberries, or you can let it warm up until it becomes soft and then top with the sauce. It is up to you.

Is it that pretty? I am so proud of this creation. It was so good too.

Light Healthy Mushroom Risotto

I have been slacking on cooking, relying on extremely convenient dishes like nonethless than a pre-made chocolate piece of cake. I know. It was gone in less than one minute and I was still hungry. I have been picking up on my work out regime including a kick boxing class that left me incapable of walking for 3 days. I have noticed, however, that I have built endurance and muscle at a point that I need to take my work out at the next level. Tomorrow I am going to rock climbing (inside…what were you thinking?;).

I have survived the past days on salads, greek yogurt, granola, chicken, peanut butter, bananas, grilled cheese sandwich and 90% dark chocolate. I am just hungry all the times because of this work out thing. Is that normal? Anyway, I decided to invest in making more “filling” dishes and avoid relying on snacks, even thought when you are at your office and you don’t have a kitchen most likely you will feed yourself with snacks (nuts, apples, dried food, etc).

Dinner tonight is Mushroom Risotto – risotto ai funghi

One cup dried porcini (you are welcome to use fresh mushroom like shiitake)
1/3 fresh onion chopped
Grated ginger (one teaspoon)
Fresh parsley (1/2 cup)
Fresh scallion (one table spoon chopped)
Fresh thyme (at your discretion)
One tablespoon curry
Brown rice (enough for two people)
Coconut milk (one or two cups)

In a bowl soak the mushroom in water. Leave for at least 30 minutes. Drain them but keep the water because you will need it for the rice. Repeat the process twice. Make sure to rinse the mushroom very well because they will taste like dirt. For more taste you can add to the water some Marsala or Japanese rice cooking wine.
Chopped all veggie. In a pot with olive oil brown the curry onion mushroom and fresh herbs. Add one cup of coconut milk, stir add some mushroom broth. Let cook on low heat. In a different pot start cooking the rice. Add some oil, brown the rice for 3 minutes and slowly add broth. Keep doing until half cooked or when broth has been absorbed. At that point pour the mushroom coconut sauce on the pot of the rice and keep cooking until the rice is ready!!
Serve the rice on a plate with a spoon of Greek yogurt.

What s for dinner? Pesto

How much time do you spend discussing what you are going to eat for dinner? I do it constantly and I am never satisfied with my decision. It s like I want the most delicious awesome dish. Food makes me happy. Good food, not bad. Over the years I have indirectly banned many restaurants because I got sick. My gosh.. Unless it is really fresh food I get sick. I never eat out. I discovered that we are better cooks than most mediocre chain restaurant in town. I have to admit: I am getting tired of the low carb diet in terms of diversity, but also texture. As I previously mentioned I am less hungry and have more energy but there is something about a plate of spaghetti with fresh tomatoes that meat cannot replace. I love pasta!!! Not sure what I will be cooking tonight, because I am still at work but I want to share my pesto recipe.

pesto a la Gin

Fresh organic basil (a cup or so)
Fresh arugula (cup)
Fresh mint (few leaves as you like)
Parmigiano reggiano ( parmesan cheese)
Pine nuts ( big spoon)
Garlic optional
Olive oil ( a lot)

I say garlic optional because of the strong flavor. If you decide to use it, don’t put more than one clove.
Use the mixer or blender or whatever, add olive oil slowly. Your pesto should be cover in olive oil once it is placed in a container.

Here a picture of real olive oil from my parents’ farm in Italy. I grew up helping them picking olives. I spent my weekends in trees while my friends strolled the streets of Lucca;)

Oh My Healthy Diet

Oh My. I understand now why people do not stick to diets or just a drastic change in habits. Well, mine was not too drastic, butthe word for ANYTHING is life is PERSISTANCE. Persistance is such a rare quality in people, and that is why you observe those who fail or conquer their goals. I am naturally hectic, meaning that I jump from one thing to the other thing. I get bored easily. I started 100 projects at the same time and never finish them all. It’s very surprising that I have lasted so much in school. It is actually the paradox. I am both all over the places but yet I accomplish things…at times very fast.. and others slow….I am definitly better when it comes to work ethics than to my life. Ahahah. So, I skipped one day of posting.

The last time when I made the lemon chicken I ended up eating spinach with garlic, mashed patoes and one piece of Gdiva chocolate. I did. Yes, I did. It was good!.

The next day I had left overs. I was not hungry at all. With the remaining chicken I made lettuce tacos. It’s a great version of traditional tacos. Use a big leaf as your taco, place chicken cooked in taco mix on the lettuce, with diced fresh tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, a spoon of black beans and a spoon of greek yogurt. So good!.

I need to run to pick up Shawn (we only have one car), so I will be right back for tonight’s dinner. Has anyone tried these recipes or what?

I am back. It is about 830pm. I ended up stopping by my friend Brigette to use her Mac, trying to do some Voodo to my new hard drive to fix my laptop. No success, but I was able to get some important files back. I had left over for dinner. The taco thing!!! Thank you left over because I did feel like cooking. Ironic because I cooked for tomorrow morning, lunch and dinner.

This is the basics of my breakfast. I have Greek yogurt ( yes I am obsessed with it), fresh berries, granola or organic oatmeal, apples and grapes. And dried fruit or nuts.

lunch
Tomato salad with fresh unsalted feta cilantro and chicken. The chicken again is from the left over lemon chicken. This is why I like to cook whole chickens. You can really make 5 dishes out of it. I am indeed making a broth with the bones.

Organic low fat roasted chicken

Today was awesome in terms of food, but my computer is still dead and it is not looking good. On top of my hard drive being dead, my DVD player is not working which prevents me from rebooting my computer with the new hard drive. Ah!
Let me focus on the positive.
breakfast
Awesome bowl of milk with granola that smells like peach
3 eggs, a spoon of hummus and a spoon of peanut butter
snack
A lot;) all kind of nuts and fresh grapes
dinner
Roasted lemon chicken
Buy a small organic chicken (13$)
One lemon, garlic and olive oil.
Rub the bird with oregano olive oil salt pepper garlic and lemon. Do the same for the inside of the bird and stick a lemon in it. Brown the chicken first on the stove with some olive oil until all sides are brown, then place it in the oven at 350 for as long as it takes. Add some broth. Add carrots 20 minutes before the end of cooking. Make sure to wet the bird through out the baking process. Cover bird with aluminum.

Tonight we are granting a carbs item even thought I was not really praising it. So my hubby picked mashed potatoes. He is making them from scratch. I still have to decide whether I will eat them or not.
On a different note, has anyone noticed that there are more obese or fat people around? I was running errands today and I was just amazed to see that 3/5 of people were fat especially young adults. This is scary. I was just reading that buses are expanding seats to accommodate the ever growing population. The same has been done in hospitals for equipment like beds. Now, how ironic is that? We are teaching people that it is ok to engage in a deadly diet because we make profit out of you with drugs, specialized equipment, doctors visits and food. This is wrong.

Busy, tired and hungry

So My laptop died on me. I was sad. I am very sad. I am emotionally attached to my laptop. It contains my life, also I do 100% of my work on the laptop and it is my only computer. You can imagine the hectic day I had in search of a computer to work on. I had no time to eat breakfast or lunch. Let me put it in other words: it did not cross my mind, until I got in the car at 430, driving home. I stopped at at the grocery to get a banana which I devoured in seconds and a bowl of milk with cereal. This is why it is bad and stupid not to prioritize eating. First, you get home and you want or eat everything imaginable that is stored in your house. You are at the peak of your weakness and you justify eating one week old chocolate cake bc you have not eaten all day. Second, you crush. You have no energy. I snacked on hummus and a tiny piece of chicken like a grilled strip then I took a bath and cooked dinner. I am making a French onion soup without the bread.
French onion soup – easy

k

Salted the onions in olive oil with salt and pepper. Cover with lid and cook until caramelized and soft. Place them in a bowl, set aside. In the same pot in which you cooked the onions add one or two teaspoons of organic beef base and add water (amount depends on # of people). Bring to boil.
In the toaster over place small ceramic containers with onions broth and grated gruyere cheese. Broil until cheese melts. That s it. Fast and satisfying. Ideal for busy nights and when you are starving bc your day was busy or sucked.

Now, broth base and broth already made is high in sodium which is not good for you. Ideally you will make your own, freeze it and use it. Realistically there are going to be days in which it is just not possible to be super healthy career woman mother and wife. If you can achieve all bravo to you. I am still trying to figure it out.

Indian Vegetarian Chili

I had a busy day today so I will get to the basics. It is the third day of low carb diet and work out regime to become strong and healthy and energized. In terms of energy I have plenty. I am amazed. I am not fatigue.
In terms of eating and recipe today I had the following:
Breakfast: I can’t remember. Is that bad?
Lunch: Greek yogurt with nuts and granola and dried fruit and honey, left over meatloaf.
Snack: apple
Dinner: I am excited and scare about dinner. You need to realize or at least I am realizing that being on a decent diet can be expensive because you eat mostly fresh produces and that can quickly add up. I am also a student so my budget is limited. Even thought I spend most of my money on food. So we spent $200 at the grocery few days ago and the fridge is getting empty quickly. I can t afford to spend other 200….. The solution is to find ways I can make good meals with whatever is left at home. I usually start using fresh produces because they go bad quickly and then I pass on to cans (I know cans are bad but again we need to be practical, to take small steps toward a better eating habits). Tonight I figured I would make a vegetarian chili with Indian spices. First I salted garlic, onions and left over fresh mushrooms with olive oil. I added my special blend of spices and Japanese rice vinegar. Next I added three different types of beans, one can of tomatoes, some tomato juice and herbs! I also added some frozen veggies that I had to use. I am cooking it for at least two hours, until it absorbs some of the liquid. I will serve it with a spoon of Greek yogurt. I hope it is good. It is the first time I make it.

My husband is having carbs withdrawal—:)

Healthy smoothie

Today I woke up at 6am to work out. I can’t believe I actually managed to show up at the gym by 645 to sign up for a spinning class that was packed. I also was told that I could not be in the class because I did not have a bottle of water. It would have been the second time that I got kicked out from a spinning class. I managed to find an empty plastic bottle abandoned outside on a bench in the gym and I just filled it up pretending it was mine. Yes I did it. The class turned out to be pretty weak. I did enjoy the 15 minutes abs and back.
When I came back home I drank/ate a super nutty smoothie I had prepared the night before and put it in the freezer. I put a table spoon of peanut butter, almond butter, coconut, some dried cherries and a smoothie base. It was rich!!! If you put your smoothies in the freezer and Let them defrost for one or two hours they will taste like icecream. It is a good alternative. Now make your own smoothies. Don’t buy imitations full of sugars and fake fruit. The other day I went to my favorite organic deli and I was somewhat disappointed by the fact that their best selling fruit smoothies was made with bottle juices they sell in the store. Really? You are going to charge me 5$ for juice? So make your own with left over fruit. If you use apples be careful adding milk because it just does not go well together. If you really need the sweetness add agave or honey.

For lunch I had eggs with a spinach salad. For snack a banana and nuts. Dinner is meatloaf!!!! I also had a piece of feta and a spoon of hummus for ‘merenda’

Btw. That is not a rice container. I recycle containers for other things like coconut!!!