Having recently moved into a new apartment with a sunny balcony, i've finally decided to indulge my gardening interest. Ive never grown anything before except some cress in cotton wool in a plastic tupperware on a window sill and perhaps some mould in the fridge but i was keen to try going for my own coriander, spring onions, chillis and tomatoes. Above, some succulents that the next door neighbour kindly gave us.
It's been raining so much these last few days, with one or two where temperatures soared to 30C. So, some plants have taken the opportunity to shoot up! including some of mine. Above, some tomato shoots that popped up after 2 weeks of waiting!
These are the spring onion shoots. I wonder if I'm meant to thin them out. but it's such a shame to waste them when they'd so courageously pushed through the soil.
This is a coconut scented geranium that i got at a garage sale for $4. it really does smell like coconut! Apparently the scented leaves can be used to flavour cakes.
I'm very proud of this fried rice noodle [char kueh teow] dish Gav and I made, I made the rice noodles from rice flour and water, in the microwave no less! And he stir fried them in a very hot wok with garlic, fish sauce, dark soy sauce, egg, chilli sauce and chinese greens. It was really yummy.
This meal above was made after I borrowed a Sri Lankan cookbook from the library and got inspired. We don't have coasters hence the cardboard "mats". Yellow rice, beef curry, potato curry, spinach and dhal [lentil] curry and pol sambol [coconut sambol]. There's nothing green in this meal at all but the lentils are full of fibre so i hope that makes up for it.....
Above is a more typical meal for us, plain white rice, a dish of stir fried asian greens and a meat dish, involving soy sauce. In this case, pork mince and potato slices cooked with dark soy sauce, garlic, star anise and cinnamon.
And this was a feast for us, clockwise from left - white rice, stir fried asparagus, chive and canned clam omelette, salted mustard green and pork soup, stir fried pork fillet with bean paste [tauchu] and chilli . Where I come from, asparagus is a very expensive vegetable, as it's imported and only available seasonally. But just last week they were $1 a bunch at Woolworths so we took the opportunity to cook them with belacan shrimp paste and chilli.
Also, in Malaysia we eat with a fork and spoon, not a knife and fork which I find quite fiddly to eat with!
and here's a pansy i yanked out of the ground! they were growing wild among the rocks and weeds in the carpark so I thought I'd take one to pot up, so here it is. It survived the move quite well, it's been more than a day and it still looks fresh.
this poppy was also growing wild among the weeds and grass in the carpark. how bright and lovely it is!
