Triple Threat

Never a dull day for the greens department in my household! Since my last update, Miss Lemon Mint has passed on (Still no clue why. Just blackened and wilted. Sniff sniff.) but the tomato plants are doing great! There are three separate twigs of them - one is growing mighty and strong, the other two are a little wimpy, but still alive nonetheless. I am waiting impatiently until one day, eventually, sometime, for harvest! In the meantime, I am not holding my breath.

If you have any tips on how to promote it's growth, do let me know! I have not been doing anything to it aside from watering and moving them into bigger pots. Seems like in the past whenever I have done anything "adventurous" (like pruning), the plant just decides to die on me. So I am kind of treading on egg shells over here.

Tomato plant #1

Tomato plant #1

Tomato plant #1

Tomato plants #2 & #3

Tomato plants #2 & #3

And then one day, when I was watering, I noticed one of the pots was tilting towards one side. When I looked at the bottom of the pot, I noticed an evergreen leaf sprouting through the bottom! There must have been a seed mixed in with the soil :)

Surprise!

Growing Tomatoes

Hey everybody, I have good news and sad news. Let's go with the sad news first, shall we? The sad news is that the parsley plant has wilted and is no longer (boo!). The good news is that it has now turned into a new pot of tomatoes and the lemon mint plant is still alive (hooray!).

I have been eating a lot of salads, trying to be more aware of what I am feeding my body and learning more about sustainability and being more responsible with foods

Last week, I took some seeds from a little red plump tomato that was in my salad, dried them, then put four of the little seeds in a wet cotton pad and left them alone in a drawer. I didn't do anything special aside from making sure the cotton pad was kept damp. One week later, they started sprouting! So this week, I transferred those four delicate sprouts and planted them in a pot on the balcony. And they have been growing daily and now leaves are coming out. They grow so fast! I have been rotating the pot daily because they lean in the direction of the sun, so this way, I am hoping they will grow straight (somewhat).

Here are a couple of photos from this morning:

One week old and sprouting

Lemon mint still alive and kicking!

Parsley Goodness

Since the passing of my basil plant, I have acquired two new plants to fill the...err... gaping hole in the vegetation section of my heart. One is a little pot of parsley and the other is lemon mint, which smells divinely refreshing. I have them out on my balcony since about a month ago and they are looking a bit scraggly at the moment. Pretty sure they need a more dirt and perhaps some nutrients. I really hope they don't decide to die on me too! The parsley is looking a bit worse for wear, but will write more about that at the bottom. When they first arrived, I couldn't resist adding a bit of parsley in my scrambled eggs breakfast. Here's what the deliciousness was about:

Nom nom nom!

For those who are better with plants than I am (which should be all of you), perhaps you can help enlighten me with a diagnosis? They are both out on the balcony that has an awning, so they are sheltered from the rain (which has been constant for the past 3 months, pretty much) and brutal sun. The awning, however, does not protect from the crazy heat + humidity though. As the weather gets very hot, I water them almost daily and let excess water drain from bottom of pot. Anyways, here's what's up:

Parsley

- leaves and branches turning pale yellow and soft

- there are a few small baby leaves sprouting (can't tell whether they are coming or going, hmm...)

Lemon mint

- edges of some leaves are black, and some leaves have dried up. Otherwise still alive and kicking.

Help us.

He is risen but my basil is not

Hope you all had a happy Easter! It is with sad regrets that I now officially announce the dried-upness of my once blooming basil plant. I had propagated a few branches but that sadly did not work out either. The humidity in Hong Kong has been ridiculous along with my schedule these days. The soil started getting moldy and so did I... almost.

Fortunately, Spring is here and I cannot wait to start to re-grow some more edible kitchen goodness!

Basil Flowers

Basil flowers

Happy new year of 2013! My basil plant greeted me this year with flowers. I woke up one morning last week and the plant decided to flower. Quel surprise! I had no idea basil plants would flower. This just shows my ignorance in plant knowledge. But see, this is why I love my plant though. You never know what you are going to learn. And by doing it, I will now forever know what basil flowers look like. Aren't they gorgeous?

So, I was doing some research on this flowering process and apparently, when the basil plant starts to flower, it is going into reproduction mode. When the flowers mature, the plant will stop growing. This is because the plant is putting all of its energy into flowering mode instead of growing out new leaves. Also, after the plant flowers, its leaves will have a bitter taste. In order to keep the plant alive and thriving, you would need to pinch off the flowers. Of course, you could always let it go to seed collect those seeds and plant them in the next season. However, I have already grown attached to this plant, so I decided to pinch off all the flowers and put them in a glass of water so I can still enjoy them.

As I was snipping off the flowers, I snipped off a few more stems to encourage the plant growth in general. I put them all in the same glass of water and a couple of them are starting to root this week! See, I didn't know that would happen either. I know you can do that to some plants but had no idea basil is one of them. What a pleasant surprise! So I am going to let it root some more and then it will be ready for potting! Woot woot.

Basil Haircut

I came across this video last night and loved it. It is filmed beautifully and romantically. It also reminded me that it is time for me to trim my basil plant that has been growing wildly. I personally prefer to use a pestle and mortar to bruise and pound out all the flavors, but the rest are about the same.

classic pesto from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

It has been growing and growing to the point the pot is about to tip over!

So I snipped off about half its length

Leaves are plucked and nicely packed away in the freezer, ready for pesto anytime!

After the nice haircut, it no longer threatens to capsize, yay!

Pesto Pasta

Welcome to the first official post of my new blog! The last entry is more of my life verse and does not directly relate to the theme of this blog, so it doesn't really count.

I am dedicating this blog to all things edible (mmm, yum!). Those who know me would know that I love food and I love to cook and bake when I'm not running around doing a million other things. I am not a professional, just a local foodie in Hong Kong. I'm going to try (sometimes I forget until everything is already in my tummy) and take photos of my experiments in the kitchen. It will be delicious-looking and tasting, hopefully! Aside from cooking, I am also a photographer (see more in my other blog), along with other things, so I will also venture out in food photography here.

Recently, I have acquired a basil plant from the flower market and it has been growing rapidly. There are more leaves than I know what to do with. The leaves smell amazing so I decided to make my own pesto with it. I have never made fresh pesto before but am excited to try.

 Pre-pruned basil plant

 Pluck a good few handfuls of leaves and put in mortar and pestle

Lightly toast (mine got a bit burnt, so don't do that!) a handful of pine nuts and add to the basil leaves

Stir grated parmesan cheese to the basil pine nut mixture. Then add extra virgin olive oil

Add the pesto sauce to al dente pasta and voila!

I learned that you need a lot of basil leaves to make enough pesto for one serving, so I'm going to let my basil plant grow a lot more until the next harvesting time!

In my next post, I will share some photos from the grand opening reception of the Festival of Restaurants event where I had the pleasure of being an event photographer. The foods presented there were to die for and I left with a very satisfied belly!