AeroGarden Review

Olivia and I won two Aerogardens in PeTA's Cooking with Kid's Contest (click to see the winning cookie!) which included two seed kits: Italian herb (mint, Italian basil, dill, thyme, parsley, purple basil, chives) and cherry tomato.
Here's a current photo of the herbs, and as you can see it's raging ~ I can barely keep up! In fact, I need to harvest the dill and dry or freeze more basil. If you like to cook with fresh herbs, you would love an AeroGarden. You don't need to be a gardener to be successful, and it's the absolute ultimate in organic, fresh & local!

Here's some dried Italian and purple basil:
1. Cut the stem. Dip the herbs quickly in a bowl of cool water and shake off the excess water. Pat the herbs dry.
2. Cut several holes in a small paper bag. Place the herbs inside, and secure the opening of the bag and the herbs with a string.
3. Hang it upside down for a couple days until dry. The bag protects the herbs from sunlight and keeps it clean.
4. Store in an airtight container ~ an old sea salt container is perfect.

And yes, we've had our share of pesto! And there's quite a reserve in the freezer as well, so don't be surprised to see pesto on baguettes, pasta, pizza, polenta ~ well you get the picture.
Art threw some basil in the risotto last night and the flavor was very apparent and special. It's a fun charge to clip some herbs for a recipe.

As nice as all the herbs are, what I was really looking forward to was fresh tomatoes!!!!!



But that was not to be. I pulled the plug on my "experimental" tomato plants recently because they grew into the grow lamps rapidly, singeing the leaves, making me trim them back buds and all only to do it all over again. Please understand that these were NOT the original Aerogarden seed pods. The original seedlings were plucked out by my mis-guided 2 year-old gardener. Not wanting to waste the nutrients or opportunity to have fresh winter tomatoes, I started again & "cheated" with regular cherry tomato seeds from a packet. Experiment failed.

The AeroGarden fueled my desire to move away from processed foods, away from food traveling great distances, and away from farming chemicals. To become a little more self-sufficient -- though that could never be, as my seed experiment illustrated. You need their seed kits, and they aren't cheap. ($19.95) But I must admit, the luxury of having fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter would be awesome. I'd like to try them again as well as the strawberry plants.
Why is it that organic produce gets the sticker?

Party Planning & on the side

Last night, all 5 party planners were here to talk details of Lora's baby shower. Teri made two batches of the punch for us to preview & sample (champagne, club soda, blackberry brandy, bitters & an lemon-ice ring) We liked it! I made 2 appetizers for snacking. Dreena's 'Cannellini Bean Yam Hummus' -- but I messed around with the recipe too much. The only white beans I had were Great Northern, and I used chipotle hot sauce (what the recipe calls for) instead of dry chipotle spice, which I prefer. I didn't have pinenuts or cilantro and so sprinkled almond slices on top with garden fresh tomatoes. Not the usual "WoW" of the dip.


Another repeat recipe was 'Classic Pesto' from VwaV, featuring tomatoes from the garden and walnuts from our trees. I did too much tinkering with this dish also. I decided that I wanted to double it, which is easy enough except I didn't have enough basil. Forging ahead, I added the optional nutritional yeast. The plate was empty at the end of the evening, but I knew it could have been tastier. A friend (omni) borrowed my VwaV & noticed the look of hesitation on my face upon handing it over - No..really, I'll be OK without it for a week. :o)


We've been enjoying the bicycle trailer my neighbor loaned us. A nice man took our photo at the park, and now I know why I don't turn my camera that way. We're going to take it out for a spin again today -- my plan is to map out a bicycle route for a house guest who'll be with us this weekend. He used to work at Mother's Market in Irvine, so I want to pick his brain and see if I can squeeze a recipe out of him. I also hope to cook something special, but I don't know what!

Pesto, Pancakes, Pineapple, & Peanut Butter

Look under "P" in Webster's and you'll find it all. This is 'Classic Pesto' from VwaV, pg. 132. This recipe had two strikes against it before I began: 1. Art isn't a huge pesto fan. 2. I don't like walnuts. I made it anyway. We had an abundance of the ingredients and I wanted something different for the soba noodles. The pesto was a big hit & rated super delicious. I skipped the nutritional yeast, but plan to add it next time.






The basil and tomatoes for the pesto dish came from our organic garden! Look how grown in it is compared to when we first planted it. It is such a joy to cook what you grow.








And, the walnuts for the pesto came from our walnut tree! Here you see Jolie really making the squirrels work to get the walnuts. The squirrels rule the tree-top & down below the walnut shells are furiously flying. We have walnut trees sprouting up all over the yard from them forgetting their stash. Even after the squirrels and crows have had their fill of walnuts, we still have a bunch left over.




Because I don't care for the taste of walnuts, I usually end up doing something silly them. We had a dinner party and guests each received walnut-mouse wine charms. Art's is blue & mine is brown, and everybody else took their unique colored mice home with them.
When Liv's birthday party theme was "ducks", I made walnut-duck party favors. People's names were written in sharpie on the back. Or, I'll just glitter pen people's names on walnuts as a place marker. But now, I look at the walnuts & I visualize P*E*S*T*O!



These are 'Banana Bliss Pancakes' from Vive le Vegan! pg. 19. I followed the recipe exactly and we just put a little Earth Balance on top. They are quite satisfying and next time I'll plan ahead and make the blueberry maple syrup on the next page for some added sweetness.








Last night, I made 'Pineapple Lemon Bars' from Vive pg. 135. We were out of lemon, so these are technically 'Pineapple Lime Bars' and there's some coconut in the recipe too. Instead of arrowroot powder, I used corn starch; and I opted for the wheat free version and used spelt flour. We ate them warm from the oven and they were good. This morning, I ate one for breakfast and it was amazing. To us, these are best chilled. This is my kind of breakfast bar.




Back up one page, and you get 'Peanut "Better" Cookies'. Again, I followed the recipe exactly -- utilizing the spelt flour option. I really like the quantity that this recipe yields. 12 cookies - one pan - not too much - just enough. The title fits. These are better peanut butter cookies. And it's a wholesome cookie that I can feel really good about giving the girls, who by the way, LOVED them.