The Humorous Herb Garden
The day I decided to start my herb garden I found a box of children’s plastic yard, garden, or beach toys next to the recycle bin. I looked at them and decided 
that it would be fun to use the toys as ‘pots’ for growing my plants. So I took them back to the apartment and made holes in the bottom of them for water drainage like a proper planting pot.
I originally bought 2 pots and a rectangle planter with a bag of organic potting soil. But now I have a wheelbarrow, a ship, a bucket, and a small plastic garden watering toy.
So to make a long story short I planted mint in the ship by itself because supposedly I got to watch out for that thing going wild. The rosemary has the same problem, growing out of control. But I decided to plant it with garlic chives and Italian flat leaf parsley in the wheelbarrow. And in my rectangle planter I have (from left to right) basil, cilantro, lemon thyme, and Greek oregano. Now according to the ‘instructions/direction’ of the herb plant cards they all like direct sunlight.
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Dutch Crunch Bread
Recently I tried my own Dutch Crunch as I have had it several times and love it in ‘loaf’ and roll form for straight consumption or to build a massive sandwich! What is it? You may ask…
The following quote is credited to Bacon Press , (as I try to keep it short and sweet here on my site for you) I find this paragraph to sum up its origin. ->
Like your typical sourdough loaf or baguette, Dutch Crunch didn’t originate here, although the name probably did. In the Netherlands, it’s known as Tijgerbrood and sold in the UK as “Tigerbread”. It gets its name from the color and texture of the crust, which is striped with dark brown crunchy spots with light blond bread peaking out from underneath. The crust gets its flavor and texture from washing the top prior to baking with a mixture rice flour, butter, yeast, sugar, and salt. The final product is a mildly sweet, light and fluffy white loaf with a somewhat crunchy, savory crust. ~ Bacon Press
In addition I find that Dutch Crunch Bread is a ‘bay area’ California thing and does not reach far out of this area…as in its prevalent in all our grocery stores and bakeries. Supposedly the name originated from San Francisco when the bakeries there started making it.
Basil Overload!
Here on my site and on Facebook I posted my findings from my first ‘Farm Fresh to You‘ home delivery organic food box. Which was noted as having at least ten bunches of Basil in it!
Well of course even I could not use that up without getting sick of it! So I cut the stems off and processed all the basil down with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a few heads of garlic. Then I scooped the mixture into a Ziploc bag and cut the corner off. I piped the whole bag into two ice cube trays and put them in the freezer for future use!
I would have made pesto but I don’t like what the freezer does to cheese (Parmesan) and nuts (pine nuts, or in my case I like to use roasted sunflower kernels, their cheaper too!) which are both ingredients of pesto.
Make Ricotta Cheese: its easy!
Over at Stumptown Savoury, Gareth has an excellent blog that I enjoy. He also has a post 
about making ricotta cheese at home, which is great because I can share it with you! (without having to write about it again myself)
I have tested doing it the way he says and it came out as good as his pictures show. Here is the link Home Creamery: Whole Milk Ricotta . Come on people, it has four ingredients: Milk, Heavy Cream, Citric Acid, & Salt!
What can you make with Ricotta? Lasagna, Manicotti, desserts…Gareth has already listed two more ideas on his site to go with his ricotta recipe. (just click Stumptown Savoury above)
Pork Meatballs with Chorizo Seasoning
Anybody out there had Chorizo before? Well for those of you who have and know what I am
talking about, you can buy a packet of seasoning called Chorizo Seasoning/Spices. Usually on the ‘quick pick’ rack of various seasonings not on the spice aisle in your grocery store, but on the international or ethnic aisle. In the Hispanic/Spanish section – usually right next to the severely limited ‘Asian’ section – in one of those 99 cents bags.
So an idea came to me to use it with some ground pork for meatballs. My wife is allergic to beef so I use different meats to create meatballs when we get the urge for a good meatball sandwich, with spaghetti, or some other kind of way.
Basically for one pound of ground pork I used 1 Tablespoon Chorizo Seasoning, 1 teaspoon smoke powder, salt & pepper, a few bread crumbs and fennel seed I had toasted then ground. (next time I would add a minced shallot!)
