Two of my all-time favorite hobbies often collide in my house. I wish we still had the big yard at our old place to garden in, I wish we had a bigger kitchen to cook in and more time to enjoy both *sigh*. Oh well I am not going to let that stop me from having a decent garden and good cooking. I will say that I am pleasantly surprised that our little balcony garden is doing so well this year. Container gardening luck just seems to be on our side. Our balcony gets full sunlight for the plants, my husband & daughter have a morning & late afternoon routine of watering "the baby plants" and my husband just has a knack for utilizing any space no matter what the size - seriously look below.
Nice and green! Not pictured above is this wonderful invention called a Topsy Turvy. It hangs above the balcony to save space.
Mmmm Strawberries. Yes you will notice that the majority of our plants are edible or produce veggies. I love, love, love bright vibrant colors, but since we were limited on space I went for the more practical garden instead.
Green Bell Peppers
Hot Banana Peppers, Just Added.
Leeks!!
Rosemary, My favorite herb.
Sweet Basil, Just Added - the grass pictured to the upper left above the basil is Cat Grass for our kitties. :)
Flat Italian Parsley - this was our mystery plant for a while. We mistook it for Cilantro, boy were we wrong when we tried to use it in my salsa!!
Since I picked up some basil over the weekend I decided to whip up a batch of Bruschetta.
Bruschetta is simple, delicious and can be made a variety of ways. Balsalmic Bruschetta, Red Pepper Bruschetta, Feta Bruschetta - which is my husbands favorite. I went with the most basic recipe:
6 vine-ripened tomatoes
1/2 of a red onion
4 cloves of garlic
4-6 large basil leaves
4 tablespoons of olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
sliced French bread
*I did not use my handy-dandy food processor for this because I feared it would come out too soup than chunky*. Dice the tomatoes as small as you can without crushing them, add them to a large glass bowl. Dice the half of red onion and add to the bowl. Dice the garlic cloves as fine as you can get them, add to the bowl. Stack the basil leaves on top of each other and roll, slice and add to the bowl. Add the olive oil and mix throughly adding the salt and pepper to taste. I used the broiler setting on my oven to toast the French bread, this took about 3-4 minutes to get nice and toasty. Drissle a little olive oil on the bread and rub each slice with a piece of raw garlic, add the Bruschetta, and Voila! Deliciousness.
Needs a little kick? Add a dash of red pepper. Missing that, something-something? Add a little dusting of Parmesan cheese, or sprinkle on some Feta or add slices of Mozerella cheese. With Bruschetta the options are endless!
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