Language week Monday - Polish

(English below photo)

Co to jest?
To jest 'kalafior z bułką tartą'.
Jest tylko kalafior, bułka tarta, i masło.

To jest polskie przepis?
Oczywiście. ;-)

What is that?
It's 'cauliflower with bread crumbs'.
It's only cauliflower, bread crumbs, and butter.

Is it a Polish recipe?
Of course. ;-)

My photo skills don't do this one justice, but if you get a young, fresh cauliflower, this is superb. Better photo and recipe here.

the return of language week

Mausi mentioned, Langauge week has come around again:

time to get crackin.

Lunch from the balcony - Tuesday

OK, excluding the goat's cheese, from the balcony. Assembly required. We have today:

-baby lettuce (growing too closely together, so a plethora of little leaves)
-a tiny strawberry hidden under the lettuce
-a turkish or hungarian pepper at the top (more pepper flavor than hot)
-tomatos
-basil
-sage (a little spicyness to balance out the mild favors)
-and taking center stage - cucumbers (will they ever stop??)

Lunch from the balcony

Fresh from the balcony this morning, everything in this salad was grown on my balcony. We have:

-lettuce (2 different types)
-tomatos (the yellow guy on the right is from my dwarf yellow Dutch cherry tomato plant, the red ones are from a balcony tomato plant, not exactly cherry tomatos, they get slightly larger and are more like 'regular' tomatos in taste and texture)
-half of a cucumber (from the never-ending supply)
-peas (2 pods, 1 bottom left)

now if only i could figure out how to cultivate olive oil and goat's cheese on the balcony.

word cloud

How amusing, which words I use.

In case you want to wear your blog words on a t-shirt, check it out. Wouldn't this make for a fun 'guess the writer' game at the next whiny expat meetup. ;-)

The garden upon return

While I was in the US for 14 days (while Germany observed high temps from 13-30 C), a special someone was 'drafted' to come and water the garden every few days.

I was pleasantly surprised at his results. He never saw fresh lettuce growing in dirt before and has a self-proclaimed lack of talent with green things, but I think it's just a front... ;-)

I'll be using the peas with tofu tonight in a stir-fry:

The berries will be going to the office tomorrow. These are my German plants, which are slightly later and sweeter than my Dutch strawberry plants.

This is my dwarf yellow tomato from Holland. He's in a planter box, currently overshadowing the lavender. The tomatos are there, but still green. I've thinned out a few of the branches today (at 6 AM because I was jet-lagged awake with nothing to do), and because the tomatos are heavily shaded by the greenery so they could use a little more sun.

While in the US, I was not impressed with the Salmonella outbreak and the lack of tomatos everywhere. Even more reason to plant your own food these days, I guess.

And finally, the flowering vine corner. Here are the cucumbers and squashes. Cucumbers have been my bumper crop so far this year. I've eaten 10 of them and had eaten all the baby ones before I left leaving only flowers and minute ones on the vine. I came home to 5 more, 3 of which were hanging off the balcony due to weight on the vine, intruding upon my very nice neigbor below (who pointed them out as healthy looking and impressive), as well as viewable by the general population.

I'm pretty sure I'm now known in the building this month as 'that crazy American, with the cucumbers'. I've brought them back up, and situated them so that they're resting on the 4 inch ledge and wrapped the vines back through the railings. They are mini-gurkens (so the recommended grow size is 10 cm), which I whole-heartedly recommend if you have a container garden. If the keep up at this pace, I'm tempted to look into making pickles or putting them in the hallway with a 'free' sign.