My life has been in a bit of cycle lately. I’m finding myself in a plethora of garden goodness right now, so I spend most of my evenings slaving over my water bath canner and stove. This time of year is my second most favourite, right after spring, when the growing season begins. Although the larger tomato varieties didn’t do well and the squash was almost non-existent this year, the plums didn’t disappoint.

Last year, we had maaaybe a dozen plums on our tree. We had just moved in earlier that year and the garden was in shambles, clearly not taken care of. So we weren’t surprised that we barely had any fruit on the plum tree. So in the past year, we’ve been trying to take care of it. A little bit of pruning, some good doses of compost juice, some more fertizing and lots of care. This September, Jon is the king of the ladder as he picked pounds of pounds of plums for me to play in the kitchen with.

My first batch of plums, was 4 pounds of goodness. Carefully selected, cut into quarters, macerated overnight in sugar with a cinnamon stick and cloves. The plan was to make an oven roasted plum butter. Sure I had made many a butter/jam before, but not oven roasted to bring out a yummy caramel flavour. I thought this was going to be the jam to end all jams!

Alas, I burned the darn thing. Yup, 4 whole pounds of sweetness gone. Ruined. I guess there’s a fine line between almost ready and burned to a crisp with sugar. I should have paid more attention, but I was also in the middle of making salsa with some homegrown tomatoes while the plums were baking. I didn’t think anything can go wrong.

So my lesson for you, is to NOT cook/preserve more than one thing in the kitchen at one time. The frugalness in me is at war. I hate wasting food, but at the same time, at least I didn’t pay for the fruit.

Oh and just so you know, the salsa turned out well. I paid a lot more attention to that one.

And don’t let ruined jam dismay you from further preserving. We also had pears from our neighbour’s yard and made pear vanilla jam and pear ginger jam (the latter being my most favourite jam to date). The other night, I made tomato jam and even though I forgot to add the ginger, it was still a delight. Waiting for the next time I make burgers or bread to spread it’s sparkling red jammyness all over.

And last night with still a whack load of plums to go, I canned them whole in honey syrup. Adding different spices to each jar. A surprise everytime you open a new jar.

Plopped them over oatmeal, yogurt, cake, waffles, pancakes or eat them straight out of the jar.

I don’t know where all this domesticated bliss has come from.  I know my parents never canned things, but maybe it’s from previous generations of my family not wanting to waste things.  Being frugal and getting the most out of what you have.

I’ve never had to pay for jars either.  Some were gifts, some where jams taken from Jon’s Mom’s pantry and most of them this year where empty jars from her.  So really, the only things I spent money on were a few random spices that didn’t grow in my garden and the sugar or honey.  Time well spent, I say.  What are your favourite recipes?

RECIPES/LINKS

Spiced Plum Butter

This is the one I burned.  I don’t have the heart to try it again this year, but definitely next year when my mental scars have healed.  If you try this one, let me know what you think!

Basic Tomato Salsa

I know it says basic, but the flavour’s so good, it tastes more than basic!  Maybe it’s the tomatoes from my garden, but I’m going to make this one again next year.  I used cilantro as the recipe calls for, but like Alana, the blogger, you can substitute if you have a hatred towards cilantro.  Tip for you:  if you have a mini food processor, use it to mince up the jalapenos and garlic, so you don’t have to wear gloves!

Pear Vanilla Jam

My Sister came over with the vanilla pods.  DEFINITELY use vanilla pods.  I tried a strawberry vanilla jam earlier this year with pure Mexican vanilla extract, but the flavour is not enough.  You NEED the pods.  The recipe calls for pectin, but when I make this one again next year, I won’t use it.  I’d throw in the juice of one lemon and cook it down more.

Pear Ginger Jam

My favourite jam this year.  Definitely cut the ginger in tiny pieces like the tip in the recipe.  Not a ginger explosion or annoying large chunks, but bit of ginger zings in your mouth with the sweet pears.  This recipe is from the book “Canning for a New Generation” by Liana Krissoff.  I find it has a lot of my philosophies on canning.  Although you need to be precise for safety reasons, you still need to go by feel and gut instinct.  I also liked how this book not only gave you recipes for preserving, but recipes for what TO DO with all those canned goods.  I found a copy at my local library and it was a really nice surprise to enjoy a book about canning.

Tomato Jam

I still had 3 pounds worth of principe borghese tomatoes after picking a whole bunch of them to be oven dried.  I didn’t want anymore oven dried tomatoes, so I thought these not very juicy little tomatoes would work for this recipe.  It did.  I only had 3 pounds or 60% of what the recipe calls for, so I multiplied everything by .6 to get the amount I needed for each ingredient.  Round up or down if needed.  I got 4 x 125ml jars after approximately cooking things down for almost an hour.  OH and like I said before, I forgot to add the ginger, but it was still really good.  I love ginger though and can’t wait to taste what a batch with ginger will be like next year.

Spiced Whole Plums In Honey

Last year, I found this recipe of sorts on a Eunny Jang’s website (a knitter).  I knew that I wanted to try it the following year when I had plums.  So fast forward to later this year, when perusing Food In Jars (as you can tell, I love that website), it reminded me of Eunny’s post.  I ended up with different spices to fill 7 x 500ml jars.  After the 20 minutes in the water bath, I took the canner off the stove and let it sit for at least 5 minutes to settle down.  At this point, the syrup is still really bubbly, so wait until it subsides before taking the jars out, otherwise you will have a syrupy mess on your counter.  Even with the waiting, I had one jar spill a bit.

The days have been going by in a blurr. I’ve blinked and it’s almost October.

For the month of September, we’ve been hosting our first homestay student. A 21 year old woman from Japan. She’s darling and petite. Jon asks me how it’s like to feel like a giant. Add in the language barrier and it seems like you’ve got an adolescent on your hands, but without the teen angst. It’s too bad she’s leaving in a week. Time is flying by.

This September had been warmer and dry. Perfect for things to ripen in the garden. Lots of cherry tomatoes, but not enough larger tomatoes.

But I must run again. The plums are ripe. Lots of canning tomorrow. Until then, these will just have to sit and wait.

It’s not really surprising that it’s the summer and I’ve completely lost track of time to do any posting what so ever.  My tries of posting at least once a month were put aside in favour of work, resting and gardening.

Jon and I have been berry picking as usual.  Saskatoon berry picking was back in early July.  Jon’s parents came to visit of course.  We drove up to Cobble Hill for our annual u-pick.  We realized it’s been just over 10 years that we’ve been picking Saskatoon berries from that farm.  An annual treat.

The day after that, we went raspberry picking. Got a small haul worth because it started to rain on us. But the berries were still well worth it.

We also went blueberry picking two weekends in a row (last weekend and the weekend before). So if you’re craving berries, it’s blueberry picking time! I hear it’s time for corn too. We’re going to the farm this weekend to see if there’s any. We got a new BBQ on this week and I’m dying to try it out. Corn seems perfect to go with BBQ chicken.

Aside from all the farm picking fun, our own garden has been plentiful this year. Even though it’s been much cooler, we’ve still been able to get a few things. Peas did well and they are pretty much done now. I planted a few more plants a couple of months ago, to hope for a fall harvest, so we’ll see how that goes. Quite a few weeks ago, it was time to pull up the garlic.

This was the first year I grew garlic from the ground. Previous years, they were grown in pots. Which still worked, but I knew the bulbs could have been larger. I was right. This year, the bulbs were huge. So much so that the entire harvest was really heavy to carry. Note to self, weigh the garlic after they’ve cured and are ready for storage.

The tomato plants are slowly coming in. Not as much fruit set as in previous years (must be the cooler temps again), but there are some growing. Picked a small handful of cherry tomatoes this week and some of the bigger tomatoes are looking good.

Aside from food gardening, the flowers have been doing quite well. Lavender has been harvested. Sweet peas are growing still. And my wild flowers on the front boulevard are flowering now. Oh and the sunflowers! Jon plants them every year and this year has been quite lovely so far with our first two blooms.

So that’s been life so far. Lots of gardening. Lazy lazy summer of hanging out in our backyard. I’d still like it be a bit hotter (well, my eggplant and tomato plants would), but the end of July and two days into August has been shaping up pretty nicely weather wise for my little plants. How’s your garden?

The days are going by so quickly, but it doesn’t seem like the seasons are changing as quickly; weather wise at least.  This cold spring is good for the garden though.  Even though my tomatoes would love to have warmer weather (should be here starting tomorrow!), the rest of the garden is thriving.

First of the season for roses, daisies, zucchini and even strawberries.  With the colder and wet weather, berries have been plentiful.  They’re even a whole week early at the farms.  This past Saturday, Jon and I went to Oldfield Orchard for our first u-pick of the season!

This is the beginning of one of my favourite times of the year.  When berry season starts, Jon and I are out picking and harvesting all sorts of deliciousness until October.

In our own garden, we’re getting a handful of snap peas every week, the zucchini just needs more heat and the rhubarb is still coming along.  Oh and I planted so much garlic last fall, that we’ve got heaps of garlic scapes.  Yum!

Two weekends ago, it was Garagellenium; the city wide garage sale in Oak Bay.  As usual, Jon, my sister and I went on our bikes and hauled back a few good finds including a sheep mug for work and this giant canner (only $5!!!) I bungee corded to my sister’s bike rack for the ride home.  (She’s got a bike rack, I don’t.)

We used it that afternoon.  Not for any real canning, but because it was almost time for “joong” (what we called it in our Cantonese household) and we needed a big pot to boil all our rice dumplings.  Even with the big canner, we made so much that we had to boil them all in two pots.

These are traditionally eaten during the dragon boat festival or the 5th day of the 5th month on the lunar calendar.  (This year it lands on Saturday, June 23rd.)  Like many family recipes, everyone makes them differently.  The key ingredients though are sweet sticky rice/glutenous rice and dried leaves to wrap them in.  In our case, we use bamboo leaves.  Our Mom’s filling recipe includes, five spice pork belly, dried shitake mushrooms, split yellow mung beans, and (my favourite) salted duck egg yolk.

My sister is really quick at making them, almost doubling my speed.  I find it’s so finicky and tricky to find just the right amount of filling otherwise, the bamboo leaves split open, rice comes popping out and you have to do some quick surgery with more leaves and a lot of extra string to wrap and tie the darn thing together.  It’s well worth the effort though.  I love these things.  So sticky and tasty.  My type of comfort food.

But back to the canner.  It’s not just going to sit in the crawl space.  My hopes are to make salsa, canned tomatoes, relish, and of course, jam.

We took a good portion of our 11 lb haul of strawberries and hulled almost all of it.  We cut 3 lbs into 2 one quart jars, then filled each with 1 cup of sugar, mash and let to macerate until we were ready for jamming the next day.  This is a great way to make small batches of jam and spread the work out, so you’re not prepping and cooking ALL DAY.

The canner worked beautifully.  Much better than my make shift pot (that was never big enough) and rack contraption that I randomly put together.  Definitely makes me want to can more!

We’re probably going to back for more strawberries in July.  That was the Rainier variety we picked, but they have other varieties ripening later in the season.  Raspberries will be in July too, so if you’re in the neighbourhood, now is the time to stock up on strawberries with a fun outing of u-pick!

It’s May 31st today.  Look at that, I can still count this as a post in May!

This once a month posting thing is not what I had orginally planned.  But as you know, life happens and dear ‘ol wordpress gets ignored – as usual.

Aside from the usual stuff of work, knitting and gardening, there was a wee little Alaskan cruise Jon and I went on last week.  His parents wanted to go on their first cruise and wanted to take us along.  So I wasn’t going to argue, but at the same time, I wasn’t too enthusiastic.  The crowds, the noise, the sea sickness!!!  I’m glad to say that we survived without any real sea sickness and only a sore throat for me.

Okay, okay…  I keep thinking of the bad points (I was trying to keep my expectations low), but there were some high points.  A trip with Jon couldn’t be all dull.  We like to keep up the antics, if only to entertain ourselves…  Like when we finally got off the ship at Icy Strait Point.  Our first stop, 3 days into our cruise.

Two days later, we saw Hubbard glacier…

…and there was some sunshine which involved some lots of calving (where parts of the glacier breaks off and splashes into the water.)

I bought yarn in Juneau. A Tree Hugger’s Wife, stripey sock in the “Oops! My Wine Spilled” colourway.

White sided dolphins jumped for me as I happened to have my camera ready – and on the very last night of the cruise too.

We went snorkeling in Ketchikan. (It wasn’t cold. We had a wetsuit. The best part was seeing an eagle dive into the water to catch a fish, right next to us!) In Juneau, we kayaked. (Which was the really nice because we were finally in a quiet space away from the crowds and noise of the ship.), but that all just seemed like we were paying to play in our own backyard. I felt a little ripped off having to pay so much just to play where we live.

At the same time, we had to pay so much just so I could knit all day.

That was pretty much how I looked when I was on ship. We found our favourite spot by a window while I knitted or napped and Jon read or napped. (We napped lots because we didn’t sleep well at all.)

So if for nothing else, by the time we got home, I was really excited to see what the garden has been doing while we were away. But maybe that’s a post for another day. I’m just glad to be home now and back to my daily life… Of work, play and forgetting to blog. But at least I don’t have to pay to do that.

Disclaimer: I am a total frugal person. I blame my Dad. He’s such a penny pincher. Although this cruise was not what we would normally do, it was neat to experience it and say that we’ve done it. I think if we were every to cruise again (which I don’t think we will), it would be one where you could get off the ship every single day. A 7 day cruise where you only disembarked 3 times was quite suffocating. Call me crazy.

Obsessed.  Obsessed.  Obsessed.  That’s all I can say about gardening right now.  It’s like the new knitting.  (Yes, I am still knitting.  I had a case of startitis and now I have 5 active projects on the go.  2 to 3 of them are really close to being finished.  So maybe then, I will talk about the lovely yarn projects.)

Cheerfulness double daffodils have finally popped!

The garden is in full swing right now. Jon and I have been digging up the garden and moving plants that we felt have been over grown or just didn’t like from last summer. We even took over a small space around a tree and telephone pole out front on the boulevard. We won’t be upset if the city comes and dig it all up, but it’ll be a nice boulevard garden if they let it stay.  There are a few established boulevard gardens a few blocks down from us, but I’ve heard that the city doesn’t really allow boulevard gardening.

Unlike previous springs when Jon and I would drive around town looking for garage sales, this year, I’ve been tracking down plant sales. There are a few that I’ve enjoyed going to in years past, but this year, I want to visit them ALL.

The first time my rosemary ever flowered. I think they like being in the ground rather than in a pot when they lived at the condo.

We’ve already been to three plant sales and even a free gardening clinic. This weekend though, will hold two of my favourite plant sales. Both are on Saturday, so if you’ve got gardening on your mind or know someone else in town who’s hoarding plants like me, these are the plant sales for you.

Euphorbia – a fun, interesting looking plant. We bought it at the Camosun Horticultural Program’s plant sale out at Royal Roads a couple of weekends ago.

The first one is one that I’ve been to a few years now. In fact it was the first plant sale I had ever gone to and picked up a few tomato starters and herbs to dabble with. That season, the herbs died, but the tomatoes flurished in their pots on our west facing balcony. I was totally hooked. I couldn’t believe I was growing my own food. The Glendale Gardens spring plant sale at the Horticultural Centre of the Pacific is also a fundraising event for the gardens.  (Their big greenhouse burned down, last year I think.) Not only do they have veggie starts, but lots of flowers propagated from the property.

• Glendale Gardens at HCP Spring Plant Sale
  Saturday, April 28th and Sunday, April 29th
  9am to 4pm (I always go on the first day right when the doors open for best selection.)
  505 Quayle Road, Saanich
  Find a list of plants for sale here. If you’re a beginner gardener like me, take the time to go through the list and see what fits your garden best. Or just go and see what’s attractive to you and then ask the Master Gardeners on site about how to take care of it. That totally works too. :)

This year, I might skip the Glendale Gardens plant sale as I’ve already been hoarding way too many plants already for our tiny garden. So I’ll let you guys have first pickings. :)

One tulip in bloom with the daffodils. Lots of green buds still emerging.

Instead, I have my eyes set on the ALM Organic Farm/Full Circle Seeds plant sale. It’s out in Sooke, but the variety of veggies starts, herbs and flowers is well worth the drive. Jon and I went last year. We loved their tomato and sunflower seeds and thought a visit to the farm would be fun. This year, Jon wants to get more sunflower seeds and I think I might want more tomato starts as the ones I started from seed in March are looking a little tired. My plan is to get some back up plants in case mine don’t last the season.

• ALM Organic Farm/Full Circle Seeds Plant Sale
  Saturday, April 28th
  10am to 2pm
  3680 Otter Point Road, Sooke
  A description of the sale here.  But you can basically look at the Full Circle Seeds site to see what they have seed wise and get a good indicator of what will be for sale.

So if you’re a wannabe gardener like me or someone with more experience, I hope you are able to go out and support these two plant sales. And if you do, let me know how you liked it… And hopefully later in the year, you too can share your growing garden.

PS – Aside from the rhubarb we harvested a couple weeks ago for some strawberry (from last season in our freezer) rhubarb cobbler, I picked two peas the other day. I wanted to encourage more flowers, so I figured I’d pick these before they were fully mature. Still very very tasty!

Sugar ann peas.  With more to come!

Hello there stranger,

I’ve been trying so hard the last week or two trying to get some words down on this here bloggy.  I knew work was going to be busy, but when I did have some down time, I didn’t want to be in front of a computer screen again.  We’ve had a few really nice days weather-wise, so we’ve been wanting to take advantage of it.  Kicking up a storm in the garden.  I’ve also had my brother and his girlfriend AND Jon’s brother’s family all come at pretty much the same time (his brother left in the morning and my brother showed up for lunch).  Then it was the Easter long weekend where we were in Van.  Busy, busy, busy.

So here’s what’s been happening, in photos.

Daffodils we planted last fall have finally blossomed. This was taken last week. As of the weekend, plenty more have popped open.

When my Brother brought his girlfriend over to visit, one of the things we did was give her a driving tour of Victoria. We made a pit stop at the marina and fed the seals. It was her favourite thing that weekend.

We took Jon’s brother and his niece to the WildArc open house and got to meet this tiny little creature. He’s a burrowing owl. So. Cool!

In Vancouver, my brother took us for a claypot rice dinner. Crispy, chewy and soft sticky rice. Crazy textures all in a claypot.

The next day, my brother took us to lunch and we had what I can only call a “choose your own adventure” type of noodle soup. It’s Hong Kong style, so you choose your type of noodle, broth, and two toppings. It also comes with standard toppings and all in a giant bowl. So full.

I’ve known Jon’s family for how many years now? And only this year have they ever brought out their Ukrainian Easter Egg supplies. I cannot believe they have been holding out on me! Crafty fun!

Those were the two eggs I free formed. Maybe next year, I’ll try something more traditional.

Jon’s brother is the pro in the room. He’s can work that waxy egg design like no buddy’s business!

And since he is the pro, I got him to empty out my eggs for me.

So that’s me in a nutshell. I’ve got some knitting projects that are soooo close to being done. And then I started a new one. On top of that I started to blend up some merino and bamboo for my spinning wheel. First time ever blending things. Turning out pretty good so far. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get a post on it. You know, if I’m not spending all my free time playing in the garden.

Happy spring!

That’s the sound of spring.  Wouldn’t it be fun if flowers did make that noise when they bloomed or things sprouted from the garden?  We’d have a much noisy-er world, but it would almost be like when you canned something.  Pop!  It’s sealed!  And you’re done.  So spring is here.  The temperature just needs to rise a bit more.  I hear this weekend will be in the mid-teens.  I can’t wait.

Last weekend, what I thought was a plain shrub turned pussy willow type plant became something quite unexpected. It turned out spring revealed its true nature. My dear, we have a magnolia in our backyard.
Goes to show that I need to give things at least a year or so before I decide to rip things out. I don’t know much about gardening anyway. It’s all an experiment, but whatever the previous owners have put in before, have surprised me more than a few times already. The lilacs are budding now and I think the dogwood tree will bud soon too.  I wonder what other plants will give a fun unexpected show.

Spring is officially here, but I wish it was actually here, HERE. Know what I mean?

Survived the crazy wind storm yesterday.  Every year we get some bad wind storms and this one is just another spring one that had work lose power for most of the day yesterday.  We were on back up generator, so things were still running, but only the essentials.  Things like air conditioning/air flow is a luxury, so that wasn’t operating.  We had a fan blowing the hot air out the back door and many many doors open (we don’t have any opening windows) to move the air around and get some cold air in.

Even though we had winds of almost 100km/hr in the downtown core, I still decided to bike to work.  At one point, I was going uphill against the wind which seemed really counter intuitive.  I almost would have preferred to walk my bike up that hill.  Once, the wind gusted so heavily that it pushed my front tire and handle bars slightly to the right (luckily towards the curb and not the car that was just passing me by).  But at least when I got to the downhill portion of my ride I was going with the wind and barely peddled for that section of the ride.  Fun times in the crazy wind!

On the knitting side, I’ve abandoned all other projects and have been mainly working on a new cardigan.  More details to follow eventually, but as of last night, I cast off my 2nd sleeve.  Nothing like a little aran weight knitting to keep my mind off knitting socks on 1.5mm needles.

On the gardening side, I dropped one of my little pots of snapdragon seedlings.  So sad!!  I tried to save as many of the teeny tiny sprouts as I could, but in case some of them didn’t survive, I decided to soak more seeds to plant again tomorrow.

I’ve got most of my tomatoes sowed for the year.  I thought I had some Yellow Pear tomato seeds, but I can’t seem to find them.  I’ll have to do some quick shopping later this week.  It’s a good thing Dig This has moved from it’s Market Square location to the Bay Centre.  Literally a few blocks from where I work.

The snap peas are growing strong.  We had a couple of days of sunshine amongst the rain and wind, so they’re looking good so far, for 17 days of growing.

I’m anticipating sweet peas sprouting later this week or maybe next week.  I direct sowed them in our front yard.  I’m pretty excited for these.  It’ll be my first time growing them since we have more growing space, but Jon’s parents grow them every year and every year I think they’re pretty and would like some of my own.

On the cooking side of things, Jon and I (again) replicated one of our favourite sandwiches from Seattle. This time Fol Epi wasn’t closed and we were able to get a couple of ciabatta loaves which takes the sandwich to another level.  Good bread makes or breaks a sandwich sometimes.  I wanted to make my own bread, but we just didn’t have the time.

Anyway, this is a sandwich based off of Paseo in Seattle.  In 2010, Jon and I went to Seattle and was already eating lunch at Salumi when this guy strikes up a conversation with us.  Knowing we were tourists and he was a business guy on his lunch break, he just wanted to know what brought us here.  Like most vacations, I’m all about the food.  He was quite pleased and said I must know what I’m looking for as we were eating at what he thought was one of the best places in Seattle.  BUT.  He suggested we go to another place for a sandwich.  He didn’t care that I said this was our last stop.  We were taking the ferry back that afternoon.  That this was lunch and maybe another time.  He persisted.  He took out his iphone, showed us a map.  Said that there’s no signage, but it’s the best sandwich we’ll ever have.  I think he even would have offered to drive us if he didn’t have to go back to work.  He said take a cab, find a bus, I don’t care what you do.  YOU.  NEED.  TO.  GO.  AND.  GET.  ANOTHER SANDWICH.  All this while we were all already eating sandwiches.  If that doesn’t convince us that this would be a good sandwich joint, I don’t know what else would.

Spin forward 2 years later and we still love that sandwich.  We even had to get off the I-5 and take a detour there on our way down to Portland last year with Jen, so we could have that sandwich.  Over on Google+, Jon found a recipe posted for that exact sandwich.  Jon and I tried to make our own in January, but had a few things we would have liked to work out better.  So on the weekend, we did just that.

Here’s the recipe that we adapted from Use Real Butter:

Paseo Cuban Roast Pork Sandwich
Serves 8 single serving sandwiches or 4 hungry people

2 loaves of ciabatta (we got ours at Fol Epi)
garlic mayo (see below)
roast pork (see below)
2 large sweet onions (like Spanish or walla walla)
olive oil
lettuce
cilantro
pickled jalapeño peppers

roast pork
1 cup mango juice (or sub 1 cup orange juice, though it’s really good with real mango juice. Look at the label make sure there’s more mango than pear or apple juice.)
2 cups orange juice
2 tbsps olive oil
1 lime, juice of
2 tbsps garlic, minced
1 tsp oregano, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3-4 lb. pork shoulder (boneless, we bought a roast)

garlic mayo
1/2 bulb garlic
olive oil for drizzling
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lime, juice of
1 tsp dill pickle relish (Jon used his Mom’s zucchini relish)

Make the pork: Combine the mango juice, orange juice, olive oil, lime juice, chopped garlic, oregano, salt, pepper in a large vessel or a big baking dish with a lid (to save from cleaning up). If you’ve bought a roast like me, cut out as much of the top layer of fat as possible.  Separate into two or 3 large chunks.  Place the pork in the vessel or bag and marinate for a minimum of 3 hours (better if you do it longer, preferably overnight).

When the pork is ready, save the marinade and preheat the oven to 300°F. Sear the meat on all sides in a lightly greased frying pan or skillet until it’s nicely browned.  Sear one piece at a time if you’ve got more than one piece.  If you add too many pieces at once, there’s too much moisture that it won’t brown properly.  Or poor off the liquid as you try to brown all the pieces together, if you want to be quicker like me.  Just watch the heat as your OJ and mango juice marinade with burn easily with all that sugar in there.  Remove the browned pork and put back into your marinade in your baking dish (BUT DON’T WASH THE SKILLET/PAN – save it for later).  Stick the lid on your dish (or tent the meat with foil if you don’t have a lid) and bake for 45 minutes or until you get a fall-apart texture. Remove the foil and cook uncovered for another 2 hours, basting the meat with the marinade ever 15 minutes and turning the meat after an hour.  (Though we had so much marinade in a tall round dish that we didn’t have to baste.  We did turn the meat.)  Remove from oven when the meat is fork-tender (or comes off the bone easily if you bought bone in). Shred the pork with two forks.

Make the garlic mayonnaise: While the pork is cooking in the oven, slice the top off the garlic bulb and place it in a small baking dish or on a piece of foil that has been pulled up at the edges (to form a bowl). Drizzle a little olive oil over the top and bake in the oven (next to the pork) for thirty minutes or until the garlic is soft. Peel the skins off the garlic cloves and mash the garlic into a paste. Combine the garlic with mayonnaise, olive oil, lime juice, and pickle relish. Stir until blended.

Caramelize the onions: Peel and slice the onions into 1/4-inch strips. Heat a little olive oil on medium flame in the same pan you used to sear the pork. When the oil is hot, add the onions and cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Remove from heat when the onions are caramelized.

Assemble the goodness: Cut an 8-inch long piece of ciabatta or other similarly shaped bread that has a nice, crusty outside and soft, chewy inside. Slice it in half, lengthwise. Spread garlic mayonnaise on both pieces of bread and bake or toast in the oven until the mayonnaise starts to bubble and puff (a crucial step we missed in the first round of sandwich making). Remove from the oven. Layer the pork, onions, lettuce, cilantro, pickled jalapeños, and more garlic mayonnaise on one piece of the bread. Top with the other half of the bread and serve.

My brain doesn’t seem to want to turn off the gardening button.  This weekend I have grand plans to use up some paper egg cartons that we have lying around and start a whack load of tomato seeds.

A few weeks ago I sowed some Sugar Ann snap peas and they sprouted earlier this week.  The excitement begins!

14 of 16 sprouted, so we’re off to a good start. This year, I had 4 4-inch pots and I put 4 seeds in each. In past years, I didn’t cover them and they still sprouted. This year, I thought I’d try to cover them so they had more humidity, would stay warmer and not dry out as fast. So I covered 2 of the 4. The covered ones sprouted a weeeee bit faster. Only by a day or two. But I think it helps with keeping the soil moist when I place my pots by the baseboard heater. It’s like a mini greenhouse. (That’s my trick for keeping the seeds warm which speeds germination. Don’t actually stick them on top of the baseboard heater, that’s too hot. Or I put the pots on a thick ceramic dish, so the heat is evenly distributed on the dish and not tooooo concentrated on one area. So if you have baseboard heaters and am too cheap, like myself, to buy one of those heating/seedling mats, that’s the way to go.)

Last week in the backyard, there were yellow buds on this plant.  It’s not a very exciting shrub.  Tall, thin, scraggly limbs.  When we moved in, it was over grown and just had some rather uninspiring green leaves.  I sheared some of it back in the fall and thought if nothing was going to come of this plant, I was going to try to get rid of it the following season and use that spot for something more elegant or edible.  So when I noticed yellow buds, I thought that was odd.  But yesterday, I got home from work and noticed the buds bloomed into golden flowy blossoms. This plant is the true sign of spring. Screw the snow drops and crocuses, this is the flower the heralds the new season.  It’s a keeper.

I was telling my Brother In Law about this and he did some quick googling and showed me a few pictures.  I apparently have forsythia growing.  The flowers don’t last long, but I don’t mind.  They’re so pretty at this time of the year that I’ll take what I can, while it’s around.

When I saw them, I wondered if they were edible.  If you believe everything you read on the internet, the flowers are edible.  People have even made it into a syrup and used it for martini-like drinks.  I’m curious, but I don’t think I’m that curious.  Plus, what if I don’t have the right variety.  Are the ones I have edible?  I don’t know, but they sure are pretty.  If you want to try eating them, you know where to find me.  Course, you need to decide right away.  They’ll probably all fade away in a week or two…