Halfway Garden

Thursday, 12 August 2010

The backyard garden halfway through the season.
Here's what it looked like just after planting. I put the grass clippings down so no seeds would wash away. I also used Preen to help control the weeds. That and grass mulch worked pretty well.
View from the roof while i was up cleaning the gutters and trimming the tree branches.
The beans, cucumber and potatoes grew the fastest.
Again this year, the only thing i really care whether or not it grows, is corn. I planted three rows and it's doing ok. The shade from the tree isn't helping. Then i also found out afterwords that i should have soaked the seeds for 24 hours the day before to help it start germinating.
I also planted some corn along the side of the garage. A couple of them are doing great.
String for the 4 different types of tomato plants
The bamboo shoots came up earlier in the year. Now all of the their energy is going into their roots, which are really starting to spread.

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California Rolls

Thursday, 27 August 2009

If i'm not working out of town, then there's a good chance that i'm sitting at home being bored. So the other day i decided to make california rolls for lunch. I had made them twice before and they came out pretty well. They tasted the same anyway and were actually easy to make. Here's what you need:

Sticky sushi rice
Nori - that's the dried seaweed sheets
Crab legs
Avocado
Cucumber
Mayonnaise
and i added Mustard this time too but i probably won't in the future
Soy sauce for dipping
and something to roll everything up, you're supposed to use a bamboo mat but i didn't have that so i just wrapped a heavy cloth placemat with saran wrap


First make the sticky sushi rice. It's important that you boil out all of the liquid or else when you're spreading the rice it gets mushy. Then let it cool for a few hours. It seemed like around 1 cup of dried rice was enough for one roll.

Cut up the avocado and cucumber into strips
Wet the nori down a little then spread out the rice on one side. By the end your hands will be covered in the sticky rice.

Now flip it over and add everything in a row.

Use the mat to roll everything up as tight as possible, so that it doesn't fall apart when you try to eat it.

Wet your knife down and cut it in half.

I usually get about eight 1" thick pieces. Including the ends which always come out crappy looking. I don't think i'm rolling the ends right or something.

Here's what they look like.
and here's what's in them
Like i said they are actually pretty easy to make and tasted just as good at the $10 california rolls you buy at the restaurant.

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