An update of my little brick & mortar "garden"

I did a few hotdog, ham-n-cheese and tuna rolls last sunday for breakfast. They're easy and simply delicious! Occasionally must wake up and make breakfast for the family lah, else hubby will complain I only take care of my 4th, 5th, 6th...kids (aka my plants...lol...)

Ham N Cheese, Hotdog Rolls


For those who're wondering what's happening to my little garden, here's a brief update. (Sandra, I hope you're reading this.)

I've got a total of 3 racks now, instead of 2.

2 racks are stacked up together (due to space constrain) and placed on the left of my balcony. They're for my gesneriads and begonias and any carnivorous plants (see how my interest has spreaded like wild fire?). The rack on the right are for plants that needed more sun.


Left rack
1st layer - Gloxinia seeds growing and leaves propagation, Sinningias plantlets, Leaf Begonia leaves propagation
2nd layer - AVs, Sinningias, Leaf Begonia & Gloxinia



Some results of Gloxinia leaves propagation






AVs & Sinningias


Mini Sinningias - Lisa



Mini Sinningias - Amizade


Gloxinia


Some Gloxinia on wick watering slowly converting to semi-hydroponics


3rd layer - AV leaves propagation, DIY "plant hospital" to house plants for recovery
4th layer - Sundews, AV leaves propagation


Oncidium pusillum (mini orchids)


Right rack
Sunflowers, Miracle Fruit, Roselle


Starfruit


Cosmos


Sword bean which has been growing like nobody's business, getting messy




Are you inspired to start your own garden? I hope I haven't frightened you away instead...lol...


Mood: happy

Addiction continues...

I think very soon I'll have to change this to a gardening blog instead...lol...

Went to a few nurseries over the weekend and bought a few more plants.

AVs




This looks like a chimera, though I'm not too sure.




Gloxinia
Such a lovely color.


I think I better stop visiting nurseries for a while. My racks are getting full with the new plants and all my propagation.


Mood: happy

This June holiday

I've been slacking in my baking this Jun holiday. Ever since the exam break in May, I couldn't pick up the momentum to do baking. I still cook for the family, but nothing fanciful.

On the other hand, I'm still into my new hobby of gardening. Bought a few more AVs recently.




Added two racks in my balcony to reorganise the plants a little as they're getting untidy lying around.



These are my latest darlings, AVs and gloxinia.



My pumpkins have grown quite tall, but rather slow, compared to the pot I've placed at my mum's place. She obviously has got more greens than me.




Let's see, what else did I do this Jun holidays... I harvested my second batch of grape wine too. This batch was a total failure. I was experimenting with sweet wine and had used 15% sugar instead. There wasn't much bubbling during the whole process. The wine turned out to be super sweet grape juice! No presence of alcohol at all! I had to add tonnes of ice and water to mix with it before I can drink it. So that marks the last episode of sweet wine for me.


Mood: bored

My little "garden"

Well...not exactly a garden. It's just a little corner in my balcony where I indulge in my new hobby of gardening. It all started with that little bean in a can which has now developed into this.



Then I attempted to plant Roselle from the seeds collected from the fresh fruits. Don't have much luck with that. I've sowed more than 20 seeds, only 3 germinated. Out of the 3 seedlings, 2 have gone to the plant heaven and the remaining one doesn't look too good now.

The only ones I've more success with are the Japanese pumpkins, not the mini ones though. I collected the seeds from a piece of organic Japanese pumpkin bought from Cold Storage. Planted 6 of them and all 6 germinated!

I've planted each of the seedlings into individual pots. This was how they looked like 3 days ago...


and now.


Have re-potted one of the seedlings to a big permanent pot.


I'm still considering what to do with the other 5 as I doubt I have that much space to pot all 6 into big pots. Probably need to give some away.

At the same time, I'm also germinating some tomatoes and phlox seeds which I haven't got much success either. I'm contemplating whether I should start on African Violets (AV) since they seem pretty suitable for my environment, one that doesn't receive much direct sun. I thought they would be charming at a little corner of my balcony. But I guess I better take things one step at a time...lol...


Mood: happy

My new hobby

Recently I'm into a new hobby, gardening, specifically edible plants.

I just found out the little plant in a can I started half a month ago is called Sword Bean. You can find out more about it here.

I've just replanted the fast growing plant into a small pot and shifted it from my window grills to my balcony water pipe. Hope it'll like its new home.



I'm now trying to germinate the seeds of the Roselle plant. Hope to see some results these few days.


Mood: excited

Red Little Jewels

It is amazing how mother nature works. It can create so many beautiful things just on its own. Remember the little seed I bought? It has since grown into a "big little plant" and is quickly finding its home around my window grills!



Today Pauline gave me some "red little jewels", another amazing product of mother nature.


They are actually Hibiscus Sabdariffa Linn or Roselle (洛神花). Roselle is rich in protein, organic acids, amino acids and Vitamin C. It's natural bright red color makes it a good choice to be made into jam, juice, wine, etc.



This little jewel tastes sour in nature. But when preserved, it makes a wonderful snack! Pauline let me tried some of the preserved Roselle she had bought and I'm immediately sold. So "sold" that I had to search for the recipe once I got back. And I was lucky enough to find it here.

Preserved Roselle (洛神花萼蜜餞)

Ingredients
Slightly more than 1000g fresh Roselle
60g salt
*800g sugar (divided into 300g, 150g, 150g and 200g)

Method
1. Remove the receptacle from the Roselle. Wash and air the Roselle flowers dry. You should have about 1000g of flowers left.
2. Season the flowers with salt for 24 hrs to soften the flowers. Remember to give the flowers a few tosses in between the 24 hrs.
3. Squeeze out the salt water the next day. You can use the salt water to preserve raddish or young ginger.
4. Season the soft flowers with 300g of sugar. Leave in the fridge for 4 days. Remove from the fridge after 4 days and season with another 150g of sugar. Leave in the fridge for another 2 days. Then season with another 150g of sugar and leave in the fridge for another two days. Finally season with the last 200g of sugar. When the sugar has all melted (about two days later), the preserved Roselles are ready for consumption.

Note:
- Remember to toss the Roselles frequently during preservation to ensure the sugar is evenly spread out.
- Adding sugar in a few rounds help to retain the crunchiness of the preserved fruits.
- Keeping the fruits in the fridge helps to preserve the natural bright red color.
- I've added 200g more sugar (than the original recipe) on the 8th day as the Roselle still taste a little too sour.



I've got a packet of washed and cut Roselle from Pauline (how sweet of her!). It weighs about 110g. I have seasoned it with about 7g of salt at a start followed by 30g, 15g, 15g and 20g of sugar in 4 batches. See the end results here.



Mood:

Life is beautiful :)

I haven't been blogging these few days. I've been lazy and didn't do much except eating out :P Went to Suki Sushi on Sat to have their buffet lunch, one which we deem as good value for money.

Bought this at a shop nearby after the lunch.


It looked like a can drink at first sight. But when you open it, it's actually a totally different thing!


In case you're still wondering what this is, it's actually some bean embedded in that special material. I bought one home hoping to let the kids learn a little about science by growing our first plant together. The kids were of course pretty excited and kept asking when the plant will start to show. Hey kids, things don't grow overnight, ok! I just checked the plant this morning. It was 3 days after the first planting process and a little shoot has emerged. :)



Tried making pau again yesterday. It turned out a total flop! Fillings was too bland. Skin was chewy instead of powdery. Couldn't imagine a worse pau. :( Was rather upset over it, so went shopping and ended up with a big hole in my pocket (bad therapy to choose when a woman is in a bad mood). Had dinner with hubby at The Manhattan Fish Market, the first time I went there. I must say I was rather impressed with the food. We ordered a Clam Chowder Soup, Butter Garlic Mussels, Manhattan Fish & Chips and Baked Fish in Garden, the bill came out to slightly above $50. The Butter Garlic Mussels was my favourite, absolutely sinful! I hope that one day I will be able to cook out something close to that.

Today I decided to cook Oyakodon for dinner. Well, mine wasn't a real authentic version, but it was good enough as a family meal. There is a useful video which I refer to.



The ingredients used in the video include:
50cc dashi soup (I didn't have that, so I just use the sweet corn soup I cook today)
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tbsp mirin (I didn't have this too, but Rei taught me a good substitution by adding 1/2 tsp brown sugar to 4 tbsp rice wine)
1/2 small yellow onion
85g chicken meat (I marinated the chicken chunks with Teriyaki sauce)
2 eggs
10 Japanese wild parsley (I omitted this)
200g Japanese rice

I didn't follow the above recipe to the dot. I adjusted the taste after some testing. But this should serve as a good guide if you wish to attempt this at home. It's a relatively easy recipe. The crucial thing is to remember not to overcook the eggs. What I did was, I added the lightly beaten eggs last, on top of the cooked chicken and onion, wait for it to start boiling (at the side) for about 5 seconds, off the heat and cover for another 30 secs or so.


Mood: full