i finally received the last few boxes of my belongings, including my cast iron skillet! i missed cooking with it, so i made breakfast skillets for brunch with some of the fresh onions and tomatoes that patrick's dad gave us the other day.

my little pan is great because it's the perfect size to use as a serving dish as well - i'd love to find a few more small ones so i can serve an entire breakfast still sizzling in the skillets.

you will need:
several potatoes (1 large or 2 small per person), cubed
one yellow and/or red onion
a clove of garlic, diced
4-5 cherry tomatoes (per person)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. rosemary
1/2 tsp. chives
salt and pepper

fry the potatoes until they're crispy. add onion, garlic, and tomatoes. cook until the onions begin to carmelize and the skin on the tomatoes begin to split. crack eggs directly on top of the skillet and cover with a lid until the eggs are cooked through. add spices and serve with lots of hot sauce.

you can also try adding crumbled up vegetarian sausage or bacon.

cactus flower

i recently ordered three dozen tiny cacti - i was so ecstatic when they arrived! they all made it through shipping but we had to spend a lot of time picking the tiny rocks out of their spines with medical forceps.

summer lasagna

we've been having a heat wave in philly and it's getting hard to eat anything but freeze pops and smoothies. so the other night i made summer lasagna - it's a refreshing dish that a friend showed me how to make that involves cooking only the pasta and layering everything on the plate. it isn't baked, and the tomato sauce is spooned on at room temperature. i used spinach on mine - when i first made it we layered the pasta with grilled zucchini and summer squash.

(for 2) you will need:
2-3 sheets of lasagna per person, broken in half
veggies for grilling (zucchini, squash, peppers) or sautéing (spinach, swiss chard)
2 cups tomato sauce, chilled or at room temperature
2 cups fresh ricotta cheese
1 cup mozzarella, shredded

break the lasagna in half and boil until cooked. drain and set aside. on each plate, alternate layers of pasta with tomato sauce and mozzarella, and ricotta and vegetables.

baking hutch

a few months ago patrick and i were thrifting for furniture and found a great little wooden cabinet in west philly. the shape was really beautiful, but it had an awful old finish on it. patrick sanded it down over a few weeks and painted it white. i'm planning on using it for baking supplies and equipment, and as extra counter space for mixing ingredients.

i started collecting large glass jars to use for dry storage. i also found some old glass spice jars that i've been using to store my freshly dried spices. i splashed a bit of chalkboard paint on each jar so that i could write out their contents.

i don't have a dehydrator (yet) so to dry herbs i alternate between hanging them and baking them - i found that spices like rosemary, marjoram, oregano, and parsley do well hanging in bunches to dry. after a few days i just strip the leaves from the stems and store. basil and chives don't air dry well for me, so instead i heat up the oven to its lowest setting and let it warm up, then turn off the heat right before putting a baking sheet with the herbs inside. i check back every hour or so, turning the heat back on for a few minutes as needed until they've dried.

amethysts and an update

today we brought in the first few fruits and veggies from our garden - a bunch of snap beans and a handful of giant blackberries. i recently transplanted the broccoli, butternut squash, and a few zucchinis into big pots as well and i can't wait for squash in autumn!

we also visited patrick's aunt while she was opening a few boxes of loose amethysts and quartz stones. she had enough to cover the entire table and was nice enough to let us take a few home! they're currently being soaked in a mixture of 1:1 oxalic acid to water to clean the dirt and clear them.

breakfast nachos

i love any way of trying to rationalize eating cheese, sour cream, and guacamole in one meal. i'm a master of the burrito, quesadillas, and mexican lasagna. my latest endeavor is breakfast nachos, because they combine my two favorite things - nachos and dippy eggs. i've also been using my mortar and pestle to make fresh stone ground guacamole to top it off.

what you need:
2-3 cups of tortilla chips
1 cup shredded cheese
1 cup black beans (and/or any other beans or rice)
1 onion, chopped (reserve 1/4 for salsa)
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped (and/or habaneros)
1 tomato, chopped
2 eggs for each plate

sour cream
guacamole
salt and pepper

top the tortillas with cheese and toast in the oven while you're frying the onion, peppers, and beans. layer plates first with tortillas, then the onions, peppers, and beans, then salsa. cook two eggs over easy and place on top of nachos. top with sour cream and guacamole.

update

the daisies are blooming and the sunflowers are close behind

the lettuce is growing well in their little vertical pockets

the cucumbers are going crazy - this is one out of about twenty

the blackberries are ripening up

the snap beans are getting big and fat

our first tomato! we also had a surprise of another tomato plant in the flower bed - apparently patrick threw out a rotting tomato before we filled it with soil and it grew into a plant. it hasn't flowered yet but it's pretty big.

we dragged my old ikea dressers into the basement, painted the front with chalkboard paint, and are currently using them to store supplies

ziggy, the most handsome man

weekend warrior

4th of july weekend. went swimming outside the city. sliders, french fries, beers, and margarita pitchers. barbeque-hopping. sparklers and black cats. diy slip and slide.