Bountiful garden!

It has been raining a great deal lately. The days go from raining and overcast to sweltering and humid, the plants in the garden absolutely love it! Something is working right because our tomatoes, leeks, strawberries, cabbages and mint plants are nearly doubled in size since we planted them! Today I spotted tiny tomatoes on one of the peace-vine tomato plants and I got so excited I had to take some pictures!!

Yesterday my hubby and I bought some marigolds as a repellent to pests, we'll see how they work! So far we haven't had much of a problem with any pests - merely the slugs that love our strawberries. To every single luscious, ripe strawberry I find, a hungry slug has found it first. Since we are going organic we had to find a more natural way to deal with this issue. The unlikely answer to our slug problem came in the form of a can...of beer! We took an old pie tin and filled it with some beer, this we put in the strawberry patch overnight, the next day it was full of dead, bloated slugs! Wow! Perhaps this will deter them from eating our strawberries... Apparently they can't resist the smell of beer!

tomatoes!

cabbages and leeks!

strawberries!

- Night Owl Gal

Our first organic garden!

I wrote a post a few months back about why everyone should start their own "Victory Garden" and I am certainly no exception! About a month and a half ago, my hubby and I got some cedar wood (cut by our local hardware store into 5'x3' planks), which we weatherized and put together. Two weeks ago we placed them in the yard and filled them with loam and local goat manure and planted! Over the course of the summer I plan on mentioning how our garden is progressing, as well as utilize some of my own home grown ingredients in my recipes!

Our local natural foods store was selling locally grown tomato plants, strawberries, cabbages and basil! We also acquired some leeks and a couple mint plants! Everything we planted is 100% organic and will remain so for the duration of our wee garden.

All of our tomato plants now have tomato cages for support!

Our little strawberry patch! I have since added more strawberries to this patch, so it looks a little more populated now. 

I am a HUGE proponent of eating local, organic and natural! I am super excited to have some of my food right here on my own lawn! I cannot wait to pluck one of my cherry tomatoes off of the vine, later this summer, and pop it into my mouth...Nothing is gonna taste sweeter!

- Night Owl Gal

Upside Down Cake...A healthier take!

My husband and I have been working on cutting refined sugar from our diets. We have successfully not brought any into our home since this winter and we are feeling all the better for it! Hubby used to get, what we could best describe as a sugar crash in the afternoons, and since we gave up sugar he has not had one! We are both feeling healthier and have much better energy throughout the day! Undoubtedly, giving up sugar was the best choice ever!

Since giving up sugar I have been scouting out new and interesting sweeteners to use in my baking - sometimes I use real maple syrup, apple sauce, bananas, and most recently Agave Nectar. Agave is probably the best, as far as taste goes. It can be used as a sugar substitute in any baked goods. Agave tastes a bit like honey, can be used instead of sugar at a ratio of 1/4-1/2 cup per cup of sugar and it is low glycemic, which means that your blood sugar will remain more stable after eating it. Also, it comes from the same plant as tequila!

In the spirit of turning a new leaf, both in my life and here on this blog, I have re-created my delicious upside down cake from a previous post to be less sugar and much healthier! My husband and I absolutely LOVE this cake, and since I have remade the recipe to be a bit healthier, we don't feel so bad indulging in it from time to time. I hope you enjoy, as always my recipes are a work in progress!

Berry Upside Down Cake

1 3/4 C. unbleached flour

1 3/4 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/4 Tsp. salt

1/3 Cup Olive Oil

1/4 C. + 2 Tbsp. Agave Nectar

1 egg, beaten well

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 C. Coconut milk

1/2 C. water

Bag of frozen blueberries + a few frozen strawberries

1 Tbsp. Pure maple syrup

(The berries are so juicy that you don't need added butter or sugar to create a gooey top!)

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9" round cake pan and pour your bag of blueberries into it, pop in a few of the strawberries as well, drizzle the 1 Tbsp. of maple syrup on top of the berries and then set aside.

2. Mix up your batter. In a large mixing bowl, beat your egg well, add in the liquid ingredients until well blended and then add in your flour and baking powder. Mix well with a whisk. Mixture should be creamy and free of lumps.

 3. Pour your batter over the berries...

And spread evenly with a spatula...

4. Bake for 40 minutes, until golden and knife inserted in center comes out clean!

5. Here's the tricky part, take a large plate and hold on top of your cake pan and flip the pan quickly so that the cake drops top side down onto the plate.

Sometimes I can't resist and we dig into the cake before it's cooled, but if you have the patience the flavors come out sweeter and better after it has cooled for at least 1/2 hour! But I promise you, this cake is delicious and pretty guilt-free! So eat up!

 

- Night Owl Gal

New Directions

Hello all,

After a brief hiatus (again) and a period with no camera for taking yummy food pictures, I am back! I have redesigned my blog and christened it with a new name, a name much more reflective of my overall interests and self. I am an avid gamer, I play MMO's (Massively Multiplayer Online games) with my husband and I have renamed my blog after the hit game World of Warcraft, in which I play! I am also an avid cook, I love cooking up new and interesting concoctions and baking nummy sweets...On top of this, my husband and I are remodeling our house and yard! My blog is going to be a place where I can incorporate all of these things that I take pleasure in!

From time to time I will incorporate my gamer self a little, I plan on taking foods from the in-game world and recreating them in real life. Basically it will be my take, or my version, of a digital food item. It will give me an excuse to be creative in the kitchen! Prepare to be intrigued!

I posted a few months back about planting a victory garden, I will be posting periodically on this topic - as my husband and I have recently gotten ours going! I will also post on recipes in which I have utilised our home grown bounty. Yum! DIY projects around this house are also liable to show up in this blog!

Until then, please enjoy my newly remodelled blog! Comments are always appreciated!

- Night Owl Gal