In my first Balcony Gardening post I mentioned that one of things I liked most when buying my apartment was the balcony, and its potential for growing herbs and vegetables. Not only is it north facing, but one side is a solid brick wall, and I envisioned it as the perfect spot to install a hanging structure to make the most of the space I had available to me.
How To: Making Vegetable Stock from Food Scraps
Vegetable stock is one of those things that it is really useful to have on hand, it can add delicious depth and flavour to a whole range of dishes, as well as being an integral parts of soups, risottos and other dishes. Making my own stock has always been high on my to-do list, but the idea of buying fresh veggies purely to turn them into stock then dispose of them just didn’t sit right. That was until I realised you can just as easily make vegetable stock out of your food scraps, making the whole thing practically free!
How To: Roasted and Marinated Vegetables
I forgot to cancel my veggie box before I went to Queensland so found myself with a fridge full of amazing organic vegetables and not much time to eat them all. I didn’t want any to go to waste so cooked up and froze what I could and then decided that I would roast and marinate the zucchini, eggplant and tomatoes to store in the fridge until I got back. It worked really well and I have been using them in simple pasta dishes, in sandwiches and as part of a cheese platter since. Such a great way to prolong the life of your vegetables!
Building a Smoothie
Now that I have a blender that actually, y’know, blends things, I’m back to making smoothies as my breakfast of choice most days. I love the variety and I’m always trying new combinations, but there is a rough recipe of sorts I use for all my smoothies that I thought I would share with you.
Blended fun: Hummus and Juices
As I mentioned earlier in the week, I have a new food processor/juicer/blender toy and I’m loving playing with it, so pretty much everything I cook at the moment has at least one element going through the machine! I’m particularly loving the juicing mechanism, but also whipped up some hummus to snack on at work.