New car, green garden and guacamole!

I know I begin every post the same... "I haven't written in a while" and all that.  So I'm going to skip all that and go straight to the post!

I got a car!  My job at Target is only .7 miles away from the house so I haven't really NEEDED a car and I am and will forever be eternally grateful to Peter for dropping me off/picking me up from work when he could.  I've been looking for a car since I moved here in September and now I was finally in a position to get one! I decided to stick with what I knew and I am now the proud owner of a light green 2004 Volkswagen Passat!

I even have it registered and it has plates and everything! I feel like such a real person! So far I haven't driven farther than work and back, not counting the 45 minute drive to bring it home from Gulf Breeze, but I am excited! 

My garden has been moving along pretty well.  Peter and I moved it from the back yard to the front yard.  It looks nice there, especially because it covers up this hole in the ground where a weed the size of a tree used to be.  My spinach and pea plants are done, but everything else is doing really well.  I harvested like half of my carrots on St. Patrick's day to make a vegan Irish "beef" stew (here's the recipe) and I threw some kale in there.  It was super hot and not at all stew weather but it was St. Patrick's day and you have to eat stew on St. Patrick's Day.  

So far I have watermelon, lettuce, basil, zucchini, onions, garlic, arugula, lavender and daffodils planted.   The daffodils all bloomed at the same time and were so beautiful.  I didn't end up getting a picture when they were all blooming, but I did get one eventually.  Sometimes I wonder if gardening is for me.  I am the world's laziest person, after all.  But gardening is surprisingly low maintenance.  You have like a two month window to plant your seeds and you just have to make sure everything stays moist.  However, I have never experienced a Pensacola summer, so that might be easier said than done.  

I even bought one of those little seed pods from Target just because it was so darn cute and I wanted to see what would happen.  It didn't hurt that they were guaranteed to grow.  Pictured below is my cute little watermelon plant! 

I started five tomato plants and five pepper plants about a week ago and they are all popping up! Whenever I talk to my dad about growing things he nags reiterates that I should start my own plants and not buy them because they are expensive.  I'm not going to lie, I bought a tomato plant before (that I ultimately killed by accident) but growing your own plants in tiny little cups is much more satisfying and I hope I'll feel less terrible if I accidentally kill these.  

hi!!

Speaking of GREEN! I wanted to post a recipe because it's the most fun part of my blog! Well at least it is to me.  I make guacamole a lot.  I make it every time I make tacos or fajitas or even when I just buy a new bag of chips.  So it averages out to being at least once a week.  People have told me that they like my guac so here is my recipe for it!  I started making it this particular way because of an article that I saw on Buzzfeed.  I tried to find it but I can't! I remember that it was written by a chef and that apparently it is authentically Mexican but who knows. It is possibly the best guacamole that you will ever have.  If you like your guac creamy and smooth then you will not like this.  You have beed warned. 

I should have photographed the end product a little better but 1) these red bowls are not exactly aesthetically pleasing, 2) I forgot about halfway through that I was supposed to put this on my blog.  I'll try to make it another time this week and then put a pic on here.  

The best guacamole EVER

2 or 3 avocados

1 cup of cilantro, chopped finely 

1/2 of a white onion. diced

1 jalapeno, chopped finely (optional) 

Salt (add to taste, but I usually add about 1 tablespoon)

the juice of one lime

Begin by adding about 3/4 of the cilantro, salt and the onion into a mortar.  Also add the jalapeno if you are using it.  Use the pestle to make it into a sort of paste.  If you don't have a mortar and pestle (like myself) you can use a bowl and a potato masher.  It's a little less effective but it works pretty well.  Stop mashing when the onions are flat.

Next add your avocados.  I like to add them in slices using my handy avocado slicer that Peter got me for Christmas!  Get your own here!  Once you have it in there mix it up with a fork.  Do not do any mashing.  The chunkier it is, the better.  

Next add your lime juice and more salt and adjust it to your taste.  I usually end up adding way more lime juice and salt than I thought I would be using! So go crazy! Honestly this is about as low maintenance as guacamole gets and it is about as good as it gets too! 

In other news, I have been to the beach like thee times and I haven't even been sunburned once!  The beaches here are so beautiful and I don't think I'll ever get tired of them.  I have always preferred the pool to the beach but I think that's because I didn't think that beaches could be like this! 

Also! I'm trying to make some extra $$ and sell some stuff on Threadflip.com  It's basically a resale shop, but classier.  You can sell your stuff yourself and get 100% of the profits or send your stuff into them with a Free Full-Service Kit and they photograph your items for you and list the measurements and stuff.  I opted to do it with the Full-Service Kit.  It took a little longer for my items to get processed than I thought it would but I ended up getting four items approved.  If anyone who knew me in high school looks closely they will recognize my Homecoming dress from senior year.  

You can check out my closet: HERE.  I would recommend using Threadflip if you aren't having luck on Craigslist or whatever.  

ciao ciao! 

Katelyn

Balsamic Tofu Burgers and Gardening

I feel like it's finally fall here in Penacola.  The air has a coolness to it, and it isn't so humid that every inhale feels like you're drinking a glass of water.  I have a recipe for this week!  Most days, I just make up meals but I never take pictures or write down the ingredients, so I can't post about it.

It's been so long since I posted something that I actually made up, so I figured I should be proactive and document my cooking experience.  I made my own veggie burgers last week, and I saw a pin for a tofu burger on Pinterest, so I thought, Why not?  Here's what I came up with...

Balsamic Tofu Burgers
1 block of firm tofu
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon of ketchup
1 teaspoon honey
Squirt of barbecue sauce
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon basil
salt and pepper to taste.

Press your tofu to get the water out.  I use the Tofu EZPress.  A really good investment if you eat a lot of tofu! See it on Amazon HERE.  Cut your tofu into desired burger size and shape.  I used one block and made four burgers.

Mix together everything else in a bowl. Pour it on your tofu and let the tofu marinate in the refrigerator for at least two or three hours. I flipped them over in the marinade halfway through.

Cook them! They're best on the grill but I just pan-fried them the other day.  Super easy.  Three or four minutes each side.

Should have used a grill pan but I don't have one

Keep in mind that my measurements are just recommendations.  I literally just threw in random amounts of random stuff until I came up with something that I liked.  I think some rosemary would be good in there too.

Also keep in mind that these are TOFU BURGERS.  Tofu gets a bad reputation for being plain, but marinating it helps.  But it all comes down to them being made out of tofu.  So I add a bunch of toppings.  I usually make my burger like this (in order from bottom to top): whole wheat bun, baby spinach, tofu burger, smear of barbecue sauce, some vegetables, ketchup, whole wheat bun.  My favorite topping is a mixture of sauteed onions and mushrooms.  Here's the recipe for how I make them!

Sauteed Mushrooms and Onions
1/2 a white or yellow onion
2 garlic cloves
Five good sized white mushrooms
Tablespoon of olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Splash of white wine
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat up a saucepan.  Add the olive oil and the garlic.  Once the garlic is fragrant, add the onions and then a little while after add the mushrooms.  Add the white wine and the balsamic and let it cook on medium heat until the majority of the moisture has evaporated.  Then eat it alone or put it on something.  Whatevs you want.

mmmmmm

Moving on... I've decided to make a garden and I've become kind of obsessed with the idea of having a raised garden bed.  If you follow me on Pinterest, you can see my garden board here.  I'm pretty sure that half of my pins are just links to raised garden beds.  Peter and I went through a phase where we were going to make one from random wood in the backyard, then where we were going to buy the wood from Home Depot and then finally we were like, let's just buy one.  Turns out those things are like $100.  After I had resigned myself to the fact that I was either not going to have a raised garden bed or I was going to have to make it myself, the neighborhood had a yard sale.

One of the girls that had lived here before me left behind an old book case and the shelves were falling off, so we took out the shelves.  Peter and I looked at each other like they do in the movies and I was like, "Wait.... this is a raised garden bed."  I felt like a genius.

Not sure where we are going to put it yet!

So now I have a few containers and a bed that needs to be filled.  I planted arugula, onions, garlic, peas, carrots and daffodils.  I have no idea how this is going to turn out.  I've never really tried that hard to grow something before so I'm excited.

Because I am a very impatient person, I needed the instant gratification that planting flowers provides.  I can't wait for the months while my seeds grow, I needed something to be proud of now.  So I made hanging planters.  By "made" I mean I bought the hanging things and picked out some flowers and put the flowers in the hanging things.  I put one on each side of the porch.  I'm kind of proud of them.  Also, in case you didn't know Lowe's has a military discount.  Sadly my ID expires on October 28th so I have to use it while I can.  

In other news, I have a few new books.  I'm 75% done with Ken Follett's Edge of Eternity which has 1,120 pages.  It's the finale of his Century trilogy and I'm kind of depressed that it's over.  It is an epic multi-generational historical fiction saga.  I know more about the characters in this book than I know about my own relatives.  Read more about it HERE. I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes historical fiction and European and American history.

I also have the two most recent Phillipa Gregory novels in her Cousin's War series that somehow I just missed that they came out!  This is the fault of the bookstore in Naples who stopped carrying books and magazines because their supplier went out of business.  I'm catching up slowly but surely.

That's all for now! If you have any gardening tips, suggestions for what I should plant or book suggestions, let me know!

xo Katelyn