Urban Farmer Gals - UFG for short

Urban Farmer Gals - UFG for short

Yowzers!!  It has been a long time between posts!  Spring has sprung and life has been super busy as a result. 

Since my last post my 'seedlings' have been growing like crazy...they are almost ready for the garden.  Check out the pics below...they are beautiful!  I am so proud to have grown them and nurtured them myself instead of just buying the seedlings at a garden centre.  I can almost taste them already... One thing I noticed was that the tomatoes smelled like tomatoes almost as soon as they broke the surface of the potting soil. I wasn't expecting that from small seedlings (less than an inch high) they would have any scent at all. It was a pleasant surprise.

As I mentioned in a past post, one of my sisters and I are going to be sharing a veggie garden. Urban Farmer Gals is what we have dubbed ourselves...UFG for short. So that we could start planting some seeds my husband and I spent a weekend building our main garden and a smaller herb garden. Much frustration was vented using a mini sledge hammer to whack 12 inch spikes into the bed we made. We had a lot of fun.  The soil we used was a Jr bag of black earth from Big Yellow Bag.  It was easy to order...just called in, paid by credit card and they delivered it the next day to the exact spot I wanted it dropped.  We used the entire Jr bag for the main garden and the herb garden.  In hindsight, I should have chosen a regular size bag because we didn't have enough left over for a perennial garden we want to build as well. 

Tomatoes

Tomatoes and peppers

Butter crunch lettuce



Main veggie garden

Herb garden

This week we got together to plot and plan where everything was going to go and then we planted seeds for carrots, green onions, butter crunch lettuce, romaine lettuce, mescalin mix, spinach, peas, basil, chives, parsley, cilantro and dill.  To plot the garden I found a 30 day trial planner available on the Old Farmers Almanac site.  There is lots of useful information on the site and the planner was fairly easy to use once we got the hang of it. It seems that our plans were a bit bigger than our allotted space however so we are going to run out of room for the tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and green beans.  To remedy that...the 3 planned perennial gardens at the side and front and back corner of my property are now going to have veggies mingling with the flowers and shrubs. Not to mention the containers that will have herbs, peppers, tomatoes, and lettuce...yes you read that right...we are going to grow hanging baskets of salad!  Such fun we are having!! 

Veggie garden plan

Herb garden plan

 

Stay tuned for more pics and stories!  And until we meet again...Grow gardens not grass!

UFG's Unite!





Marketday!

Today is Marketday and more often than not we spend Marketday with my sister.  We roam the market checking out what is fresh, we chat about our much anticipated garden…we have even named our gardening journey - Urban Farmer Gal’s Unite!   Today though, we spent Marketday with Dan’s parents.  They normally go to the St. Jacob’s market so we thought we would play tour guides and take them to the Kitchener market.  What a fun day!  Then we came home and started a nursery... We planted the seeds for some of the herbs and veggies that will be in our garden this summer.  F U N!  Mama brought seeds she saved from her own plants, she brought seeds from my sister and brother in law’s garden which is all the way in BC, and I had some of my own store bought heirloom seeds.  We spent some quality time digging in the dirt…on my dining room table.

 

 Last weekend we missed Marketday because we took a mini holiday and went to Buffalo.  We found a delightful restaurant that offered vegan and vegetarian options.  If you are ever in Buffalo, check out Merge…delish and lovely ambiance!  We highly recommend the Vegan Alfredo and the Gumki!!  Neither of those inspired the recipe I am posting today however…the appetizer was the inspiration for what I created in our kitchen this week…it was so good that we ate over half of it and walked around with food bellies for the rest of the night.  I can also tell you that this dish is even better the second day once the flavors have hung out and melded together.

 

 

Sweet Potato Lentil Gratin

Serves 4 to 6

 4 small/medium sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (I used my mandolin)

1 tbsp olive oil
½ sweet onion, diced
1 minced clove of garlic
1 cup chopped pineapple
¾ to 1 cup unsweetened coconut
¾ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp cayenne (less or more depending on how hot you like it…we try to lean more to the hot side so I used more)
Salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper
½ cup finely chopped mixed nuts
1 ½ cups of organic lentils

1.       Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

2.       Parboil the potato slices in boiling salted water for about 5 mins…maybe a bit less depending on how thick you have sliced them.
3.       Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat.  Add the onion and cook until tender – about 5 minutes; add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more.  Stir in the pineapple, coconut milk, cardamom, cayenne, and salt to taste.  Heat on medium for about 2 or 3 minutes. Set aside.
4.       Lightly oil a casserole dish.  Arrange half of the sweet potatoes on the bottom of the dish; lightly season with salt and pepper; spread half of the lentils on top of the sweet potatoes.  Top with half of the pineapple mixture.  Arrange the rest of the potatoes; season; spread the remaining lentils and then top with the remaining pineapple mixture.  Sprinkle the nuts on top. 
5.       Bake for 40 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. 

Nom nom nom…nuff said!