Pad Gra Prao

We’ve been enjoying cooking using herbs from our garden. We’ve made spring rolls using peppermint, basil, cilantro, and Thai basil fresh from the garden.

Thai basil was also the inspiration for making Pad Gra Prao. Thai basil has a really nice flavor to it. It was actually quite an easy dish to make – it’s one of our favorite when we go to a Thai restaurant, so being able to make it at home was great!

Thai basil

We didn’t use fish sauce, which most recipes call for. The base was garlic, chili oil (we use Mongolian Fire Oil), soy sauce, serrano pepper, red onion, brown sugar, and Thai basil (of course).

We simmered the sauce for a good while, then added some broccoli and bell pepper. We split the sauce and added our proteins at the end – my vegetarian version had extra firm tofu. I coated the tofu with a flour, breadcrumb, and garlic powder mix and pan fried in olive oil. This gave it a nice crispy-on-the outside texture similar to what you usually get in Thai restaurants (although they probably use egg which helps stick the coating to the tofu).

Pans of Pad Gra Prao – tofu version in front, chicken version in back

Served over jasmine rice

Community Garden Progress in May

Everything has really come alive this month. (Compare to what it looked like in April). Take a look at the three sisters. It’s like a jungle!

View of our two three sisters beds

The squash plants keep growing out beyond their bed

They are truly working together now. With a bit of training, the beans are now climbing up the corn stalks (which are already as tall as me!).

The cucumber plants are also doing really well. We installed a trellis so they will grow up, rather than out, leaving the other plants enough space. Cucumber plants can get really big.

Cucumber plant crawling up trellis

We also have our first fruit.

This is one of several squash fruits growing.

First pepper growing

First jalapeno growing

Our Garden’s Progress in May

I was overseas for the last two weeks with some family, and the garden has changed quite a bit since then! My partner did a fantastic job of keeping things going, watering usually 3 times a day (we have reached highs in the 100s several days).

First, and most unfortunate, we lost two pepper plants – the hot red cherry pepper and the banana pepper. He went outside one morning and the leaves were all on the ground. It was possibly birds or other animals that got in there.

To replace them, he bought and planted some new peppers – another hot red cherry and a  sweet red cherry (there were no banana pepper plants left).

hot red cherry pepper plant

sweet red cherry pepper plant

While there, he also bought a couple more herbs since we had extra space – spicy oregano and chives. Chives can apparently help keep away pests so that might be useful, as well.

peppermint (top left), spicy oregano (front left), and chives (front right)

You may have noticed from these photos that we now have a localized irrigation system! This was a pleasant surprise to come home to. The tubing goes to our hose about 50 feet away, fits down the crack in our patio, and is then buried under the dirt across our yard. The system includes 2 gallon emitters near each of the plants as well as a couple of soaker hoses in the areas we need more soil covered.

a view of our localized irrigation system

You can also see some of the latest growth in this photo. The zucchini is coming along nicely and no longer has yellow leaves, which was a concern a couple of weeks ago. It also has had some nice yellow flowers blooming which you can see a glimpse of under the leaves.

our zucchini plant

The tomato plants are coming along really nicely, and actually in the next few days we need to create a support for them – probably a cage. This will also be useful for keeping out the birds, which we have already seen eying the plants which makes me nervous.

our roma and cherry tomato plants

our first roma tomato has begun to grow!

 

Singapore-Style Rice Noodles

This dish is from the latest (April/May) Vegetarian Times (p.28). I won’t write out the full recipe, but the base is vegetable broth, Chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic & onion, and curry powder.

We omitted the cooking wine and mushrooms, and only had red bells (it calls for red & green). We used red curry paste instead of curry powder, and added kale and Swiss chard fresh from a neighbor’s garden. It turned out really nice.

The onion and garlic was also fresh from the garden.

onion and garlic fresh from the ground

Community Garden – Early May

Over the past week, the vegetables in the Community Garden have really come to life – growing very rapidly! We are close to the point where the three sisters will be climbing (the beans climbing up the corn).

Some visuals:

View of the whole garden

The squash leaves are getting huge

Three sisters will soon begin to work together

All the herbs have grown enough we can start harvesting, especially the dill and cilantro