ktmoomau

3 hours ago, Bart said:

I feel just the opposite about blueberries.  Once you get them established they require very little care.  I have to cover mine in netting or the birds would get them all.

It's getting a little late, but you can still order and start tomato seeds.  Don't know if you've heard about the Dwarf Tomato Project (I thought it was mentioned in this thread, but I didn't see it on a very quick scan).  Anyhow, a bunch of hobbyists and growers have been breeding dwarf varieties of great tasting tomatoes.  They are all open pollinated (aka modern heirlooms) which means you can save the seeds and replant next year and get the same exact tomato again.  Victory Seeds has tons:

https://www.victoryseeds.com/dwarf-tomato-project.html

Another favorite seed source of mine is Baker Creek.  They have all sorts of "weird" varieties from all over the world.  The catalog is huge and beautiful.....worth it to have just to flip through and dream.  https://www.rareseeds.com/

 

Thanks for this, you did mention the project, but I couldn't see where you bought the seeds, thank you!

My husband will kill me if I start seeds indoors as we really don't have a good space for that.  BUT luckily I am starting some garden volunteer work, and I have a few friends who can start seeds and maybe I will see if I can use a little space!

I thought about going back in May, it was Hubby and I's first date spot.

Not sure where I put my previous pasta class review, Don, if you want to move this, maybe their pasta classes should be their own thread in shopping and cooking?  I know I reviewed the color pasta class, but can't find that.  Anyway, I did the semolina pasta class, and I REALLY enjoyed this one.  I would highly recommend it.  I found it much easier to do than pasta you make to roll out with a pin.  This is something I could do on a weekend no big deal.  (And maybe if I use my stand mixer and roller machine, the other would be easier and I would do it more often, but that is another matter.)  I thought the shapes were explained well, with different sauces you might use for them.  You were taught a bunch of different shapes- troffe, orcchiette, macherroni, etc, etc.  It wasn't nearly as hard on my back and arms as the pin rolling.  There were less things people were passing around, and less steps that it seemed needed to be reviewed as thoroughly, so it seemed to go more smoothly.  They had the equipment, and there weren't as many people in this class so you had a little elbow room.  The tasting at the end had a nice orcchiette with broccoli rabe, parm, garlic, anchovy and a few pepper flakes.  I would recommend this class highly to people.  I also met a few people at the class who were foodies and trying to get into the egg pasta class (I told them they should join DR.com because I thought they would be a good fit, and also we may have a few spots in our class.)  I liked this a lot better than the colored pasta class and just feel I will use this knowledge a lot more often.   I like taking classes, because I am a SUPER visual learner, and I felt this really gave me useable skills I won't forget.

Stopped in here because we had some box stores and goodwill drop off we had to hit and this was very convenient.  Hubby got enchiladas nortega, and I got the bean enchiladas.  The enchiladas are great, the beans and rice are what they are, not good, not bad.  I need to branch out when I go here.  Hubby eats here a fair amount due to the location to Mount Vernon though and there are certain things he just doesn't think are as good, so I have stuck with things that he thinks they do well.

Hubby ordered some garden boxes to screen our AC unit, and some parts to make them self-watering.  This weekend, I mixed soils and got some pots other ready, seeds should be in my mailbox today, so I will do that this week.  

Two of the grow boxes will be fairly shady as they are under part of our stairs, so one might be some greens, depending on when they arrive, the other might just end up with ferns or other shade loving plants that would make a nice pretty looking screen back there, so it isn't too rag tag looking.  The front box gets a lot more sun and we are going to trellis the back of it, one is going to get the Sungolds and if there is room maybe a basil and marigold so it looks a tad pretty, I am not quite sure what the size of the box is.  Still need to decide the fate of the other.  It could get more tomatoes, or some beans, I loved growing the chinese long beans.

I am excited about the greens and tomatoes because we eat a lot of them, I too think they taste differently home grown, and they are somewhat expensive at the Farmer's Market (to me).  I also think potatoes taste very different home grown, and might consider that next year.  I consistently buy a lot of peppers, which is why I thought about growing them, they also could fit in the somewhat smaller pots.  I also like my peppers hotter than the normal store bought ones, Jalapenos and serranos for instance.  So that is still a maybe. (We eat a ton of squash, but it is also just so cheap and there is no real difference in taste to me.) 

I want to get a cocktail tree for the balcony, that I can move indoors in the winter.  I made a mistake of not having self watering pots for the palm I just planted in big planters for up there, I really don't want to replant them, but I also really don't want to have to worry about watering them as often.  So I might re-pot, and make another self-water pot for the cocktail tree (by me, I mean Hubby, he is pretty handy at projects like that). I REALLY would like to have a dwarf blueberry bush on the balcony, but am a bit worried that then birds would eat them and I would have blue droppings on my balcony.  And netting just isn't very attractive.  We had a mulberry tree that was just not pleasant at home for that reason.  Also, Hubby doesn't like blueberries, but I do!!!  He would be interested in a miniature/dwarf citrus tree, like a mandarin.  Those I need to research more though, I have never grown something like that.  His Mother grew a pineapple and that was just fun to watch, that might be a cute/fun project.

Went here for March Madness Saturday night, had a sample of other people's appetizers, onion rings are quite light and good, fries acceptable, tater tots were tots.  I had the smoked wings again, and I was still impressed, meaty wings, a nice smoke, buffalo sauce and blue cheese.  It was a nice space to watch a game in, lots of tables for groups.  Lots of people had kiddos in there earlier in the evening, seemed pretty family friendly.

https://www.alexandriatsimyung.com/

We got delivery from here last night.  I knew as soon as I saw the menu that I was not going to be thrilled with this place.  There are much better Asian options on Door Dash, but Hubby wanted American Chinese food and picked this place (Maybe I should have gone with a sub.  I jest.).  I don't really like American Chinese food, it's not really my thing.  So I got vegetable lo mein, because well, at least I could spruce it up a bit at home.  They had combination lo mein, but their website menu nor the Door Dash explained if this was a meat and veggie or multiple meats, so I just stuck to veggie.  To me the noodles were overcooked and didn't have enough bite, but the veggies were fine.  I added some roasted lotus root and other veggies I had in the fridge, and topped it with some sriracha sauce, which made it better.  

Hubby got beef and broccoli and woofed it down, so it couldn't have been horrible. I am sure this place is perfectly fine for most people to get delivery Chinese.  And maybe there are some items that actually are good that I just don't know about... But I likely won't order from here often enough to find out.  

Thursday night was broccoli, sausage, kale braised and served over pasta. 

Friday night I made chicken, cabbage, bell pepper and corn enchiladas with rice and beans.

Over the weekend, I made a greens and grain bowl with mixed wild/brown rice, lettuce, lotus root, bell pepper and onion sauteed with lemongrass and ginger, chicken spinach meatballs from costco, and a miso vinaigrette.  

I also made ruebens- I didn't have pickle relish for the Russian dressing, so I used some banana pepper juice, capers and caper juice instead, tasted good to me.

I ordered some leaf lettuce, spinach (likely saving for fall) and dwarf kale seeds from burpee.  We eat so many greens, having them right outside will be good.

Will contemplate plant life for the next couple weeks... I will definitely do tomatoes on the patio, will look for the sungolds! 

I am trying to make a list of things I want the most. What things do you notice you taste the most difference with?  For me tomatoes and hot peppers are on that list?

Agree with everything Eric said.  Last night's dinner was delicious.  I am not sure what things were called on the menu, but am going to talk about what I liked- I really enjoyed the Shaanxi cold noodle in chili oil, this dish got eaten faster than any other.  The noodles are thicker than the chengdu cold noodles my friends make, but were very tasty, not off the board spicy, but enough of a kick to be good, the small bits in the sauce were good.  The beef tendon and tripe in spicy sauce was delightful, I think this is something even most non-tendon/tripe people would like, I thought it was very good.  The lamb with pita soup was really a nice balance to a lot of the spicy food we had, and I really liked the flavors, I thought the lamb was good.  The Enoki mushrooms were very good, but I don't know I would order them just on my own. I really liked the vegetables (Shaanxi flavored vegetables?)  They reminded me of this spicy dipping pot dish we had in China.  The vegetables had nice crunch and a good heat to them, this is a veggie dish I would order again, even with more limited people.  The spicy pig trotters might not be for everyone, but I really enjoyed them, they have a good amount of bone and cartilage, so you have to be ok gnawing a bit, but well worth it.  The chicken dish we had with the noodles was very good for being a little more pederstrian, I thought it had good flavors and was something with good flavor to eat in between spicy bites.  The bean jelly, OH, the bean jelly- this might be a must order for me anytime I go here.  It was everything you don't think a bean jelly would be, kind of like a cold spicy noodle dish in a good way, but with bean jelly slabs instead of noodle.  The "burger" was fine, I mainly used mine to get more spicy sauce off my plate from the bean jelly.  I liked the fish, the lamb above was very good- the yams with it were good and the lamb was very tender, I thought it was a very good dish.  I am not sure what else we ordered, it was a full table, but this really is one of the best Chinese meals I have had in this area.  

15 hours ago, astrid said:

First, do you get at least 5 hours of direct sun in the patio area?  Anything less and fruiting plants will not yield well, though could still work for greens and herbs.  

Yes, we get a good bit of sun as there are no trees of substance around us yet.

15 hours ago, astrid said:

Next.  Look up dwarf tomato project.  The plants are manageable and quite attractive compared to most tomato plants.  You can fit 2 to an 2 cubic foot capacity Earthbox and there are a number varieties yielding 1-2 oz fruits.  Maglia Rosa is another smaller indeterminate snacker with very good taste.  I brought several DTP fruits to the tomato tasting including Sweet Sue and Tasmanian Chocolate, both yielded very well grown in Earthbox (into October, far better than in ground, where most DTP plants succumbed to disease by August because of lack of air circulation).

The yellow cherry I brought to the tomato tasting is Sungold.  You might be able to grow one in a 2 cubic foot pot, but they are huge plants so you will need a substantial trellis or cage to support the plant. 

I have just the spot for that.

If you are thinking of a yellow 2 oz fruit with a light fuzz, that's Garden Peach.  I did manage to grow one in half of an Earthbox and it yielded quite well, though the one in the ground probably yielded 3x as much.

I do recommend large size self watering containers (not necessarily Earthbox but something with at least 1 gallon water reservoir).  Otherwise it's daily watering, with Earthboxes I managed twice weekly watering during last summer during the drier weeks.  I followed tomatoville's recommendation and bought a bale of promix, added a cup of dolomite lime and 2 cups of Tomato Tone per Earthbox, and it worked pretty well.  I am reusing the promix this year with more fertilizer and lime added.

Great, thanks!

So, I now have a good size balcony and patio that is ripe for some container planting (Only plants not for consumption can go in the superfund soil here).  I just bought pot a large shallow pot today for leaf lettuce, I have a large probably 10 gallon planter, that I am not sure what awaits it yet, and two 3 gallon planters and some herb pots.  I also think I am going to buy some small scale raised beds (like 12 gallon) or those planter sacks.  T  How big of a pot would cherry tomatoes need?  I loved some of the yellow varieties we had last year at the picnic, not sure if I could find such a plant locally, as I don't have the space to start them from seed (well I do, but Hubby would not be happy with me).  

On 3/13/2019 at 3:09 PM, Sundae in the Park said:

It's a similar case with "green sauce" noodles. The Big has been eating "green sauce" his entire life - first as pureed vegetables when he was a baby and now as a pasta sauce, mixed in with a little pesto. It's usually broccoli, spinach, and peas, cooked in chicken broth with onions and garlic, an added fat (schmaltz or olive oil), soy sauce, a tich of cooking wine, and a bunch of pepper, all whizzed with the immersion blender, and I always have cubes of it ready to go in the freezer. 

Ummm this sounds great, I might make this for Hubby and I, hahahhahaha.

If you go to Dino, you could also go to Buttercream Bakeshop.  I like the idea of bakery combo.  

But I can vouch for both Sfoglina- their handmade pasta is delicious- and Breadfurst too.

The pictures are just beautiful.  Thanks for posting this thread, how neat.

Friday night I hadn't made reservations, so we headed over to Wynwood, and boy that was fun.  We loved the scene there with all the street art, clubs and bars and interesting scene.  We had really good cocktails at Bakan, margarita, mojito with sparkling soda and another with passionfruit juice, and a couple different things for Hubby, which would have probably made a good dinner spot too, the food that came out all looked good, and I liked the interior of the restaurant.  The bartenders though- they made this joint.  We talked to them and they were just crazy fun, high energy and it just really made us feel a lot better than we had.  We ordered queso fundido with chorizo and it came with homemade blue tortillas.  I am not sure how they kept the tortillas so moist and pliable, but kept together, that is something I have trouble with making them at home.  After tasting these, I decided I need to work on my technique at home.  Suffice it to say good tortillas, and you really can't screw up cheese melted in a small cast iron skillet with chorizo and some herbs, and they did not.

We then went to 1-800-Lucky and this was fun too.  (It made me wish the block had a cool open air area (if only they would take over the K-mart and bust open the middle to be a glass courtyard)) We liked the DJ, and we got drinks and steamed bao and char sui buns.  I dream of steam tables filled with little bamboo baskets like this, so I was happy.  Hubby did not get the blow up unicorn of ice cream, but we saw some millenials digging in.  We were excited to get out of South Beach and over here for a night as it was Spring Break and just a little younger than we felt, but in Wynwood we didn't feel old and we didn't feel young, so I guess it was about right.

Saturday we rented Citi Bikes (darn the seat is hard in those things, I didn't learn this until after two days having a very sore rear) and rode the ocean front for a while.  We checked out some North Beach places that we might check out in the future.  I wish I had made brunch reservations at 27 Restaurant, but we just didn't think about it.  We ended up at Abuela's getting ginormous sandwiches filled with meat and cheese.  I had the roasted pork with mojo sauce, and it could have used at least double the mojo, or mojo to dip it down into, so instead I doused it in hot sauce.  The meat was good, bread was good, it was just dry.  Hubby got some monster of meat, he liked it.  But I felt like this place was trying to be a cool Cuban place, but lacked real depth in the menu and etc.  We should have gone to 27 or Byblos.  Live and learn.  

That evening after some horrible pool service at the hotel, we should have triple ordered drink orders if they wouldn't have all gotten too warm, we went to Mare Mio.  This is the chef from Alta Mare's new restaurant and Hubby loved Alta Mare so we went to check it out.  Service was just lovely with one of the longtime servers from Alta Mare, who was super professional and just everything you want a server to be.  I ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Bastianich, I had never had this type of wine before, but really enjoyed it.  I might actually find what it was on their wine list and seek it out.  It was a light, but interesting, acidic but not overpowering white that went really well with seafood.  We started with shrimp cocktail, and the shrimp were really good.  We then split the arugula salad which was just perfectly balanced between greens and light sauce and a few beets some goat cheese.  Hubby got the seafood pasta which was good, but if we did it over again, I would have asked for it with a white wine sauce, instead of red sauce (the clam pasta was white, but Hubby isn't a huge clam person and wanted the mixed seafood).  I had the mixed grill.  I think the octopus there is tremendous, one of the most tender octopus I have eaten.  If I didn't have the comparison of Fiola Mare's grilled calamari, I would say theirs was very good, but I will say it was good, it was not Fiola Mare good.  The fish was super fresh.  And it was all good, the grill platter at Fiola Mare was just better, and that kind of sat in my mind.  I wish I could have re-ordered and gotten one of his handmade pastas, or the squid ink risotto.  I like this restaurant, it just had small areas it could improve.  And if I had never been to Fiola Mare, I think I would have thought it was better.  I also just think I could have ordered better.  

We then got drinks at the Delano (where we got engaged)  it was a bit sad to walk in and have no Blue Door restaurant. But we had drinks at the pool, and it was fun, service was good, I may have gotten close to my line of being drunk, so we walked the couple doors back to our hotel.

Sunday I needed to put something nice in my body and eat some breakfast.  We went to El Palais de Jugos for some liquid replenishment.  While there we couldn't resist getting a sampler of empanadas- pollo, carne, jamon y queso and spinach.  All the food in there smelled delicious, I wish I had room for more food at this time.  We then biked up to The Bass.  We saw a very weird exhibit, and then the coolest exhibit of little hairy creatures, and beaded objets, which I just adored.  We also really enjoyed some of the exhibits upstairs.  We were going to do a later lunner at 27 Restaurant, but we just weren't hungry.  So we ended back at the hotel in the sun for a few hours.  I finished my book and we really wanted to dinner before Hubby had to take off at Byblos.  Unfortunately they didn't open until 6:00 and he needed to leave for his flight at 6:30 (he had to bump his flight up to get home for the garage restorations) and I didn't want to say screw you Hubby for going and taking care of the house, you can eat and I will eat here later.  So instead we ended up at the Mexican restaurant on Espanola Way.  I can't even remember the name, it was fine for a Chevy's or Uncle Julio's type experience, but don't waste your time there, it just was not far from our hotel and open when we needed it to be.

Next time I would like to try a few of the places we missed.  I am hoping my next trip doesn't involve hearing a close loved one has died, or that my house is flooding... 

1 hour ago, Ericandblueboy said:

Just you or you and hubby?

Probably just me, but I will double check.

Would work for me.

20 hours ago, Ericandblueboy said:

I'm intrigued.  I would like to organize a small group dinner here in the near future (6-8 people).  Let me know if you're interested.  

Interested.

Hubby and I went to Miami for a long weekend.  We landed Thursday morning.  We stayed at the Royal Palm, which was fine- the beach and pool service was pretty awful, except for one guy, although for me it is cursed (I found out in that same hotel tower my Dad died, but I thought we had booked the Palms, and Hubby had forgotten about that and booked Royal Palms, I always get the mixed up).  We wanted to go to Jerry's Deli, but alas it is now Senor Frogs (so sad) so we went to Sushi Samba as it wasn't far and we knew it was decent and by that time we were a little depressed over the whole Jerry's thing.  We then checked out the Perez, and that was fun.  That night we had reservations at Stubborn Seed.  That was a spectacular meal, thank all for the recommendation.  The cocktails were incredibly fresh tasting and well balanced, they put herbs on top so they just smelled so earthy in a good way, but it didn't make them taste weird.  The oysters were fun and had all sorts of different flavors that commented one another.  We had two crudos, both were really phenomenal.  We accidentally got more oysters, for which we didn't mind.  We then had the big bowl of greens, which proves anything is awesome when covered in Parmesan cheese and lemon.  Lastly we had the whole snapper, which had a strange sauce you mixed with a puree that was delicious and made me want to mop it up with bread.  I really can't describe the flavors in the dishes that made them so good.  They had a lot of acid, but balanced it well with little flavors that you could taste individually, but also rounded out well together.

The next morning is when our garage at home flooded and we got an emergency call from our renter in our MIL suite.  After that we needed pure comfort, and to get out of our reality, so we walked down to Puerto Sagua.  Hubby got a large Cuban sandwich and I got Ropa Veija, with a side of fried yuca and we shared while deciding what to do.  The Ropa Veija was really good, but the table behind us had fish in a really amazing smelling sauce that made me a little jealous.  Hubby's sandwich was good.  It was a nice stress free zone for a moment.  After lots of calls, a visit from my SIL to the house to let service people in we decided to stay, so we went to the beach and drank some frozen drinks.  Will post more later, but everything is ok, it could have been worse, things are being solved...

So today was an odd day.  We flew home from Miami, and picked up the pieces from our garage having a pipe burst in the ceiling and flood the place.  So in good news, Hubby was home for me to cook a corned beef, in bad news, our whole ceiling and insulation got ripped out.  I meant to pick up rye bread and etc at the store, but forgot.  So I made baked Japanese yams, sliced thinly with miso, broth, butter and soy.  And then I steamed broccoli.  It was an odd selection of sides, but that is what Hubby wanted, since I didn't have normal potatoes. 

Me with a +1 for now, if we have room, I may have someone else who may want to tag along, or my Mom could be with us at that time and then it would be me +2, will let you know if that happens, ASAP.

Tonight was fridge salad- kale and lettuce, leftover cucumber tomato salad, leftover roast asparagus, a few cherry tomatoes we hadn't used, leftover roasted potato wedges chopped, bacon, some of the turkey that needed to be used, blue cheese, homemade ranch dressing.

17th works for me!  The 24th would, as well.  I am trying to move my Brother's birthday to the 31st, so I can take the sfolgina private pasta class (don't tell him that).