Sunday, June 19, 2011

Beans

Here are the bean pictures I promised. Also a good pic of my E.T. hands. These plants were the first to shoot up. Then they flowered these little purple flowers.


Out of the flower grows a bean.



Then the bean gets bigger. I actually didn't eat either of my beans (yes, there were only two). I let them grow and they turned yellow, as they were supposed to. Then I was so proud of them, I saved them and they dried up. When my snow pea grew, I ate it. But I don't have a picture of that one.

I think with full sun and larger pots (or in the ground), these would do really well.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Sparr Collision

So, Mom was asking me, "What is Sparr Collision?" as referenced in Amy's most recent letter. In case you guys were wondering too, I thought I'd post a quick explanation. Sparr Collision is a recipe that I used to make on my mission. It was invented by Sister Farr and it contains spam, hence the name. This is the recipe. It's not good for you. I remember thinking it was going to make me fat, but I also secretly liked it. As I told Mom, I don't really eat spam when not in foreign island countries, where it is often greatly revered and where it's good to learn to appreciate it. But here's the recipe anyway, for your edification.

Sparr Collision

1 can of spam
6 potatoes sliced in circles
4 carrots sliced
2 C Baguio beans (green beans) chopped
1/2 C "cheeze" (kind of like Velveeta)
1/8 C butter

Boil potatoes, carrots, baguio beans with onions until partially soft. Leave water in. Add cut up spam (or ham). When soft, turn off heat and stir in cheeze and butter. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve over rice.

Mmmmm! Delish.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

My Plants



After this paragraph, you'll have to read this post backwards for it to make chronological sense. I decided to finally post about my beautiful indoor garden, which I love to look at and to watch grow. I decided to plant a garden after I read an article (in the Ensign) about gardening in ususual spaces. None of them were about indoor gardens per se, but I was inspired and couldn't wait until I have a yard or a balcony. I started with a large variety of plants, but have pared it down to just a few, mostly herbs. Last night, I repotted my basil plants from their starter pots into ones in which they will most likely permanently reside. The above picture is of the biggest one from the top. It is looking good, and sprouting leaves on top of the big leaves as well as underneath. I love my novice gardening project. It makes me so happy to watch my little plants grow. I know that some of you out there in the family are more experienced gardeners than I, but I'm always telling someone about my plants, so I decided to finally post pictures of them. Here they are. The oldest pics are at the bottom, the newest at the top of the post. It's a quick tour and doesn't show all of the plants, but I'll post some more later.

Two basil plants and some dill behind.
This is the present state of the plants. In the foreground is a pot with chives and cilantro. Behind is the basil and dill.
These are some young tomato plants that I originally thought were basil. Mom straightened me out just by looking at these pictures. I subsequently discovered that the ones I thought were tomato plants were actually basil, so nothing lost.
My plants getting so big. I used to love to come home and look at how much they'd grown (not very much) while I was gone at school. It's a very zen thing to watch plants grow. Good for slowing down to the pace of the natural world. The big ones on the right are wax bean plants. They were the first to really shoot up. They also bore fruit: two wax beans to be exact. I know I have never been so excited about beans before in my life. I loved those beans. (Pics to come).

I was so excited when these little guys started coming up.
Beautiful little bright green stalks! These were the pea plants. They have actually born a little fruit, even inside the house! I'll post more pics to show those later. They're pretty cool.
Little greens popping up. It's amazing to watch little things take on life!
In the beginning....without form and void.


The starting materials. Always an exciting time.