Scary, no? Fortunately, this was just one marathon washing session that I embarked upon after unpacking lots of shower gifts. Still, it’s a very different kitchen counter than the one I’m accustomed to seeing….
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When Bryce and I first glimpsed our house, its tiny backyard was a jungle of Southern-grown weeds. Fortunately, its seller mowed that down before we moved in, leaving us with a similarly unattractive but less inconvenient plot of dirt. We took a hands off approach to the yard during the winter and resolved to put it to good use, or at least make it less of an eyesore, come spring.
A badly photographed glimpse into the yard
So now that spring – or is it summer? We’ve got temps in the high 80’s today – is here, we’ve finally given our attention to making a garden from our pit o’ mud and weeds. I spent a few days slowly turning over the earth with a little trowel, only to be rescued by Bryce, who sauntered in with the big shovel and finished the job in under an hour. D’oh!
While Bryce churned up the ground, I busied myself with a few other tasks. First, I emptied the pots from last year’s balcony garden. The parsley and sage from that batch appeared to be attempting a comeback, but they were tough, discolored, and not really worth saving.
The large black box is our worm composting house.
Then, I tackled the first plantings for our new herb garden. I started with pots, seeds, and compacted soil that my sister-in-law Aubrey gave me back in December. It’d all been sitting on our porch ever since, just waiting – like me – for warmer days.
The setup
I’ve never grown a thing from seed (wait, there are a few pregnancy jokes here, no?), but planting the chives, basil, and parsley was a pretty straightforward process. After I loosened the soil disks in water, I filled each pot and pushed in a dozen seeds with the eraser of a pencil. Then, I got to play chalk-artist:
It’s kind of amazing how much work goes into transforming a yard, even a small one like ours. A 4′x18′ plot separated by a sidewalk from a 10′x18′ plot isn’t much, but for a busy medical student and a physically restricted pregnant woman, it is a slow-moving project. Our work on it comes in fits and starts, so my updates will, too! Next time, I’ll tell you more about our herb garden and the signs of life in those pots.
Now that temperatures in Charleston have edged over the 80° mark, I don’t leave the house without something cold to drink. Usually, that drink is water. But once in awhile, I get awfully bored with the clear stuff, and a squeeze or two of lemon just isn’t enough to revive my interest. At times like those, I really miss iced tea, which I can’t have much of these days.
Yes, it seems pregnancy is going to pervade this blog. Is it too late to change the name?
Anyway, necessity being the mother of invention and all that, I’ve since found a few recipes for refreshing drinks that neither contain caffeine nor have the ability to leech iron or folic acid (tea, it turns out, is a sneaky little bastard. Who knew?). One of my favorites comes from the newer of the two Gourmet cookbooks; it’s a fruity, healthy concoction called “Agua Fresca.”
Because the recipe begs for adaptation, I’m going to ditch my usual scrupulousness about copyright laws and tell you exactly how to make it. I hope Ruth Reichl doesn’t smite me!
To prepare an agua fresca, all you really need is a blender and some basic ingredients: two cups of cold water, one cup of ice cubes, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of lime juice, and 2 cups of your favorite tropical-esque fruit. Following Gourmet’s suggestion, I often use pineapple (frozen works fine, and is so easy!) with a few basil leaves thrown in. I’ve also used strawberry and basil, subbing lemon juice for the lime.
Once you add the ingredients to the blender, run it until the drink looks smooth and free of big pieces of fruit. The book suggests forcing the blended liquid through a sieve to make sure it’s lump-free, but I tend to run the blender for eons and skip that step. Here’s what it’ll look like if you do that, though:
Side note: Do not buy this Kenmore blender. It is dreadful.
After an hour or so in the refrigerator, the drinks are cold, smooth, and ready to enjoy. They’re a tasty way to get a serving or two of fruit, and they look really fun in tall glasses, too. And really, isn’t that what it’s all about?
The basil gives these their green tint.