small victories: cherry tomatoes

Garden salad, natch.

small victories: green pepper

Dear First Green Pepper,

I'm afraid I owe you an apology. Hand to the stars, I swear I followed this recipe for Vegetarian Korma to the letter! Okay, okay, I omitted the carrots, because they make the husband whine, and I left out the jalapeno peppers, because the kids don't like too much spice, but other than that, everything was by the book! Nevertheless, the end result was bland, and for that I am sorry. You deserved a debut worthy of all your shine and green. You have to admit, though: it did look pretty.

Alas, something had to have gone awry in the making of the dish to make it, flavour-wise, such a snore. It wasn't your fault, green pepper. It was bad korma. Bad korma, indeed.

small victories: zucchini

Note: I realized too late that the frost on the frozen store-bought bananas looks a bit like mould. You'll have to take my word that it is, in fact, not.

Yes, I shall call my first zucchini a small victory because it was an incorrect ratio of wet to dry ingredients that caused my interpretation of the Wednesday Baker's recipe for zucchini banana bread to turn out more like bread pudding even after 20 minutes of extra baking, and not any lacking on the part of this green giant. (Next time, self, strain the wet ingredients after food processing, or don't be lazy about it and just grate and mash as needed.) Fortunately, though the lolling loaf received an F from me for structural integrity, on the taste front it was gold stars across the board.

I did manage to wiggle out a satisfactory slice for photo-taking purposes.

A parting - albeit unrelated - bit of news: there were fireflies in the fairy garden tonight. I fell a little in love with at least one of them, which I guess means that my sense of wonder remains intact. Always good to know.

small victories: another strawberry

This, the second ripe strawberry of the season, differs from the first in that it was not trampled beneath the feet of my giant. We actually got to taste it! I felt it needed its own post. I washed it thoroughly and cut it into four pieces. It was the family strawberry, and it was delicious - quite possibly the best strawberry I have ever eaten.

While I'm talking eats here, I want to mention tonight's dinner: I tackled Smitten Kitchen's recipe for linguine with pea pesto. The peas were store-bought, but the basil garnish was garden fresh! (Small note: I used fettuccine in place of linguine, because that was what they had at the store that was fresh.)

I have a strong suspicion that peas may find a place on the 2012 To Grow list, as my son adores them.

small victories: cilantro

easy butter chicken

Upon second glance at this recipe, I noticed that it read "coriander" and not "cilantro". As it turns out, they are essentially the same thing, with coriander referring to "the dried seed of the cilantro". As the accompanying photograph to the recipe would indicate, it was the author's intention that the leafy cilantro be used by us home cooks rather than the seed. Learn something new every day, you do.

small victories: basil

roasted red pepper cream sauce