Battle of Ingredients #9: BBQ 2018 – Take 2!

Welcome to the next Battle of Ingredients! July was a busy month (you must be sick of me saying this if you follow all the different topics here) but we came back in August for another BBQ. Its almost tradition now that summer months are focused around more BBQ oriented meals. Its easy and fun and we can enjoy the weather. You have to live in Montreal (or the majority of Canada with the exception of maybe British Columbia or Vancouver, I’m not sure) to understand that we live half the year in winter and then another 3 months in rainy spring and autumn and then just like 3 months of warm/hot/unbearable weather. We did get a heat wave which also stopped a lot of the normal activities (notice the lack of hiking posts…). Anyways, we are back and the weather luckily after July’s heatwave is also cooling down a little.

Let’s just jump right in and see what Phoebe (aka Starry Traveler) and I came up for this battle!

Drinks

• Pepito White Sangria
• Beringer Rose – White Zinfandel

A sweet wine and a delicious white sangria that matched perfectly with the season and the event.

Dinner

Inspiration: http://moneysavingsisters.com/3-ingredient-soy-sauce-coca-cola-chicken-drumsticks-slow-cooker-meal/

Phoebe’s husband loves veggies so she added in some asparagus, corn and peppers to grill.

Aside from that,she found inspiration to make chicken that she used to have as a child and the recipe above was the one she used to change a crock-pot version to a BBQ version with this first platter of drumsticks. Normally, its easier with chicken wings but we have friends who don’t eat wings so she accommodated this one.

The drumsticks didn’t get the flavor quite so well. I would imagine that the crock pot would work better when doing drumsticks to get the flavor in it. It wasn’t not tasty by any means. To be honest, I love soy sauce chicken drumsticks. Its one of my fave things to eat. Simple but very yummy. My mom still holds the crown (because I’m biased) but Phoebe’s was pretty awesome also. Everyone enjoyed it. However, the goal was to have the cola flavor pop out and in that sense, it didn’t quite make happen.

Chicken Wings (left): Normal Biftheque spiced wings
Chicken Wings (right) inspiration: https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/betty-whites-chicken-wings-13707

Phoebe decided to do chicken wings anyways for everyone else. We made one normal variety with some typical steakhouse spices. It was delicious and a guaranteed success. For her second inspiration, it was to do the recipe above but adding in a fourth ingredient, white sugar. The recipe she saw above asks for brown sugar but she didn’t have any on hand. Chicken wings work better for BBQ and for this recipe, the cola flavor definitely did pop out much more. This recipe is an absolute hit. There may some freestyling with how the recipes are as most of the recipes here were inspirations and added in our own flair.

Inspiration for Chard Rolls: http://vegdept.com/asian-style-rainbow-chard-wraps/

My contribution was luckily a lot of my own harvests. I found this chard roll idea and decided to work with what I had. I scrapped the Asian way and didn’t simmer the leaves either but on the grill, they cooked everything through as it wrapped in aluminum foil. My version ended up looking like that and the size varied to the size of the leave. Inside, there were homegrown cucumbers, bell peppers and store bought carrots. I didn’t season it but let everyone add what they wanted. Chard leaves were a little overcooked so it was slightly bitter, bit still the whole tasted fairly good.

Dessert

Campfire Cone recipe: https://hip2save.com/2015/06/25/campfire-cones-fun-easy-summer-dessert/

When figuring out dessert, I searched up what we could do on the grill and it was this easy and fun idea. Mine had blueberries instead red berries because of allergy issues (not me but others). The cook time should have been longer so it would turn into a gooey delicious mess but still, it was a pretty good one. One that can be replicated in the oven, I would think also. I would do this one again with some raspberries and I’d imagine that it would turn out fantastic. Let’s face it..these are s’mores cones with a twist, right? How can you hate on that…well, unless you hate dark chocolate or marshmallows, I guess. You can see the ingredients that I used on the top. I used a local dark chocolate maker, Rochef and it had sea salt so added a different layer of taste.

And..this wraps up this Battle of Ingredients!
We are back to monthly editions for a little bit and see how things go from there.
September’s edition is still BBQ themed with some more look at what else to cook..seasonal and whatnot.
If you have any suggestions, go ahead and suggest away in the comments and we’ll take a look at what we could do next time.

Gardening #3: New Expansions & Second Garden Haul!

Hello everyone~

Who would have thought this segment still would have stuff going on? Honestly, you all keep me accountable. This year, I want to transform my garden as much as I can and really expand and landscape as I’d have been thinking about over the last year or two. A lot of times ,its just easier to just take action.

I looked back at the previous update 2 weeks ago and I’m happy to say that I did accomplish almost everything I wanted to, except one thing which I didn’t do because I still haven’t figured out what to do with it. Migrating plants in the garden is a little tricky and I want to make sure to only have to do it once and leave it there for a good while. Some plots are still causing me a lot of headache, so as I brainstorm, there should be further changes.

For now, lets take a look at what’s happened over the last two weeks. Most of it happened this weekend….if I’m being incredibly honest!

First Task: Planting Clematis & DIY Landscaping

A few tasks accomplished in this first part! One of the most important things was to plant the clematis. I kept thinking about it and the best place for it was where I had planted it two times before and it failed. Now, I believe that the failure was because the grass and weed took over. With that assumption, I decided to just dig up the grass and create an entire new patch. We had bricks from the previous owners stored under the patio so we took that to line it up. Under the bricks is a deep trench which I read could stop the grass from moving back in. The plant to the complete right was already there.

Next to it is my poor lilies that was in the raspberry patch and I keep wanting to move it and always being too late. I actually bit the bullet and ignored the thorny raspberry bushes and just dug in. Its not looking too hot right now. But I’m going to cut it a little so that it can strengthen, at least I think that could be the solution.

After that is the clematis from the last haul which hadn’t gotten into the ground yet. This was my top task so here we go! I’m hoping that this spot will work, especially since the one year it was successful was also with this white variety.

And at the far left is another migration from the front yard that I talked about last update: the poor little coneflower that was being overshadowed by the hydrangea last year.

Second Task: Second Garden Center Haul

From left to right:
Top Row: Purple/Coral/Red Salvia, Petunia
Middle: Green Bell Pepper, Peppermint Swiss Chard
Bottom: Hosta, Salvia

For the record, I changed the garden center from the last time to see if there was some other variety that I wanted to find so  I went to the greenhouse called Les Serres Dauphinais St-Hubert. Its right here.

 

 

Third Task: Current Updates & Ready for First Harvests

Mosquito Repellent Plant

Herbs: Basil & Curled Parsley

Lettuce #1

Lettuce & Cucumber

Kale & Cucumber

Lettuce #2

Mixed Greens

Kale

Vegetable Garden

Cone Flower

Water Garden

Lettuce Revival

Front yard: Dianthus

Flower Patch

Before the garden haul gets planted in ground, I wanted to do a quick update on everything from last time. Everything is grown quite a bit with the few heavy rainfalls over the last two weeks. The lettuce and kale are ready for first harvest which I will do in the coming week. However, the first thing to harvest is a harsh lesson from inexperience from planting bok choy for the first time. Apparently, Bok Choy doesn’t regrow like lettuce but you could cut the harvest leaves except with the heavy fluctuation in weather, the shock has caused all of them to flower so they have to be harvested completely at soil level. With that said, its why I have more veggies in this garden centre haul above.

I think I want to talk a little about the watering systems that I integrated in the containers. They are doing some great help especially seeing how the plants have grown a lot faster than they did last year. I’m sure the rainfall is a main factor but its kept the soil more moist for longer. Plus, the soil mixture of black, garden top and moisture control soil seems to have helped also.

Fourth Task: Planting the Haul

Petunias and Salvia Container

I know its a bit crowded here but I have planted them fairly close together before and it did relatively well. I’m just hoping that it will work out for the summer.

Salvia

The flower box should have been for petunias instead but of course, I forgot to look at the tag so well, it should still be okay. They look beautiful, mostly because they are my favorite annuals. I usually get the bright red ones but my husband wanted these ones for a change so I thought it would actually match with the current colors in the garden.

Green Bell Pepper – Container Gardening Trial

We haven’t planted peppers before in this current garden. I’m not sure how it’ll turn out. There was a lot of plants so I used one by itself to grow in a container and see how it goes and planted the rest of them in the vegetable garden below.

Replacing Bok Choy row with Bell Pepper & Swiss Chards

Here are the peppers replacing the harvested bok choy. Swiss Chards are the far end. I’m not sure how Swiss Chards are going to work out but it was just a fun experiment and we’ll see how it goes.

Purple Salvia in the new plot

Finally the purple salvia in the new plot. I’m hoping it won’t take up too much space and also end up having a restriction from growing too much with the limited space. Some observations for this place. I did try to give everything the space they need to grow so this spot won’t be going any further until I see the progress.

The only plant not in ground and taken care of is the hosta from the haul. I’m working on it right now.

Fifth Task: The Other Bits and Pieces

In case you all didn’t see the Avenue of Daydreams post, I actually had a surprise growth in my rosemary container and it turned out to be the ground cherry. It actually has unpollinated fruit. So I’m going to be moving this out soon since my ground cherry didn’t come back from last year.

Next thing was to move the little lettuce into the container. It has a decent amount of roots now so I wanted to get it into the soil. It might be a mistake since as I’m typing this up, its looking like it wasn’t strong enough. Chances of it not making it is fairly high.

That’s it for this gardening update!
Overall, there’s been a good deal of progress.
For next time, the hosta has to be plants and one of my plants need to be moved.
Aside from that, I do want to start opening up the side plot to start up the butterfly/bee garden that I had been thinking of.