Becky and Caladiums
Becky and my caladiums were both looking their best this weekend:
Author: Leslie Kimel
A Great Picture
Here’s a picture of my pretty and talented sister Kris in my meadow garden. Isn’t it awesome? Yes, I pressed the shutter release, but she set up the whole shot and told me exactly what to do and where to stand–and I think the end …
Super Baked Ziti
Today we made our famous baked ziti. Rob stayed up until 1:30 last night making the sauce. He’d watch TV for 15 minutes, then get up and stir it again. It cooked through two episodes of Jericho, an episode of 30 Rock, and Saturday Night Live. Rob used our own homegrown oregano, basil, onions, and garlic in the sauce–not to mention pounds and pounds of our own tomatoes. There were Indigo Roses in there, and Park’s Whoppers, and Matt’s Wild Cherries. . . . The ziti turned out so good. We ate it on the breezeway under the ceiling fan. We were surrounded by dozing cats and the baking beds of prairie coneflowers and bronze fennel. I’m afraid it will never rain again.
Super Baked Ziti
Ingredients:
Ziti:
1 lb whole wheat ziti
1 batch (about 4 cups) homemade marinara sauce
1 batch cashew ricotta
1 onion, finely chopped
3 Asian eggplants, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Crushed red pepper
1 package mushrooms, sliced
1 cup chopped, pitted kalamata olives
2 3-oz packages chopped sun-dried tomatoes, reconstituted
Salt
Olive oil
Cashew Ricotta:
1 package silken tofu
2 cups raw cashews (soaked in water overnight)
1 Tbls lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
Topping:
1/2 cup Panko
2 Tbls nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbls olive oil
Directions:
Preheat oven to 420° F. Smear some olive oil around a 9 x 13 casserole dish. Boil noodles until al dente. Drain and set aside. Sauté chopped onion and minced garlic in olive oil until onions are softened. Add a little salt. Set aside. Sauté the mushrooms in olive oil with some crushed red pepper and a little salt. Set aside. Sauté the eggplant in olive oil with a little salt. Set aside.
Make the cashew ricotta by blending everything together with an immersion blender. Make the topping by mixing all the ingredients together.
Toss cooked ziti and marinara sauce in a large bowl until pasta is well coated. Add onion and garlic, mushrooms, eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes, and kalamata olives. Mix well. Add the cashew ricotta, stirring gently and leaving some pockets of cheese. Add everything to the oiled baking pan. Top with Panko mixture. Cover with foil. Bake for 25 minutes. Uncover and bake five minutes more.
Vegan Zucchini Bread
Last weekend we harvested two gigantic zucchinis (literally the size of bowling pins). They were so big we had to make a double batch of vegan zucchini bread and a huge vegetable curry (it fed us for days) in order to use them up. For …
Pretty Friendly
I’m still hoping the staff at the water management district will use a picture or two of mine in their new brochure on Florida-friendly landscaping. So this weekend I spent a good deal of time crawling around with my camera, trying to document a few …
A Florida-Friendly Yard
The water management district is putting together a brochure on Florida-friendly landscaping (environmentally friendly landscaping). They were looking for pictures, so I sent in a bunch, including the ones below. I really hope I’m included. I would be so, so jazzed.
For Sophie
I thought Sophie would like to see what her cats, Tuxie and Feltie, looked like as tiny kittens:
Through the Needle Palm
Here’s how the house looks right now, through the needle palm in the bed along North Adams Street. Rob just repainted the front steps, and we’ve decorated the front porch with four big pots of fancy multi-colored caladiums. There’s a nest on top of one of the columns (the one on the end next to the living room window); it’s made of Spanish moss. It’s a house-finch nest, and we see the little mother bird sitting on it all the time–so neat! On Saturday I swept the porch, and Rob cleaned all the pollen off the rocking chairs, and then I went and crouched behind the needle palm and took this picture.