Granola again

While browsing Facebook, I found a 'With love from Brooklyn' community page. Many posts about interesting places to eat in Brooklyn. And one article about granola in New York Times. Didn't know granola used to be a hippie food, that makes me like it even more!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/dining/granola-is-sowing-its-wild-oats.html?ref=dining&_r=0

Have a read and try some crazy granola ideas.

How to make a perfect granola?

Just to be clear, I do not answer to this question at the end of the post:) But I'm gonna say that I attempted at making one, and it turned out to be a bit burnt. I left it in the oven at about 176C for 10 minutes first and then for another 25min checking every 5 minutes and stirring it.

Now I know that I'm going to put almonds lastly, maybe even after the oven,  because they taste most burnt, almost like those sunflower seeds with black shells. So that was a bit disappointing.

The ingredients of my first time granola were- oats, almods, honey, mango, cinnamon. You just melt the honey and then mix oats, almonds and honey. Add the fruits at the end, and I would say add the nuts and seeds at the end. And really add a lot of cinnamon if you like it, cause I could barely taste at the end. And also add any spice that you find attracted to even if it's savoury. Like someone suggested here http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/how-to-make-the-best-granola-ever, you can add such things as Rosemarie.  Just fill your morning with delightful smells and you will have a great start of the day!

And then I had it with my own-made almond milk, which a friend ordered for me from http://tree-harvest.com/. This is how it all looked at the  end

Pretty isn't it!?

The home of my dreams (or something very close to that)

I was thinking it would be nice to imagine how my ideal home would look like. So this post is going to be about how it's going to look like ( if you want a more in-depth experience of this post, play this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dqVDQ-lF4Q while you read). I started with a condition not to be judgmental to my likes ('oh, this is a house for an old lady', or a big family,etc..), just look for exciting things for ME.  I surfed the internet and found some pretty amazing interiors and exteriors. Shall we start with the house? How would it look like? I'm not sure whether it's the influence of the movies, but I found myself imagining a traditional American type of house. Something like this

Traditional Home Office design by Austin Architect Tim Cuppett Architects

Where to go next? I'm not sure, but this attic room is so cozy and so likeable, don't you think?

Traditional Home Office design by Austin Architect Tim Cuppett Architects

Having friends around for a tea in this lovely green atmosphere or watching a movie, or listening to some really good music while taking a bath next door. Love the colours, green, dark brown, and the gentle blue in the carpet. And it's wood. I can totally see this room fitting into the house above by its size and its style.

It's time to go to bed.

Contemporary Kids Beds design by Other Metro The Land of Nod

I know it says for kids, but the colours (and I'm very much into colours, yes colOUrs and not colORs) are so good for dreaming while sleeping or awake.

You get up, through a hallway that's got everything- a soothing blue color, a thin tree, and a clock.

Traditional Entry design by San Francisco Architect Heydt Designs

and out. Sit, enjoy the view, and a cup of tea or a smoothie right here, on these swinging chairs

Traditional Porch design by Burlington Architect Smith & Vansant Architects PC

or on this cozy couch

Traditional Garage And Shed design by Dallas Media And Blogs Sarah Greenman


After a great start of a day, time to do something creative and that's the space to do it

Traditional Home Office design by Burlington Architect Smith & Vansant Architects PC

Just enough light, but not too much to be distracted from whatever you are focused on that day. There are shelves and cupboards, and a basin to wash your brushes or make tea, and a big table for your work.

Inspired to cook something?

Traditional Kitchen design by Burlington Architect Smith & Vansant Architects PC

Love the wooden table, the cupboard, the gas cooker, the brightness, wooden floor. This kitchen invites to be cooking lots of healthy and delicious meals.

And this could be my garden house in a big and a half wild garden by my house where I would store nuts, apples, pears, flowers and herbs for teas and baths for gloomy winter days.

Traditional Garage And Shed design by Other Metro Media And Blogs Emily Winters

Gardening

The very beginning of getting into gardening is a really exciting time. Maybe even the most exciting. I'll tell you later, when I'm through to the next stage:)
To my mind the most important thing is to observe, and having lots of free time I definitely have time for that. I keep checking on the seeds and seedlings  that I've planted several times per day to see how they are doing, maybe they need water, more soil, more sun, less sun, etc... All the decisions I make and the strategies I employ are mostly inspired by my own intuition. I guess it's a bit like having a baby and when it cries you have to try different things to see what it is that he wants.
As well as learning gardening from doing it (which I think is the best way) I, like a new mother, look for helpful sources that give all the answers to your questions. Here I found some worthy websites. This is a forum for people growing from seeds. Even though I haven't been using permaculture in  gardening yet, I think it is the way to easy and pleasant gardening. Since I have got only the balcony for growing my stuff, I found this link about balcony permaculture quite helpul, and I surely will be trying things out.  And here is Cecilia's blog on many things, permaculture, but not only, which is really inspirational.

And for the end, here are my little pepper seedlings, they grow just a bit higher than that, and you can use them as a herb in salads, sandwiches, etc... It's the most observed plant in my balcony garden so far, but it's not doing as well as I'd like it to. Or maybe I'm a too demanding mother. If I leave them in the balcony, they dry up quickly, if I cover them with a plastic bag, they start having white fuzz around the stem. I left them for couple of hours without the cover and the fuzz seemed to disappear. So much care and time for such little seedlings.

Restarting my blogging:)

As this blog was born from the idea of growing things, gardens and the like, I stay loyal to this idea and continue blogging about these things.
I went around (almost around, ok, maybe just half the circle) Lithuania, my home country, and visited some eco communities. I happened to visit one couple, that gave me some nice seeds to grow. And here I am, planting all these seeds and waiting with curiosity what will grow out of them. Right now I've just sown couple of Figs and a Ginkgotree (I think that that's how it's called). Anyone ever tried growing those? Advice would be appreciated! I got some soil from the forest, cause I thought that the soil would have more of what it takes for a tree to grow.

And while we are waiting for these seeds to grow here is a photo of my lovely tomatoe seedlings. I am so proud of how beautifully they have sprouted. In some squares there are more than one seedling. Does anyone know if it's healthy for tomatoe seedlings to be replanted when they're as small as the ones in the photo?

My grandma's autumn harvest

Last weekend I stayed at my grandma's and helped her a bit round her garden, as she doesn't move as effortlesslly and she used to.. I looked around and this is what I found in her garden. Plenty of beans put to dry, a huge courgette, a pumpkin, apple trees abudant with red big apples, some herbs. And then there is hawthorn, which not many people use, but they are good for making jams and jellies or eaten raw.

It's so nice to have a possibility to grow your own stuff and eat it fresh. Here it is:

And then I found some very tasty hazelnuts. This was the first time I tried them, they are quite crispy and very very tasty.

My first garden

Hi, I reformed our London garden by adding plants and trees and some other nice details. I based my drawing on Cecilia's  post on drawing edible garden. She gives some very simple and very useful ideas about how to draw it.

And here is a photo of it.  I inhabited the garden with the trees and plants that are pleasant to me as well as those that can be eaten. I'm not sure if you can see but there are: cabbages, grapes, cherry tree, beans, thyme, levander, jasminium, japanese maple tree, clover, basil, cranberries.

By the way this is how the garden looks in reality. I know, you will say it's much smaller, and I will agree. I definitely would make some adjustments:)