friday fixations

{a handy tip for the easily distracted} Do this then get stuff done.

{cute junk} I'm not really a dog person, but I think chickapugs are the bee's knees! (Also, saying "bee's knees!" I'm bringing it back.) And I want to take a hundred photos of these super cute donuts! I might've squealed when I saw them. Cat donuts: The new macaron.

{internet access CAPTCHAs} Um this should've been installed, like, yesterday.

Source: jungjung.jp via Idle on Pinterest

{crochet and all things knitted} This is definitely a huge obsession for me right now. I have to learn more... (also this artist is amazeballs.)

{wild rose detox} I just finished this and I'm feeling a lot better. A lot a lot. Aside from adding back some natural sugars like honey and dried fruit (and bananas!), I probably won't stray too far from this routine now. It was that great. (Also, things I used to love don't taste as delicious anymore. For example, bread tastes like cooked paste. It's kind of unnerving.)

{breakfast rules} Speaking of eating, one thing that majorly changed was my breakfasts. I became a big fan of the green smoothie and muesli. They were both really good without sweeteners (aside from fruit), so I can't wait to taste them with honey! I thought this breakfast flow chart would be kind of helpful if you felt stuck in a breakfast rut. And I used this chart to compose my green smoothie (my first was green tea, a handful of spinach, flax seed oil, wheat germ, blueberries, and an apple). Worked like a charm.

Source: freshhomeblog.com via Idle on Pinterest

{designs in concrete} when wet! I would LOVE to have these as a patio in the backyard. And as a walkway to the garage. And steps up to the house. And on sidewalks. And on roads...

{poolga} Screen wallpapers again. Sorry to keep slapping you in the face with it, but I just stumbled on Poolga and had to share. It's a great website for amazingly artistic (and free!) iPhone, iPod, and iPad wallpapers. It'd be a pretty hard task not to find at least one design to like in their huge collection. I downloaded way too many a bunch already.

preserving herbs

I probably mentioned this trick in passing, but one great way to keep your fresh herbs fresh is to treat them like flowers. Trim the ends and pop them in a cup of fresh water. As long as you keep the water fresh, they'll keep like this for a little while longer than if you were to just store them in the fridge in a bag.

Now I have to share another trick I recently learned for keeping herbs around even longer.

All you have to do is freeze them.

Wash them, chop them, stick them in a freezer bag or a bowl covered with plastic wrap, and keep them in the freezer. Whenever you need a pinch while cooking, reach in and grab some. No chopping or washing or thawing required.

I was told this would work for everything except oregano. Don't ask me why not oregano. It may be because the Greeks have a special place in their hearts for oregano (and feta and tzatziki and olive oil) and they would never ever dream of freezing it. I don't know.

Since the oregano I planted twice refuses to grow, I couldn't test it for you. I did, however, test three herbs I do have growing right now. Basil, curly-leafed parsley, and chives. Plus I've already got a bowl of flat-leafed parsley in the freezer (that's it in the pictures above).

After freezing, I wouldn't use these herbs in anything requiring fresh crispness like a salad. But in sauces, on baked potatoes, hamburger mixes, soups, anything of the cooked variety they're perfect. The freezing process just makes them a little wilty once they've been unthawed. It's not that bad, but I don't think it would be very pleasant in a fresh salad. (Potato salad might be the exception since the texture is all pretty much one note and no one's really expecting crisp greens in that one.)

I don't know how long they'll last, but the bowl of flat-leafed parsley has been in my freezer for almost a month now. I keep meaning to transfer it to a bag because I feel like that's a better option for keeping it fresh, but despite the loose covering, it doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects.

Freezing is a great alternative to drying herbs for the winter and, when added to cooked meals, it really looks and tastes as though you chopped up something fresh. Come fall, I'll be chopping and freezing the bulk of the herbs I grew this summer (which wasn't very much due to all the excess rain). I'm sure I'll be able to make them last well into the winter without having to purchase more. It's going to be really nice grabbing fresh-ish home-grown herbs out of the freezer for meals during the winter months as a bright little reminder of summer.

july recap

I think I'm going to start something a little different for my monthly recaps. From now on, I'm going to offer you some desktop/iPod/iPhone/iPad wallpapers for the new month based on favourite pictures from last month.

Personally, I'm always looking for new desktop wallpapers. I find it more interesting if I've got something new to look at in the background, and I usually change it every week. With the help of Idle Husband (oh! poor math skills!), I finally learned how to turn my own photographs into wallpapers.

This month, I chose a weed bouquet photo as a simple sunny desktop. And then I was having so much fun, I decided to stop having fun and get super frustrated by creating a calendar to go on top of it. It was my first attempt at getting handwriting on a photo! How exciting! (grumble grumble blast you, photoshop) (Thanks to Idle Husband again and again for showing me how!)

I hope you like it!

(choose your screen and click to download over at flickr)

1920x1080

1920x1200

1680x1050

iPad

iPod/iPhone

For personal use only, please!

gardening music

Yay! I'm really gardening this year! I planted large trees and small plants and tiny seeds. It's been so great! Anyway. More on that later.

Right now, here're some songs to listen to while you're out giving your plants some love!

tzatziki

You may or may not know this, but I already had a favourite tzatziki recipe. It's true. I blogged about it right here. And I was quite happily going through the motions of straining and chopping and churning out some of what I thought was pretty good tzatziki.

And then I got a little lazy. It happens. I'm not perfect.

I kept buying cucumbers and yogurt and then I kept forgetting to strain the yogurt. So we'd end up with a fridge full of yogurt and slowly decaying cucumbers. It's not that straining yogurt is hard, but since moving, we've downgraded to a smaller fridge and having a big bowl in there taking up space is kinda bothersome.

And then Superstore started selling its own Greek yogurt. I was pretty ecstatic. I thought that would put an end to all my straining and draining. Now I could actually buy thick Greek yogurt and dump everything else in, right? Wrong.

Superstore's Greek yogurt isn't as thick as it probably should be; and, as it turned out, my method really depended on yogurt that was completely drained with an almost butter-like consistency. So despite everything being exactly the same except the yogurt, we ended up with tzatziki that tasted undeliciously like plain yogurt. 

I was pretty convinced I'd have to go back to my straining and draining ways, but once the Greek parents arrived and we started making recipes together, it wasn't long until I asked to make tzatziki. Might as well see how a Greek does it while I got 'em around, right?

What we got was the most garlic-y tzatziki I've ever had. But I liked it! A lot! You can reduce the amount of garlic if you want to but, as I was told, you're not eating proper tzatziki unless you have garlic breath the morning after. Just saying.

from my Greek mother-in-law

1 750 g tub of Balkan-style yogurt (I use Astro's Original Balkan. You could use Superstore's new Greek yogurt, but it only comes in half tubs and costs the same as a big tub and that bothers me like you wouldn't believe)

1 whole english cucumber, peeled and cut in half

1 whole garlic bulb, separated and peeled (not one little clove, the whole damn thing. About 11-12 cloves)

salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon olive oil (she poured it in; I had the restraint to limit it to a tablespoon)

Dump the entire tub of yogurt into a medium sized bowl.

Grate the entire cucumber into a fine mesh strainer either over the sink or in another empty bowl (it's a lot less awkward to grate one half at a time rather than the whole thing at once). Once it's all grated, hold the strainer over the sink and with your free hand squeeze out as much cucumber juice as possible. Just squeeze the hell out of it. This is a good recipe to work out your frustrations on.

Add the cucumber to the yogurt. With the box grater again, grate up all of the garlic cloves directly into the yogurt and cucumbers. Be very careful not to grate any fingers or fingernails into your tzatziki. No one will like that.

Add a very generous amount of salt and pepper (to taste, but a rough teaspoon of each should do it). Add the olive oil and mix. Store the tzatziki in the fridge. It's better to make it a little ahead of time so all the flavours have a chance to mingle around with the yogurt.

{note} I like to put the tzatziki back into the yogurt container so it stores easily in the fridge. It won't all fit back into the tub, but there's just a little leftover that will fit into a small bowl that you should finish in one meal (if you're using it correctly).

{noted} The box grater was used at least once for absolutely every single Greek dish we made. I only use the grater for cheese and maybe once a year for a chocolate zucchini cake, but I don't think my box grater ever made it back to the drawer for two whole weeks. And we never once used it to grate cheese. So if I could impart one lesson about Greek cooking today it's to put away your big chopping knife, find yourself a small paring knife and a box grater, and grate the hell out of every vegetable you're using. But. No one will call you a wimp if you decide to grate the cucumber and garlic with your food processor. We can't see what you're doing in your home.