Garden Update: August 2015

We are leaving for Singapore in just a couple of hours.

In our absence, we'll be handing garden duties over to my dear friend Corrinne who has so generously offered her time and energy to tend to all our fruiting plants. We hope she'll eat some of the ground cherries,

tomatoes,

peppers,

and eggplants,

that are on the verge of ripening!

birds on the balcony

Today i installed a new mural in the Sovereign Catering Office at the Fowler House in downtown Lafayette.  it's titled 'birds on the balcony.'

This is a tiny room with a window and door and a balcony, but it feels quite claustrophobic in there, so my initial thought was to simply make the space feel bigger, and i wanted to pull in some of the architectural and upholstery details from the historic home.  all the of the patterns and features are taken from other parts of the house, like the staircase and the dining room ceiling.

and lastly, to make the space feel alive, i mixed in some disney-style birds flying around and sitting on ledges. it's a fun space with a calmness in all the ornate layers.  i hope it makes for an inspiring work space for my friends at Sovereign Catering. you can visit them at http://www.sovereigncatering.com.

Recipe of the Week: Eggplant Dirty Rice (by "Amateur Gourmet")

It was hard to think about making dinner every night when Zach was out painting the Seurat mural. So we were harvesting all these beautiful eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers from our garden and just leaving them out on the kitchen counter.

Last night, we decided to use our bountiful harvest to make one of our favorite vegetarian dishes -- eggplant dirty rice, a recipe I love from the Amateur Gourmet site. I followed much of Adam's recipe, except I threw in about 3 or 4 of our tomatoes and used half white, half brown rice. The tomatoes release quite a bit of liquid, so if you are using only white rice, you might need to adjust the amount of broth you add. But if you are using brown rice, you can keep the broth at 2.5 cups. I also skipped the oven and just cooked the rice on the stove. If you like to use your oven, check out the temperature and time Adam used here.

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
2 green bell peppers, seeded and diced
1 onion, finely chopped
3 celery ribs, diced
1 medium eggplant, or 3 small eggplants, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
3-4 tomatoes, diced
5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tbsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 cup soy sauce
1.5 cups rice (I used both white and brown)
2.5 cups vegetable broth
salt, to taste

Directions
In a cast iron pot, heat olive oil and cook celery, peppers, and onion  until lightly browned.

Add eggplant, garlic, tomatoes, thyme, black and white peppers, cayenne, and season with salt. Cook for about 8 minutes or until eggplant is soft.
Stir in tomato paste, soy sauce, and vegetable broth.
Bring mixture to a boil, then cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Let stand for 10 more minutes, then fluff with a fork and serve hot!

{harvest} Miniature White Cucumbers

This year we finally got brave enough to attempt to grow cucumbers again. The last time we had cucumbers, our patio garden got infested with nasty white flies and aphids. We got a decent yield, but the cucumbers just weren't worth the pests. So this year, because we had two empty five gallon buckets, we decided we would try growing a different kind -- miniature white cucumbers, with seeds that we got from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. These cucumbers turned out great. They were heavy producers, pest-free, and delicious. Coupled with some homegrown cherry tomatoes and a little lemon juice, we've been feasting on some yummy salad all summer!

Sunday Morning Wabash River is done!

The mural is done, but this morning Zach and I went to the wall again so he could add the title for the piece.

If you live in the area, go check out the piece downtown at 219 Main Street! It's in the alley between Bernadette's Barbershop and Chase Bank.


p.s. if you are looking for a paid opportunity to add some color to a wall in town, we are looking for artists to participate in Alleypalooza. See this post, and this request for proposals for more information!

Sunday Morning Wabash River: Day 9

Nine days. 

Zach finished his largest mural to date in just nine days. It's really a crazy feat if you think about it.

We couldn't get a decent picture of the completed mural this evening because of the glare from the sun. We'll have to take pictures on a different day. In the meantime, here are photos of all the characters in the mural. The largest ones are about 15 feet, and the smallest ones are three dots tall.

Sunday Morning Wabash River: Day 8

We didn't go out to paint on Sunday partly because of the rain, and partly because we just needed to rest. So today, with the sun shining and the humidity high, Zach set out to fill in more of the figures from the La Grande Jatte side of the mural.

He's almost done! We're hoping to finish painting tomorrow, so check back to see the finished product!

Sunday Morning Wabash River: Day 7

We were out at the wall from 7am to 7pm today, save for the hour and a half we were at lunch. The main goal was to start filling in the little details, and to work at painting in some of the figures. Here's some pictures of what Zach accomplished:

He finished the factory farms and cesspool (yuck!), the wind turbines, and the bridge.

He finished the characters from the Bathers.

And started on some figures that make up the rest of the scene from Seurat's Sunday on La Grande Jatte.

Looooooong day, but we're both happy with today's efforts. Now we are ready to kick back and vegetate on the couch for the rest of the night! Hope you had a wonderful Saturday!