Moorish (Tortilla) Afghan Update

The heat wave this week has kept me out of the garden. I was forced to sit under the fan and clear up long overdue paperwork. Glad that it done. On the plus side, I finally joined  the beautiful Moorish motifs (Tortilla) to make the Afghan. It was exciting to see it come together.


I started by using the main color to join the pieces together per the instructions but did not like the look of it. It was too contrasting.Whip stitching the pieces together made it a tedious process to undo placement mistake. Prowling through the CrochetMe blog, I found others were slip stitching the pieces together using the dominant color between the motifs. I used this method. Any placement mistake was easily 'unzip' by pulling the thread, undoing the chain of the slip stitches. I also like how using dominant color between the tiles made it flow better- like using the right color grout between tiles. To make it easier I color up the motif chart to make it easier to keep track that of the motifs I was joining. 

The finished product is beautiful, soft and cozy. However, I think it is a bit small than I like. I currently cozy up to a gorgeous quilt my good friend C made for my 50th. Birthday. I want to make it closer to that size.  I ordered more yarn and I am in the process of making more of the Moorish tiles motifs to enlarge the afghan. Will update again.

Deciding which color to use to join motif

Color up chart to make placement easier

Keeping track of diamond motifs

All motifs used up

Way smaller than the gorgeous birthday quilt my friend C made for me

Tomato, Artichoke and White Bean Penne

This one of our favorite pasta dish, the one that makes my son ask with a smile on his face -"Is it the one I eat a ton of ?" Literally, he would have eaten 4 bowls before I ask if he is having seconds! I made it this week for my daughter as part of  her count down Must Eat before College dish. It is something she can easily make in her new apartment.


I make it a lot in the summer with tomatoes from my garden and also at other time of the year with just pantry staples. It is best with fresh tomatoes but canned whole tomatoes will work too. As long as you have cans of whole tomatoes,white bean and artichoke hearts in the pantry and pancetta or bacon in the fridge, you are on your way. It is a dish that you can easily substitute with items you have on hand. I think italian sausage in place of the pancetta or bacon and asparagus in place of the artichoke will work well too. Just experiment!

Mee Hoon Kuih in Soup

This is another of my daughter's Must Eat Before College request that I obliged this week. This posting is for you, my darling daughter! Now that you have your  own apartment complete with a kitchen you can cook a little taste of home whenever you want. Of course, 1-800-Mommeeee is always available to you.


This is a traditional Hokkein dish which is essentially fresh handmade pasta in a flavorful broth. It is a favorite of my family here in the US as well as our families in Malaysia. My mother makes a top notch version. She is particular, often making and serving individual bowls. That way, the pasta is truly el dente. Since I am the only one forming the pasta and somehow my family is always already too hungry when I make this dish, I make all the pasta first before calling everyone to the table. I just remove, drain and keep the cooked pasta hot in a big serving bowl. A drizzle of shallot oil keep the pasta separate.


The toughest part of the dish is stretching out the dough thin enough to make Mee Hoon Kuey (pasta), tearing the pieces off and dropping it into hot simmering broth. It is a tedious hot work so you must love your family! Not many families make it at home in Malaysia these days because of the work and skill involved. Lucky for them it is possible to order this dish at food stalls. Some vendors have updated it, rolling out the dough through a pasta machine and making fettucine style pasta. I prefer the old fashioned, rustic torn off pasta.The toppings is everything!! I serve it with fried anchovies, meat topping, chinese bok choy, fried peanuts and fried shallots. Like I said, lots of work but yummy! 

Blueberry Scones

This posting is in honor of the secretaries and the other wonderful ladies at the front office of my son's high school. My son recently suffered an injury to his eye and he had to be out of school for awhile. These ladies helped get his homework from his various classes and got him his off campus passes for follow up doctor visits. This truly helped me in a stressful situation. I bake some of these blueberry scones as a treat to these special ladies.

The pictures are from another batch I made at our Temecula weekend home. I had fresh peaches and blueberries but no sour cream. I improvised by adding 2 tablespoon of buttermilk powder to 1 whole cup of milk in place of the 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 sour cream. Another substitution I made was 1/2 stick of non-trans fat cisco and 1/2 stick of butter in place of 1 stick of butter. Again, based on what I had on hand. I am a great believer in making it work! The scones were flaky and moist. Original recipe was from CooksIllustrated. These are so easy and fast to make that I made an extra batch for the freezer. I freeze them unbaked so that I can have truly fresh Blueberry Scones the next time I am up at the house.

Mud Pies for the Adult Gardener

Last weekend, I finally got out to my garden and PLAYED!!! Spent a glorious afternoon with my hands wrist deep in soil blocking mixture and water. For weeks now, my soil blocker had been calling me. This spring's finicky weather worked against me. I was fooled into direct sowing only to be hit by cold weather and then by scorching heat and freaky cold spells!! As a result the seeds took too long to germinate and  then grew so slowly that they were old before they reached full size. My current plan is give my seedling a fighting chance by starting them in soil blocks. The evening before, I mixed up a batch of blocking mix for my soil blocks. Added water, mixed and let it sit to ensure that mixture was evenly moist.

Two years ago, I bought 2  soil blocker mould to avoid using plastic pots in my yearly seeding starting routine. More than 20 years ago, I read Elliot Coleman Organic gardening book and was immediately attracted to the idea of using soil blocks to start seeds. I had just moved to the US at that time and the idea of spending so much money to buy a contraption to press mud into mud/soil blocks that acts as pot was ridiculous. I was still converting Malaysian Ringgit to US Dollars - $4.50 Ringgit to US $1.00 was tough to swallow. But a good idea will stick with you. When I started being serious about growing heirloom vegetables it made sense that I grew them as green as I could.

Blocking mixture - soil, perlite and coco fiber

Correct blocking mixture yields perfect soil blocks

Essentially a soil block is a soil pot made of wet soil mixture, shaped and compressed with the use of a soil blocker. A seed is inserted in a depression in the block. The seedling grows uninterrupted, its roots air-pruned when it reaches the edges of the block, creating a strong root system. There is no transplanting shock because it is not in a container.  I love that I do not have seed starting plastic pots to clean and store. It is essential to mist the soil blocks daily to avoid it drying out. I start minuscule seeds in my 15 soil block sets and larger seeds in the 4 soil block sets. If I am working with the soil block in early winter I sometimes start off the seeds in the 15 soil block sets and later pot up  into the 4 soil block set  before setting out the plants in the garden.


I'll keep you posted on how this year soil blocks work out.


N.B. - birds have started to peck out the seeds in my soil blocks. Since the weather is warm, they are flying all over my garden. I covered the soil blocks but the wind blew open the fabric cover. Hopefully they left me enough seedlings!!

Eating from my garden

As May drew to a close and sunny June, despite the June gloom reputation, settled in,  my garden started to take off and provide me with pleasurable eating. I started off eating blueberries with my breakfast cereal, slowly adding blackberries, then came the strawberries. Now, I am in heaven!! I am eating my morning cereal with all those berries and tree ripen bananas from the garden. Imagine!! 

Harvest the fruits

slice the strawberries and bananas, scatter blueberries

Milk Star on blueberry

It has been many years since I have devoured, yes that is the correct expression- DEVOUR- because that is exactly what I do, tree ripen bananas from my garden. Almost every year a banana plant or two would flower. Invariably it is almost Fall when it does so. I half heartedly let it flower but more often that not chop off the flower, sometimes offering it to my Filipino friends. This is because there would not be enough time for the fruit to develop before winter. Somehow last year, the timing was right and I let it develop combs of bananas. Sceptic that I am I never thought it would ripen. It sure took a long time but now I have delicious bananas!! I was going to cut down the whole stalk and let it ripen away from the tree. Luckily for me, my dear husband suggested that I leave it on the tree and enjoy them tree ripen. So each day I can be seen plucking individual bananas and eating them right under the tree. 'Ice Cream' banana does its name proud.

Banana grove

Ripening combs of bananas

Top combs ripening first

The first tomatoes are also on our dinner menu. Speckle Roman tomatoes with fresh basil from the garden, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil makes a fine lunch. Cherry tomatoes are the sweetest fruits in my garden bar none. They are so beautiful with the sunlight shining through them.Olive oil, chopped garlic, pinch of chili pepper flakes, fresh basil sautéed with those cherry tomatoes makes a delightful sauce served with spaghetti. 

Heirloom Speckle Roman

Sliced Speckled Roman, Basil and fresh Mozzarella  Cheese

Cherry Tomatoes glisten like jewels in the sun

Spring 2010 in my garden

I thought I would post some updated pictures of what is happening in my garden. It has been a strange spring. It seems like we had a lot more rain then usual but that also means it was colder longer than normal. Seedlings sprouted but never really grew. I had to pull up Kai Lan, Garland Chrysanthemum/ Tong Ho and Broccoli Rabe plants because they grew too slowly. They were old before they grew of size. Basil plants set out in March are only just taking off as the weather warms up.Next year, I will work on a cold frame structure or hoops to increase warmth of seedlings.