Lamb Tagine with Potatoes and Chickpeas

One of my purchases from William Sonoma (my Christmas present to myself or it can be Christmas present my husband bought for me ) this past holiday season is this beautiful handpainted Tagine. I used it to make William Sonoma's  Lamb Tagine with Potatoes and Chickpeas. I have included the link above and the recipe below incase the link disappears in future!

Homemade Fresh Pasta

Looking for the perfect accompaniment to the Lamb Tagine with Potatoes and chickpeas , I excitedly pull out the pasta attachment of the KitchenAid. Today, we are making Fresh Fettucini. Finally, my "new" pasta attachment with came with my KitchenAid mixer will be used.


Ingredients
4 Tbsp. olive oil
4 Tbsp. water
4 eggs
1 tsp. kosher or sea salt
2 cup semolina flour


Method:
Combine salt and semolina flour in mixing bowl. Attach bowl to mixer. Attach Flat beat to mixer. Pulse to mix.

Add eggs, water and oil. 

Mix with flat beater until combined.

Fuyu Persimmon Flower

Until Autumn Belle asked me last year, I never thought to photograph the blossoms of the Japanese Fuyu Persimmon( Ebenaceae, Diospyros kaki ) tree. The flowers are inconspicuous. The time between bloom and fruit setting seem to happen in a blink of the eye. Normally, I would see the green flower buds and before I know it, watch the fruit fill out. The open bloom of the flower itself does not make an impression on me. In fact, truthfully in the early years, I believe that the persimmon blossoms were green!

Persimmon green blossom buds

The buds of the Persimmon tree are green in color. They look like a green buttercream icing formed by  a star shape icing tip. The 'swirly icing' are actually the sepal. At this stage, the buds reminds of those little biscuit we buy in bulk as little kids. A little round, flat top biscuit, top with a colorful swirly hard sugar icing. These days, I seen the biscuits being sold at pasar malam ( night markets) in Malaysia.

Living mulch and self seeding

Finally, I found some time to do a bit of spring cleaning of my upper garden. I was happy to note underneath all the debris, my deliberate action to let to let some herb go to seed and self seed has played off. A blanket of seedlings covered the planting beds. 

Blog Namesake - Kumquat

I thought I would share some pictures of my fruit laden Kumquat plant ( Fortunella Japonica). The two kumquat plants are in two planter boxes next to the path that leads to my upper garden. I bought the two Fukushu Kumquat plants about 4 years ago and it has really taken off. Each year it has tons and tons of large delicious kumquat. But even before, those delightful fruits appear, the garden is filled with the most amazing fragrance of the kumquat flowers!! Heavenly.

12/1/2011

The tree is laden with green kumquats that are just starting to turn a bit yellow

Mother of Millions

This time of year the cactus and succulent plants are flowering. Particularly beautiful are the flowers of Bryophyllum delagoense or commonly called Mother of Millions. Sometimes, it is also called the alligator plant. Its purplish pink leaves are speckled. Plantlets form at the end of the tubular leaves. This plant is deemed highly invasive as each of these plantlets drops and form a new plant.

I recently found out that in addition to being highly invasive ( which it has not been so far in my garden) it is also highly toxic. The whole plant especially beautiful flowers are extremely toxic. It is a problem in Australia where grazing cattle die from eating the the plants. I have not found any articles to suggest that it is toxic to other animal but it worries me. My dog Frasier has been known to `taste' plants especially after a rain, licking raindrops off plants. I will have to consider removing this plant from my garden. So, this might be the last year you see these beautiful flowers. Frasier triumphs over flowers!!

Notice the plantlets at the end of the tubular leaves. Each one falls and becomes a new plant. One mother plant will make hundreds of new plants. ( the Jade Plant in the background is full of white flowers).

A lack of focus

Again, I am thinking, I really should not be so hard on my children for their "lack of focus." Here, I am pottering around in the garden some 45 minutes later when I should be inside the house cleaning!! In all fairness ( sounds familiar?) I was taking out a potted plant that was looking a little under the weather from neglect (again- sound familiar?). I cleaned off dead dried leaves and gave it a good soak. Then, I remembered the Plumeria branch that had broken off and had been thrown out by my landscaper. I happened to pass by the yard waste bin on my curbside before the city pickup and rescued it. I set aside to be planted. I planted  it today!! 


Then, I remembered the Calla Lily bulbs that I was sent .....Pop the 3 bulbs into 3 pots.


Then, I came across some seed pods of indian cluster beans ( I left out to dry)... then... then.... Needless to say, they all needed planting and cleaning was on hold. I bought them at an Indian grocery store. They have a slight bitter edge to them that I like. 
Cluster Beans (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba) originated in India and is now cultivated in California. It is used to make Guar gum, a thickening powder, said to have 7 times thickening power of corn starch. The beans are ground up to make the guar gum powder. 


Guess what I am doing now, blogging about lack of focus instead of cleaning. It is okay, I am allowing myself 20 minutes coffee, blogging break and then it is back to cleaning. FOCUS!!!!