Spring Gardening Update, 2015

 The sage I planted last year is in bloom with pretty purple flowers. I've spent much of the last month planting: lettuce, radishes, spinach, dill, cilantro, massve amounts of chillies, and equally massive amounts of tomatoes, zuzucchini, melons, an squash. With luck, it'll be all-I-can-eat salsa in my kitchen this summer. 

Five Kung Fu Daredevil Heroes (1977)

Following the assassination of Manchu official, a top diplomat is sent to a stronghold along the Chinese-Russian border to negotiate for a supply of arms. Guarding the stronghold is the bearded (and treacherous) Captain Koo. Together with his aid, who wears an unconvincing grey wig,  Koo manipulates the situation with the Russians to his own benefit.  A group of 5 Anti-Manchu rebels team up to destroy the fortress and battle Captain Koo.

The audio and video are both poor quality, but are watchable. The film opens with plenty of action and slows down towards the middle of the story, but the big fight at the end is a lot of fun to watch (as is usual for this type of film).

Not to be confused with the 5 Venoms film of a similar name,  Shaolin Daredevils (1979).

imdb

Fall Garden Update.

September is almost over and in a few weeks it'll be time to clean up the garden for winter. But for now, my peppers are still producing, in particular my habeneros which finally started ripening this month.

Yes, they are quite spicy but they also have a wonderful flavor too.

Also, I've been freezing my garden herbs for the winter, and I have bags of mint, sage, and basil filling my freezer.

Finally, I planted a bag of crocus bulbs in the back yard. I can hardly wait until next spring for them to bloom!  

Chilies!

Freshly picked Anaheim chilies straight from my backyard. Of the chilies I planted this year, they have been the most productive by far.

These are destined to be roasted and added to a batch of queso fundido.

Zucchinni Gone Insane + Lunchtime = Tasty Squash Blossom Soup

My garden has been loving the frequent rains we've been getting so far this summer with my peppers, tomatoes, and sunflowers getting visibly bigger every day. And the creeping thyme in my front yard has aspirations of becoming the next kudzu (which surprises me, as it's in partial shade). But no plant in my garden has done quite as well as my zucchini. My zucchini has grown to gigantic proportions and currently has enormous dinner plate sized leaves. And I planted four of them this year.

Zucchini, like any other squash, have separate male and female flowers. Both types of flowers are edible, but the female flowers will grow into squash while the male will just wilt and drop off after a few days. So it makes sense to pinch off most (but not all) of the male flowers and cook with them. There are lots of ways to cook them; I've stuffed them with cheese and garlic and I've heard they make good quesadillas. But today, I wanted to eat a bowl of squash blossom soup.

The recipe I used was adapted from this article:
Caldo Xochitl con Flor de Calabaza

I halved the recipe and adapted it for what I had lying around.

4 cups Chicken Broth.
2 cans Chicken Breast.
1/2 cup cooked rice.
4 chilies en adobo, minced.
2 serrano peppers seeded and sliced.
1 sweet pepper.
About 1 cup roughly chopped squash blossoms.
Shredded Cheese for garnish.

I still cooked as directed in the recipe. It makes a nice brothy soup wish just the right amount of spiciness and the squash blossoms give it a wonderful freshness. I'll definitely make it again, but next batch of squash blossoms I pick I'm turning into quesodillas...

Spring 2014 Gardening Update  

Santo vs La Hija De Frankenstein (1971)

AKA: Santo vs Frankenstein's Daughter.

Dr. Freida Frankenstein.

Frankenstein's daughter is alive and well thanks to her youth serum. Unfortunately for her, she's developing a resistance to it and she needs Santo's blood to help her develop a better serum before it fails and she dies of old age. Rather than just asking Santo for a sample of blood, she kidnaps his girlfriend to lure him to her underground lair where he must battle Dr Frankenstein's once again re-animated monster and a small army of youth-serum dependent elderly henchmen.

Santo and his girlfriend's sister.

I absolutely love these old lucha-libre films, but this one is perhaps the most fun of the Santo films that I've seen to date (I'd place Santo en la Venganza de la Momia a close second).

Besides the near constant fights between Santo and Dr. Frankenstein's henchmen, this movie is loaded with bizarre fun stuff- the entrance to Dr Frankenstein's lair is lined with mummified corpses- corpses that shoot knock out gas from their eyes! And there's a great big self destruct switch on the laboratory's wall. Seriously, this movie is campy, comic book style fun.

Imdb

Spring 2014 Gardening Update

It's May now and my week straight of rain has come to an end! I've been dying to get my vegetables in...

This is a Chicago Hardy Fig that I bought from Stark Brothers. It arrived at the end of March and as you can see, it's out of it's dormancy and putting up new growth.

I'm in Kansas City, zone 5b/6a and my climate is a bit cold for figs. However, local Italian-American gardeners universally said that they have grown figs here successfully.  The key is to wrap them in winter, making especially sure that the roots are well protected from the cold.

This is the hardiest variety of fig that I found while reading up on figs. It is supposed to be hardy to -30 degrees (and able to survive cold Chicago winters). It'll grow back from the roots if the above ground parts freeze, if what I read is true.

Despite that I will wrap in the winters (until it gets too big to do so), as I was instructed. I already have a carpet remnant (again, as was instructioned) in the basement to wrap it with.

  The next picture is a raspberry bush. I hadn't actually planned on planting raspberries, but I had to make a trip to the hardware store for another purchase and I saw it right there in the nursery.

The little raspberry bush said to me, "Come on and buy me. You know you wanna have fresh raspberries. And I only get four foot tall by four foot wide, so you have room for me."

I found the cute little raspberry bush's arguments compelling and now I have a raspberry bush planted behind my house.

While I am happy I planted the little raspberry bush, every time I look at it, I am reminded that my mother doesn't let my father shop at the hardware store alone for the exact same reason!

I didn't plant these pretty purple flowers, in fact they've been there since before I moved in. I've never seen them look so happy before and they are so pretty I thought I'd post pictures of them.

I have a list of other plants that I have in my garden this year but don't have pictured:

• Dill
• English Thyme
• Roman Chamomile
• Mint (I might regret planting mint)
• Habeñeros
• Anaheim Peppers
• Jalapeños
• Italian Stuffer Peppers
• Poblanos (I LOVE peppers, Okay)
• Rosa Bianca Eggplant
• Zucchini (I don't remember the variety)
• Old German Tomatoes
• Cherokee Purple Tomatoes
• Black Brandywine Tomatoes
• Lots and Lots and Lots of Sunflowers (assorted varieties)
• Lots and Lots and Lots of Marigolds (I'm experimenting with using them as a living mulch in some spots)

Once my sunflowers start to take off in a week or two, I might plant some cucumbers along side them. I'm thinking I can get the cucumbers to trellis on the sunflowers.