The Stir Fry Challenge!

So my new favourite evening meal is stir fry vegetables.  

Did you know that the daily recommended servings of vegetables is five?  

Well, with the stir fry meals, I've been having loads of fun seeing how many different servings of vegetables we can have daily.

My best tally so far has been eleven...

• Garlic

• Ginger

• Carrots

• Celery

•  Broccoli

• Zucchini (home grown which is even more fun)

• Asparagus (this is homegrown too)

• Snow peas (this is homegrown by our neighbours!)

• Red capsicum

• Silverbeet (this was home grown too)

• Lettuce (this was a bit of a ring-in, but there was a tail end of a lettuce in the fridge so I thought, why waste it!  And it cooks up just fine!)

All sauteed in a pot...

Then in with a splash of soy sauce...

And on to a plate...

Colourful, tasty, nutritious!  Too easy! 

So do you enjoy a stir fry meal and do you have any thoughts for extra vegetables I can add?

Mrs Gadget: Gardening Tragic! (Part 1)

a.k.a.  Sharon Archer!

Following on from my intermittent "Toy Boy" blogs, where I gleefully took the lid off the stacks of gadget boxes in my dh's study, I thought I'd open the door of the gardening shed and expose some collections there.  

Broad Bean seedlings

I am a "gardener wannabee" - who sadly inherited a slightly defective green-thumb gene!


But that doesn't stop me from lurking in the gardening aisles at the hardware/supermarket/market and having fantasies about gorgeous productive gardens and self-sufficiency and home-grown vegetables! 

Spinach sprouts

Occasionally... all right, more than occasionally, I weaken to purchase seeds  - this year I restricted myself to 4 packets and promised myself that I would actually plant them!  And, naturally if you're going to garden, you need other products that will ensure productive and plentiful cropping!  I was firm with myself about not buying any of these until I'd checked the garden shed!  Sure enough there were stockpiles. Is there a use-by date for these... Note to self: fertilisers won't help to produce edible goodies unless I remember to use them!


I'm proud to say that I have actually used the Seasol - twice!  So far the broad bean seedlings and spinach sprouts are going well - they've been up for a whole two weeks!  Only three casualties so far - I didn't get the slug pellets out fast enough.

Fertiliser Stash!

So back to the gardening shed - I'm embarrassed to say that some of the items can't be photographed.  They've been there so long that the plastic bags have broken down.  But I was able to identify three small bags garden lime and two of blood and bone.  Since the contents are now mixed up in the box and it seems like a shame to waste them, I'm going to dig them into the soil and leave them to "rest"... and perhaps I can plant some spring vegetables...

One of the still-recognisable Garden Lime bags!

So are you a gardener or a gardener-wannabee like me?  If you are a gardener, have you got any secrets to share?  If you're a gardener-wannabee, feel free to tell my what you've got in your garden shed that needs to be used!


P.S.  So after I wrote this, I couldn't help Googling companion plants for broad beans.  And guess what - one of the companion plants are carrots - apparently they like the nitrogen that the beans fix in the soil!  

Ancient Packets of Carrot Seed!

And... guess what else... I have two old packets of carrot seeds!  Fancy that!  One is best before 1994 and the other, before 2007.  Did I mention how I enjoy lurking in the gardening aisles and picking up packets of stuff...  Anyway, what the heck, I thought!  So now I have three little carrot patches in amongst the bean seedlings.  If they grow, fantastic!  If they don't... well, that's okay too because it means that I now have two less packets of seeds in the wannabee-vegetable-seed stash!

Carrot Patch, Number 1