Beans Beans Beans

Beans! I love me some beans. I love refried beans with some Mexican food, Red Beans and Rice or Black Eyed Peas and Rice with some Greens and Pulled Pork or some Hummus with Falafal, oh I could go on but I better stop. Thinking of some Pulled Pork or a Shrimp Poboy, has just made me have a sudden pang of homesickness and of course made my mouth water. Ooh, I know what  . . .a Oyster Po Boy. yummmm . . Now the mouth watering has taking over the homesickness. It was short lived.

Back to the beans. . .  

I have always eaten beans, and besides when I make soups, I have always just popped open a can, when ever I wanted some beans. It is just quick and easy to get them out of a can, right? 

Right! But is that really the best way to get your beans? I have been slowly working on a healthier diet and I have always been cool with the canned beans, but it just seems healthier if not just cooler to prep your own. So I started this spring prepping my own beans, but it wasn't until the daily green's food blog discussed the risks of canned food that I really started to take it seriously. I now consider this as a lifelong change. If the health benefits don't sway you maybe the fact that it is way cheaper to buy raw beans than canned.

For example, this bag cost me €1.95. Once cooked the beans in the bag are equivalent to 5 to 6 cans of beans (€0.59each).  
Side track: That's €2.95 to €3.54 worth of canned beans for a third the price. I buy the larger bags, which I will be doing from now on, the saving increase. 
The '5 to 6 can equivalent' sounds high, I know! The first time I prepped beans at home, I poured out the whole bag. That was a mistake. I had so many beans I had to store the beans in three different plastic containers. I had frozen 'prepped' pinto beans for months. Take if from me, prep only what you will be using in the coming week or two, or you will be buried in beans!

So to prep the beans, you pour out the desired amount into a bowl or plastic container. This time I used a fourth of the bag.

Then you add water, well above the beans and let them soak over night. I prefer to use plastic ware so I can close it and put it in the fridge. I don't have to worry about knocking it over accidentally.

The next day boil the now engorged beans until they are cooked all the way through. The time on this varies, just keep the water level up so they don't burn.

Pintos are cool to cook, in my observations they are pretty much done, when you blow on them and they spaz out. I mean when the skin cracks and curls back. I wouldn't be surprised if this phenomenon also happens to other beans, but as of yet, I have only dealt with chickpeas (no spazing there) and pinto beans. I just haven't gotten yet to the other beans out there. I just recently finished the last of the Jumbo supply of beans from my first attempt. I still have a bag of chickpeas and one of pintos to get through. It may be some time before I get something different but I think I will be picking up another bag o' beans next time I hit the store.

Once the beans are done cooking and have cooled off I pack them away in the freezer. These beans are really only for my salads. Stored in the freezer they stay fresh.

The beans are now just as easily accessible as the caned beans had been. When I want to add some to a salad, I put what I want of the frozen beans into a small dish, like the one in the photo above, and then pour hot water on them. By the time my salad is fixed and garnished the beans have dethawed and are even a little warm themselves.

I have to say, I really enjoy prepping my own beans. It makes me feel more connected to my food and surprisingly it makes me appreciate them. That, these beans are now edible because of the effort I put into them. I feel a sense of satisfaction that I would never feel from popping open a can.

Oatmeal Makeovers

Lately I have been trying to start my days right, with a good healthy and hearty breakfast. What comes to mind when I consider these criteria are muesli and oatmeal, both of which I do not have the best relationship with. I hate store bought muesli mixtures and oatmeal is so boring.

I mean look at it cooking, it is just goopy and blurpy, who wants to eat that?

I am very lucky that my Guy always says he wants some too when I announce I am making it for breakfast. Sharing it with him causes me to commit to making the oatmeal and to not change my mind for toast with butter and honey or something else that is not so great a choice as OATMEAL is.

Since I was making the oatmeal not only for myself, I decided to dress it up a bit this time, something I never do. Other then Milk and sugar, I never really added anything else, not even fruit.

So First I added the brawn sugar to melt on the hot oatmeal. oh Yummy!

It is always a good idea to eat some protein with carbs and sugars. It helps you to metabolize the sugars slower and reduce the chances of a sugar rush. I added some crushed pecans over the sugar. Check it out, the pecans come from the USA.

Then last but not least fresh sliced strawberries.

Doesn't this just look Delicious! Well it was quite good and so easy to make.

The next day there were no more strawberries so I though to give the mango a try. WOW!! It was so sweet. I didn't need the sugar. I still started with brown sugar and pecans, but I could have just skipped the sugar. I have a new favorite!!

Today I made my oatmeal with shaved apple pieces. It wasn't bad. Though I have to say apples are not high on my list to begin with, but with cinnimon and milk along with the sugar and pecans it was pretty good. It smelled like hot cinnimon rolls with a hint of apple. 

I have rediscovered oatmeal, and new ways to pimp it out are rolling through my imagination. I will have to keep you posted on new ways to enjoy it. The next thing in the works for a health hearty breakfast, is making some muesli that I actually like and will eat.

Tomatoes!

I am growing tomatoes this year again along with other things. I started them as seedlings a little while ago and I potted them and put them out on the balcony just the other day.

This is how the seedlings looked like at the time I potted them. They had pretty long stems already.

I re-potted the seedlings from the egg carton starters, into larger pots. In this photo, are two individually potted tomato plants with a pot of garlic on the balcony ledge. I didn't bury the stems any deeper then they were in the egg cartons.

The tomatoes have been re-potted for about two weeks now and they haven't made much progress. They look the same as they did when I first transplanted them. Well, I just read a blog entry from the web page Grown in the City, discussing some tips for starting tomato plants. Grown in the city promotes apartment and city gardening. I really have enjoyed getting tips and balcony garden inspirations. What I took from it was making sure the plants grow adequate root systems. The seedlings need to be re-potted deep, with the fresh soil up as far as the lowest leaves on the seedlings stem. That is not what I did when I re-potted them and that may have caused their slowing in growth.

So soon after reading that I got my butt in action and re-potted my 're-potted' tomato seedlings. This time I made sure they were buried deep in the soil.

The plants didn't have much root growth either. They were all still very superficial.

These three were replanted too. They all didn't have much root growth either. They wont stay stacked like this for long. I just want to make sure the one is the smaller pot (and therefore the lower sitting pot) got a good dose of sunlight after the replanting. I hope this makes a big difference and the plants take off. I am so looking forward to harvesting nice big juicy red tomatoes.

Spring Seedlings Update

My Balcony Garden is doing alright. It was pretty cool the last week but this weekend it really warmed up and the sunny sunny sun came back out from behind the perpetual Berlin clouds. I hope it stays out a little longer this time.

My Sweet peas are looking good. I will soon need to figure out how to supply them with something to grow on. I will be Jerry rigging something soon.

The garlic hasn't been doing so well. I am pretty sure they are DEAD. Well I will just have to read up again on how to properly care for them. Maybe it was just too early and too chilly. I haven't given up on Garlic. I will just have to regroup and try again.

This pot has the bell peppers and two other garlic attempts (also Dead). I need to find some bricks or something similar to prop this pot up. It gets less light being over in this corner then the pots on the other side of my balcony. Though when it is raised up a little higher it receives quite a good amount of light.

See the bell pepper seedlings popping up through the soil!!? I can't wait to see how they grow.

I moved the extra tomato plants back into the kitchen. They have been in stasis since I put them out on the balcony.

Not much growing action going on, what's the deal? To chilly? Probably. oh well.

This is a Hyacinth that I received from someone last year. I am so happy to see it is growing again this year. I had never dealt with a flower bulb before, but I remembered my mom telling me that, you leave the bulb in the soil after the flower has wilted. -She often folded the drooping leaves over on themselves and secured them with a rubber band. Like you do with a long pony tail.- This allows the plant to store nutrients in the bulb for the next season. So that is what I did last year and it worked, yeah!!

There has even been some new grown on my cactus. 

 I have had these for over two years and not much has happened to them. In fact I am surprised they are still alive. I love cactus though because you can totally forget about them for like a month and they are still there just chillin'. 

Now that I know that I can handle cactus plants, I am thinking to add a few more to my collection. Maybe something prickly this time..

Kitchen Shelves!

Along with the new shelves in the bedroom and living room, we installed shelves in the kitchen. I really needed extra space for thing, specially since I had recently received new wine glasses and coffee cups and bowls from my Guy.

 
He also had the idea of hanging my pots and pans on the wall over the stove. It really makes a difference. Everything is in easy reach, plus I just like the way it looks.

These shelves have a different style then the shelves in the bedroom and living room. First off, there are three layers of shelves instead of just one. Instead of each shelf being individually attached to the wall, we attached two long runners that the shelves supports attach too. This makes it easier to get symmetry and allows the shelves to be adjusted. 

Second, the shelves have different depths. The top shelf is the deepest, just under 12 inches. It is the highest shelf and too high for anyone to run into. The middle and bottom shelf are both just under 10 inches. The shelves are centered over the kitchen table and buffered in a sense from getting knocked into. 

The supports for the shelves are made to be attached to the boards, however we did not pay much attention to them and did not buy the right kind of screws. They seem to require quite long ones. So as of now, I have to make sure not to place to much weight on one end. That said, I know one day I am going to forget to be careful and will knock a shelf off.

I hung this piece o' art my brother made last time he visited me. He had been inspired by the Berlin Jazz Fest. It fills the blank wall space between the shelves nicely.

Along with the shelves we also added a bar to hang up the pots and pans. This is actually a security handle for a shower. It works just great in the kitchen.

In keeping with the bathroom theme in the kitchen, this was placed up over the sink to hold the soap and some times a hand towel. It is just perfect to hold the hand soap and dish soap.

I think these improvements will do for now. They are still very satisfying and I don't feel the itch to improve. Maybe in a month or two when I get some free time, I will start on my next project.

Shelves!

I have been living in this Apartment now for two years. As I said before I am finally starting to make this space feel like a home. One simple thing I have done, that has made a big difference here is adding shelves. 

Here is the new shelf in the bedroom. Very Simple, Big Improvement.

The wall was so bare I never wanted to linger here. Though this is where I keep my jewelry, I usually make a few changes to my selection before I leave. This is where I should take my time instead of rushing out of here. 

Besides a drill, all that I needed was the L shaped support thingies, screws and the board.

Tada!! I really love having this shelf here. It creates a nice little space for me to get my Girly-ness on. Right now I just have my double sided mirror here at the moment. I am keeping an eye out for a mirror to place here. But this works for now. Before when I wanted to use a mirror I had to go to the hallway mirror. Here I can at least decide on my Bling without having to constantly go out to the hall. 

This shelf really makes my bedroom feel more complete and welcoming. I still get excited about it even a few weeks after it's been put up.

Here is the shelf in the living room. It is over the TV and gives a place for the clutter that I had on top of the TV. The shelf looks warped here, I don't know why, It is completely strait and level. This photo scared me when I finally saw it on the computer. But after checking the shelf out it is fine. Optical illusion I guess.

I have to clear something up. I keep saying 'I', but really my Guy took care of these shelves. I just had to mark the boreholes with a pencil while he held it in place.

The effect of the shelf on the wall behind the TV really helps fill the space. I live in an Altbau, an older apartment building that was originally built in 1910 or so. These apartments are very common in Berlin and high ceilings are a common feature. I love the high ceilings, but sometimes they can overwhelm the space. This simple shelf has really made a difference. Step by step my Berlin apartment is coming to life!

Potting the Plants

I finally cleaned out the dead Autumn plants from the pots on the balcony.

They sat there like this all winter! They stayed frozen most the time.

 

These plants, lasted so long into Winter, still in the end they ended up looking nasty. Now that they are in the trash and the pots have fresh soil, I can transplant the little starters. Below are a few sweet pea plants. I look forward to seeing how far they spread along my balcony.

I had started some seeds in egg cartons in my kitchen window. I decided to go ahead and transplant them now. It is much earlier then I would normally transplant. I think they need some more time, but it has been warm and sunny all week. I think they are not getting enough light on the kitchen windowsill. It only receives afternoon and  some evening light. On the balcony the plants get way more time in the Sun, besides it was not a good set up on the windowsill. It was messy and some of the egg cartons were loosing a bit of their form. And REALLY  I was ready to get them out of my kitchen.

The little tomato plants look good, most ended up to be about the same size as the one here.

Balcony right corner: Before

Balcony right corner:After    Fresh pot with bell peppers and garlic.

Up on the ledge I have some tomato plants. They will need to be re-potted again as well as the two garlic plants. Check out the background. I live on a very busy street in Neukölln, Berlin.

I needed a another container for the tomato plants. I didn't have any more of the black plastic plant pots. I found this in the sink from last night's delicious peach tart. It was so yummy. Anyway,  I just think it looks cute and it is temporary anyway, no harm no foul.

I ended up with the peas here in the large pot with some spinach and greens. The center pot has flowers and the thinner pot has some lettuce and a tomato plant. This blue thing is also only for the time being. I need to think on it and maybe get some accessories to have this little space come together. I loving watching my garden grow.