Tempura Avacado and Shrimp

Have I ever mentioned that I live with a chef? My fiance Kevin is one of the most amazing cooks EVER! We love watching Hell's Kitchen togehter and it also helps encourage us to try new dishes. Earlier this summer I came home to Kevin cooking up something new. First thing Stir Fry. He cut up and mixed cooked shrimp, onion, green peppers, chives and garlic together. Then he hallowed out some avacado halves and spooned in some of the shrimp mix. Next he whipped together a tempura batter similar to what you would get at a sushi restraunt. He then took the halves, dipped them in the tempura batter and deep fried them. The sauce he used was a spicy yet sweet asian sauce he got at the store. I must say, this was one of the most amazing things he's made! SOOOO delicious!!!

SUNFLOWERS SUNFLOWERS SUNFLOWERS

I'm loving my sunflowers this year. Earlier this summer I didn't think they were turning out so well, but my 'mamouth' sunflowers really blasted off in the last few weeks. I usually just do your traditional sunflower, but this summer I decided to try something new. I added some red sunflowers and mamouth sunflowers. I was really excited this week because my mamouth sunflowers were almost TOUCHING THE SKY! Here are hte pics!!

Yellow Submarine

My friend Kathryn is a HUGE Beatles fan. She's been a fan of theirs for so long I just immediately think of her when someone mentions The Beatles. SO, when I came accross this blue fleece with yellow submarines on it I imediately knew this would have to be her blanket! I like to put alot of thought into the blankets I make for others. I want it to really reflect who they are, what they like, or somehow make me think of them when I see it. Sadly I've had the fleece material for probably over a year now and have just been incredibly lazy and not made it. I finally lit the fire under me to get this thing made! It only takes me about 1 hour to make this so it's super easy to do.. I've just been lazy w/ my crafts the last year! With this first pic I am pinning the blue fabric to 2 yards of yellow fleece.

Now that it's pinned up around the edges it's time to sew it together. I moved the sewing machine downstairs so I could watch TV while I was sewing.

Now that it's done I trim the edges off, pull it all inside out so that the right side is facing out and close up the small opening.

Sunflower storm...

First I have some exciting news! I have some HUGE zucchini's growing out in the garden right now. Yesterday I picked two of them. I also have some 8 ball zucchini plants growing as a test to see if the plants really are more compact than regular zucchini plants. So far I'm not buying it.. The 8 ball zucchini plants are a bit more compact like the package said.. but I just don't feel they are small enough not to plant regular zucchini's next year. My regular zucchini plants produce such LARGE zucchini's I feel I'm going to get more bang for my buck. Here is what I picked yesterday!! Just about an hour ago I was getting ready to head out, but needed to take some trash out before I left. A thunderstorm had just rolled through, but it wasn't too bad so I didn't think much of it.. To my suprise the winds of that storm TOOK DOWN on of my SUNFLOWERS!!!!!! OMG.. the horror.. Here is the long stalk against the house while I'm trying to figure out if I should dig a hole to put it in.. or if I should just cut off all the flowers. It's a multi flower sunflower and had 14 little flowers getting ready to push out on it... Further to the left you can see the cluster of sunflowers I planted that are pushed out from the house after a storm we had a few weeks ago.

I'm NOT having good luck with my sunflowers this year... I tried digging a hole and putting it in it.. but it just fell over again.. so.. dreadfully I cut off the top and cut off all the small flowers growing along the stalk and brought them in the house.

NOT how I was planning on enjoying my first sunflower out this year... but lets see what we can do with it. The big main sunflower had TONS of ants in it, so it couldn't stay in the house. I was able to put 12 of the sunflowers growing in a cute little black pitcher and they are now sitting out on the patio to get sun and love. I have no idea if they are going to grow out there or not.. but I guess we'll find out. For a smaller sunflower it had a luckier life. It had no ants in it and got to take a place in a nice little set of flowers I bought earlier today at Kroger. They are some interesting little flowers and I thought they'd be cool to have out w/ some greenery... and now they get a sunflower with them!!! In the shot glasses I put the smallest sunflowers that were growing on the stalk! Ignore the birthday bag in the background.. that's a gift on it's way out to Rhode Island!!!

The start of a beautiful garden!!!

Last year I planted sunflowers, zucchini, and yellow squash. We also got a few strawberry plants and rasberry plants from Kevin's grandmother. This year the sunflowers multiplied by like 20 and the rasberries have tripled in size. This year I decided to try some new things. I love zucchini, but don't like how much space the plants take up. I found these awesome plants called '8 ball zucchini' plants. They are going to come out looking like a zucchini ball!! I can't wait!!! I also planted some 'green bean' plants, bell peppers, and tomatos.

This is my area in the back of the house. From the right to left are the 8 ball zucchini, tomato plants, and garden beans on the right. I planted bell peppers to the right of the zucchini, but they didn't come up so I replanted them on the side of the house and we'll see if they come up.

This is the 'Garden Bean'

We ripped up this side of the house for more garden space. I have more zucchini planted here, tomato plants, chives, and bell peppers. I also found some dried Jolokia skins today and some had seeds in them so I sprinkled them in as well. We'll see what comes up!

SUNFLOWERS!!!!! I have started my row of sunflowers along the front of the porch. LOVE how these turned out last year! I'm going to start digging up all the grass in this area so it's easier to manage and prevent them from getting run over by the lawn mower.

More sunflowers on the side of the house Rasberries!!