First one's in the shop finally! The rest should come quicker. I'm starting on some more tonight! Whee!!
Hello, Boxy!
Chinese Pumpkin Cake
If this picture looks familiar to you, it's because it's from my one of my trips to China. During a trip to Xiamen, we stopped in a teahouse for tea and some pumpkin cakes or 南瓜饼 (nangua bing). Just a few days ago, I had tried my first fried pumpkin cake at the hotel breakfast buffet. It had been sitting on the hotplate for a bit and was no longer crispy, but since I'd never had them before, I didn't complain. It tasted like a fried mochi, orange in color, slightly sticky, chewy and filled with red bean paste in the middle. mmmm.....
Well, that plate of cakes in Xiamen a year and a half ago was the last time I had Chinese pumpkin cakes. I've been craving them enough lately to attempt to make them myself. It took me a while to find a good recipe before I settle on this one. Five ingredients; glutinous rice flour, pumpkin, sugar, wheat flour and bean paste. Easy. I think you can omit the wheat flour or use something called wheat starch instead of wheat flour. Anyway...it was very easy. They're delicious, much better than the ice cream mochis I tried to make the other day. I didn't bother photographing those because it was such a sticky mess of rice flour dough, corn starch and melting ice cream. 
Before and after frying. Oh yummy! I fried a few to eat immediately, and I stored the rest in the fridge to be fried when I want some more later. Love the colour of the dough. I used half of a japanese kabocha pumpkin, steamed, mashed and mixed into the dough.
I think it's worth the time savings to use bean paste from a can, though I do find it much too sweet. To compensate, I halved the sugar in the pumpkin dough. perfect!
Three Little Cubes
I wanted to wait until I had some of these in the shop before I blogged them. But I finally determined last night that the dimensions are not quite right. I love the cube size, but the opening needs to be bigger and the zipper a little longer. So, this cube project is on hold until I order my next batch of zippers. On the other hand, I do have the supplies to make some longer boxy bags. They'll be just like these little cubes, but longer. 
The pink elephant cube was the first one I made. Turned out well for a first try, eh? The interfacing wasn't heavy enough, so I made another one interfaced with fleece (the polka dot one). Hmmm...the fleece gives it a nice quilty feel, but it doesn't give the cube much shape. I do however love how the polka dots look with the red. I'll have to make some more with this fabric combo. Lucky I have a whole duvet of this stuff! I think I finally got the interfacing right with the blue cube. YAY! On to the next step!
My Garden
Our small yard sadly isn't much conducive to vegetable gardening. Since we're renting and hoping to move soon, there's no point in digging up the the owners' nicely "landscaped" yard. The yard is only about the size of a small bedroom, so I don't know that "landscaped" is the right word. Plus we don't cut the grass much, and it looks pretty unkempt most of the time. And a good portion of the yard is a pile of dressed up rocks meant to cover up a drain or hatch or something possibly mysterious. Regardless, it looks nice, but it's not a great space to plant food.
But...we do have a west facing balcony with lots of sun. My plants seem to be doing well in the sun. I always plant basil and tomatoes, but this year I'm also growing mint and strawberries! I got a bunch of fresh mint for a dollar at the farmers market, stuck them in some water, and waited for them to root. I just planted them, so we'll see how they grow. I should have a mess of mint in no time since mint is pretty much like a weed. 
Basil! Organic sweet basil and lots of thai basil. I tried to grow thai basil last year but they all started rotting even though my pots had drainage holes on the bottom. Here's a tip that's helped me; put some rocks in the bottom of the pot before you put the soil in. It helps with the drainage so that the soil doesn't turn into a swampy sludge at the bottom of the pot. I harvested some rocks from the pile in our yard, how convenient.
Once again, the thai basil were all rooted from pieces I brought back from a phở restaurant or from cuttings from the asian supermarket. Easy peasy, stick 'em in water and watch them root!
I have two kinds of strawberries, one seems to be producing better berries than the other. The other berries look like they didn't get pollinated, since all they produced were tiny red fruits that are smaller than a pencil eraser. I wish I could plant these in the ground so they could spread... I recommend trying a fresh-picked strawberry straight from the plant while it's still warm from the sun. Yummy! One day I'd love to start planting lettuce and potatoes, too...and also some Chinese vegetables. When I was little, my mom used to plant all sorts of vegetables; I remember snow peas, tomatoes, chinese greens and corn! The corn was small, but it was so fresh! but there was a problem with deer coming in the night to eat our corn right off the stalks. ah, memories.
Lastly, this is how long the grass was before I cut it. It's hard to tell, but it went up to my knees. Oh, and did I mention that I cut by hand? I mean to say, I cut the lawn with a pair of scissors. We don't own any grass trimmers or yard clippers or anything, and I wasn't about to use my dwindling savings on yard tools. So one day, I spent a pleasant afternoon outside with the compost bin and a pair of scissors trimming the grass. Our yard is so small, it actually didn't take long at all, maybe an hour. I enjoyed it. I'd do it again. 
Zakka Basket
After many weeks on the waiting list, I finally got to check out Zakka Sewing from the library. I made this little basket for my clothespins today. Aw, isn't it cute? I'd been keeping them in a plastic bag with the intention of finding something cute to keep them in. It was easy...took less than an hour to make. I made it from two old pillowcases I had in my stash and some quilt batting. 
