I love it when it gets big.

 Update on my garden.
look how BIG it has gotten. I am SO proud. It keeps growing and growing!

 Look at the collards they are huge!
And my tomatoes are standing all big and proud. :) Its been about 40 and they are doing so good. Roughly 50 more days to go till I get full beautiful fruit. I can't wait!

 Lettuce is big and such a pretty green

 My Oregano, parsley, and thyme are all healthy, we use them all the time! I swear they are like weeds, they grow so fast.

 Peppers bigger. The one in the yellow wasn't doing so well where it was, so we moved it to the other side of the porch next to its "brother" and it perked right up!

Look how close it is to fruiting. Eeeee *squeal of happiness*

Here I've added some basil because well, no herb garden is complete without basil right? Also as you can see the broccoli has tripled in size!

Lookit my strawberry, I can't wait for them to be ripe! Fresh strawberry short cake? Yes please!!!

I hope you enjoy my garden growing as much as I do!

Do you suggest anything for me to add?

Spicy orange Salmon with Avocado rolls

The other day I was in the mood for something fresh.
I was so tired of my good old fashioned home cooked comfort food *gasp!*
Soooo I changed it up a bit.
Chipotle orange salmon and Avocado spring rolls.
Let me tell you, this was absolutely deeeeeeeelicious!
The salmon was spicy, yet sweet and tangy.
The rolls were crunchy on the outside and creamy and smooth on the inside.
Perfect fix for my comfort food rut.
I got the general idea this dinner from Good Housingkeeping, and Life Ann Style. Though I did add, take away, and just changed some things about the recipes.

What you'll need:
3 Salmon filet
2 chipotle chile in adobo sauce
1 tsp red chili paste
2 tsp adobo sauce
3 cloves garlic, peeled (I like garlic, can you tell?)
1/2 cup orange juice


4 avocados
1/2 a red onion
Some jar sundried tomatoes
Cilantro paste
4 pieces of bacon
Spring roll pastries (These are hard to find, But kroger has them in the produce/health food section)

NOW lets start cooking 
Line a deep basin cookie sheet with tin foil, this makes for easy clean up!
And throw your salmon on that
Now preheat the oven to broil, we want it HOT
In a food processor or blender squish up the Chipolte chilies, garlic, adobo sauce, chili paste, and orange juice. Spicy yet sweet!
Cover your salmon in the chili paste
Broil for 5-10 min on the middle rack of the oven.

Now for the Spring rolls

Cut your avocados into chunks, chop up your onions, and tear your bacon.
Mix them all together with your cilantro paste and sun dried tomatoes.
Now, take that mixture and put about a spoon full on a corner of a spring roll pastry
Roll about 1/2 way, then fold in the sides making it stick by using a bit of water on your finger tip
Then finish rolling, again using water to make it stick.
Repeat till all your avocado mixture is gone.
Heat up some veggie oil in a fry pan and drop your spring rolls in it, once the pastry is golden brown they are done.

Yummy yummy yummy.
So fresh, so tasty, soooooooo good.

If you made to many avocado rolls, they freeze really well, and when you want some pop them in the microwave frozen and cook for 2 min (on a 1100 watt microwave)


When you are in the mood for something fresh what do you cook?

Boy did my garden grow!

So, as we know I planted a garden in a bath tub
Well it has grown!
I get so excited when I see that my plants have gotten bigger!
I also mulched the top of it to help keep soil moist and keep down weeds and pests.

I couldn't stop there!
I found out you can buy edible plants and seed with EBT/SNAP card!
Sooooo we got more. :)

Broccoli and Strawberries

Orange peppers, Red peppers

Spicy oregano, German thyme
Yellow peppers

Romaine lettuces, and Cucumber

And down here, you can barley see Cantaloupe, Tomatoes, and Onion.
Next week I'm planting yellow and red potatoes!

The clear buckets were part of a storage drawer system, we just poked holes in the bottom.
And the colored buckets were a dollar each! They are waste baskets from the dollar tree.

Love watching my plants grow!

Bathtub turned Raised flower bed

 So my MIL has a random tub sitting on her porch

Its been there for quite some time laying on its side taking up room

I figured that it would make a great planter!

 We moved it to the edge of the porch that gets the most sun light.
Drilled holes into it.
(thats what he said)

We filled it with a layer of gravel rocks

Some sand

Then dirt.

LOTS OF DIRT.

Luckly for us there was enough top soil scattered about around her house that we didn't have to buy any.

 We then added some chicken wire to the back of the tub to provide a trellis for some plants to climb.

Ooo now its a tub of dirt.

So off to home depo to buy some seeds.

Honestly if I had it my way I'd get some seeds from a local organic farmer.

But this year we didn't have the time or money for it.

So home depo seeds have to do.

This is the layout of the garden.

Or a garden map if you will.

Theres cherry tomatoes and Big boy tomatoes. 

Which we are germinating inside and will transplant outside in a few weeks.

Parsley, then green beans.

Garlic below the parsley.

Carrots and collard greens in the bottom row.

Not a whole bunch of stuff, but enough fresh to add to a mostly canned food diet!

And its a small enough amount of veggies that my MIL can keep it neat.

Now the question, should I spray paint the tub and make it cute?

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Fixing the house

This weekend we went back to the trailer and unloaded stuff and did some fixing up.
We reinforced the bedroom floor and put in carpet.
Added our bed and the computer.
It looks so much nicer.

Today me and my mom and Henry went up there and cleared out the cinder blocks and did some cleaning.
It smells and looks 100% nicer!
Still have a lot of work to do but so far so good!

Henry is helping in his exersaucer. :)
Still have to reinforce and put floors in the livingroom but thats for next week.

So still a lot of work to do but I'm so excited to keep working on it!
:) I can't wait till I "move in"

New house

YAY I'm moving!!!!
I'm so excited to get out of here.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my parents.
I love that they have given me the oppertunity to live with them while I was pregnant.
I'm just so ready to have my own place.

So its not really a house.
and its not nice.
But it will be our place. :)

The view from the front porch

The front porch

My bedroom. (New carpet will be put in this weekend)



SOOOOOOO its not the ost perfect of places but its going to be nice.
Even if I have to make it nice.
It'll be my kind of nice.
I'ma make it into a home.

I'm excited :)