Apartment Grown Food!

So easy, any city dweller can do it.

I've just started with a couple of herbs, basil and rosemary. Check out my first batch of fresh basil!



I wanted to do some internal house cleaning, so I ended up putting this whole batch into the blender with some olive oil, a splash of raw apple cider vinegar, sea salt and garlic. Made this into a dressing for a bulky salad of dandelion greens, sprouts, radish, nori seaweed bits, and just a few crushed walnuts.

It's great to eat a cleansing salad like this and the KEY is CHEW CHEW CHEW. Visualize the food inside of your mouth (no, you can't see it with your eyes, but you can see it with your tongue), and do not swallow until your food is chewed most excellently. Improper mastication is a real problem for one's digestive health.

Here's the rosemary plant!



I clipped several branches today and processed that with some Celtic sea salt to make rosemary salt. I sprinkled the salt on another cleansing salad and it was oh so nice. The salt is easy to make. Start with 1 part rosemary and 2 parts salt. In a food processor, pulse the herbs and add the salt in batches until fully combined and the rosemary is little tiny bits. Do not over do it - you just want the salt and rosemary to come together.


Another ritual I've acquired is brewing sun tea.


Green Tea with Acai and Lemon Grass (this is the second go with the lemon grass, which are the twigs you see in the bottle)

Sun brewing is great for any tea, but you really want to try this with delicate teas like green or white teas. Green teas generally need to brew at lower temperatures (175 degrees), and if you're pouring hot water from a kettle over the leaves it's best to let it steep for 3 and NOT MORE THAN 5 minutes, or else it will get bitter. You don't have to worry about all of those rules with sun tea. Throw your most delicate teas into a glass jar or bottle and leave it where it can get direct sunlight (the picture above was taken in the morning. it gets direct light later in the day). Just forget about it all day, then bring it in at night and voila! Perfectly brewed.

I happened to acquire some fresh dried lemon grass from a friend's garden, which I've been using for sun tea. This one is best after at least a day and a half, but normal teas usually just take a day. Play around with it and see what works for you. Try using any herbs or hearty flowers from your garden.