Category: Food and Restaurants

Cryogenic made a good point in that it's a little premature to put these blog entries into the Food and Restaurant category. He was right, I killed 2 of the plants already :-(

I'd like to say it wasn't my fault, but hey, it kinda was. It was a 30 degree celsius plus day and I didn't give one pot enough water, so the 2 plants in that one pot shrivelled up and died. Oh well, the other 5 plants that are doing quite well now.

Here's a picture of the progress. The remaining plants are now starting to sprout new leaves! One plant was really sad looking and always sitting on the ground, so I propped him up with a few toothpicks.

In other gardening news... I bought myself a frangipani cutting from the local garden nursery. It's a red variety and probably deciduous. I replanted it in a pretty, black, glossy pot and hope it's not going to grow over 2 metres. Can't wait until spring when I hope it's going to have its first flowers.

Here's a picture of the frangipani:

I also bought some more frangipani seeds. Exotic varieties that look really pretty. It should be interesting propagating them from a seed! I just wonder what I'm going to do with so many different frangipani plants! I don't exactly have enough room to keep them all once they grow up. Luckily they grow slowly and I can always pawn them off to friends and family.

Finally got around to taking a couple of photos of the cherry tomato seedlings.

This one is what one of the seedlings look like in its final pot.

I ended up repositioning this seedling more to the side so I could fit a second seedling in the same pot.

This next one is a close up of the seeding.

The first of the cherry tomato plants have been transplanted from their baby pot into the "grown up" pot. It looks a little funny having this small, thin piece of greenery with 2 baby leaves sitting in a rather large 5 litre pot.

The other seedlings are just sprouting from their baby pot. One of them will probably be ready for the grown up pot either tonight or tomorrow morning, and the other 5 seedlings should be ready in a couple of day's time.

So far there are a total of 7 cherry tomato plants that have (so far) successfully germintated. It's probably too many plants just for 2 people so I'm planning to off load about 4 of them once they're large enough and don't require as much attention.

I forgot the camera yesterday, so no photos yet, but I won't forget today!

It's been less than I week and the cherry tomato seeds had sprouted and needed to be transferred into some soil. One of the seeds even broke through the soil and have 2 cute little leaves on them.

So far so good. It's a pity I don't have photos of the first two stages with the seeds on the paper towel and the initial sprouting of the seeds. Not that they're so exciting, but I just like to document things :)

Anyway, I'll post photos of the first cherry tomato sprout later today or tonight.

I'm going to try to grow cherry tomato plants and thought I'd document my success or failure at germinating and growing them.

This should be interesting since I'm not very good at keeping plants alive, let alone trying to grow one from a seed.

I've taken the first step of harvesting cherry tomato seeds. I ate about half a dozen or so just to get 7 seeds :) I hope that's enough, if not, I'll gladly eat another half a dozen to get another 7 seeds ;)

I removed the slimy coating from the seeds, laid them out on a piece of kitchen paper towel on a plate, gave them some water and stuck the plate in the kitchen pantry. So far so good.

I'm meant to keep them moist at all times and if all goes well, they'll sprout in a few days.

I'll post photos once I have a camera in my possession.

Eat as you like, pay as you feel

That's the concept behind Annalakshmi, a buffet-style, vegetarian Indian restaurant situated on the Swan River of Perth, Western Australia.

Annalakshmi is one of my favourite restaurants. Not because of the food (which is prepared by volunteers and quite tasty), not because of the view (which is STUNNING to say the least, I feel so lucky to be living in Perth), not because of the atmosphere (which has an air of traditional India with statues of various Hindu deities, intricately decorated tables and chairs and the volunteers were dressed in saris and salwar kameez) and not because of the service (which is super-friendly, they make you feel like you're part of their family) but because of their concept.

At Annalaksmi, you can eat to your heart's content, since it's a buffet, and on your way out, you pay however much (or little!) you feel like paying. It's like a donation and in return, you get a meal of traditional, vegetarian Indian food. It's a nice feeling knowing that some of the proceeds will go towards food and medical services for the underprivileged in India.

The last time I was there, some street kids came in for a feed and it warms my heart to see that the volunteers served and treated these kids no different than other patrons. I could see their kindness shining through and I was sitting on the other side of the room!

Website: Annalakshmi.

So I'm sitting here sipping some chai and thought I'd might as well share the recipe I'm using.

Chai is spiced tea of Indian origin and one of my favourite beverages, next to coffee.

There's dozens and dozens of ways to make chai, but this is the recipe that I used to make the chai that I'm drinking right now.

This isn't meant to be a strict recipe, I like to vary the recipe depending on my mood, but the general recipe is...

Ingredients for 2 cups

2 cups of water
8 cloves
8 cardamon pods
1/2 to 1 cinnamon stick/quill
4 to 8 black peppercorns
4 tsp sugar
1/2 cup milk
2-3 teabags of good quality, strong black tea

Instructions

1. Add the water and spices to a saucepan and bring to boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Add sugar and milk and bring to boil then turn off heat.
3. Add the teabags to the spiced, milky water and steep for 3 minutes.
4. Strain, serve immediately and enjoy.

Notes
- Add two pea sized mashed up ginger pieces to water with other spices if you have fresh ginger (I didn't, so I omitted it but it does taste nicer with ginger).
- Sweetness of chai is up to the drinker. If you like it sweeter, use more sugar, if you like is less sweet, use less sugar. Same thing goes with milk (I'm partially lactose intolerant so I don't use much milk in my chai, but it does taste nicer with more milk).
- You can substitute sugar with honey and milk with soy milk (for the veg's).
- I've been told that this is masala chai.
- About chai @ Wikipedia