Bastard kept gleefully smashing my poor plants with his asteroids!
[Image description: board game at the end of the game, after counting up points. Cards and pieces are splayed all over, and a red and a blue player markers are sitting on the same square on the scoreboard.]
[Image description: a blue bowl with fettuccini pasta with meatballs in an orange sauce, topped with grated parmesan and diced sage.]
Rough recipe:
-Start your pasta (I used fettuccine) and broil your meatballs. I was lazy and used pre-cooked meatballs from Costco that just need a little browning.
-Saute thinly sliced shallots in oil until they started to brown, added in diced garlic, pepper, and some dried Italian seasoning blend.
-Once those cooked to golden, I pushed them to the edge of my pan. I'm using a pan that's really too big for the burner, but by moving where the heat is at, it allows me to keep the onion/garlic mixture warm without cooking further. A normal recipe would say remove from pan, but I'm lazy and don't want to clean the extra dish.
-On the hot side of the pan, add a bunch of oil and a small can of tomato paste. Fry the paste in the oil until the excess water is driven out. You'll know it's ready when you start seeing little brown caramelization patches as you stir the paste.
-Start adding splashes of vodka to the paste, stirring and adding until the mixture has cooled enough that the alcohol isn't immediately boiling off.
-Turn the heat down and add chopped fresh sage, oregano, thyme, and a little bit of rosemary, and mix back in the onion/garlic.
-Add a splash of heavy cream until it reaches the right shade of orange.
-Once your pasta is al dente, add it to the pan and mix into the sauce. Add ladles of the pasta water to loosen the sauce as needed.
-Add the meatballs and serve, topped with grated parmesan and diced sage.
[Image description: A brown and white tabby cat on a couch near a window, cat has one paw out towards the camera with spread claws.]
Yep, it's pretty darn dry where I'm at. The drip irrigation I use doesn't fall under our current water restrictions, but I still try to not use excessive amounts. I also mulch everywhere and add increasing layers as the weather heats up.
This is my soil from when I was weeding yesterday, plenty moist and look at all those worms!
Yep! Some previous owner of my house put in an absolutely massive pool that takes up 95% of the backyard, so I smothered my front lawn with mulch and built my garden there!
The bermuda grass is tenacious though, really have to stay on top of yanking it where it tries to reestablish. You'll see patches of it if you look in the background of the lower photo, but it's a war of attrition I think I'm slowly winning.
I'm located in inland southern California, zone 9b. Normally I'd be harvesting ripe tomatoes by now, but I'm certainly not complaining about this cooler weather. This is the second year I've grown tomatoes over this arch, really love how it looks when fully covered.
I'm in inland southern California, and I've never thought about growing bay leaves. I don't think I've seen it at my local nursery, where did you get yours?