And the Green Grass Grows All Around

I housesat for my parents last week so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to take a few snapshots of their backyard. My dad has quite the green thumb, so he has a bunch of herbs and tomatoes and he's even started a little vineyard. My mom does the flowers and she's been dabbling with succulent gardens as well. Behind their house is a huge field, with a levee that leads to the beach in one direction, and the outskirts of East Oceanside in the other direction. And behind that levee is the San Luis Rey river where my friends and I, and our dog Kuma, would play.

Also, when I stay at my parents' house I bring my plant babies because well, they need constant supervision. haha. In addition, my parents have a ton of bamboo in their backyard! ANNNND a turtle pond! They rescued two turtles - Kanye and Mrs. West (even though they're both boys) - from my cousin who had them in a tiny aquarium. Now they swim free in a pond with some oversized goldfish.

I feel like I've used an overabundance of connecting adverbs, THEREFORE, I apologize for that. har har har. Anyway. Enjoy my parents' backyard!

"I'll see you in another life, brothah"

Sorry. I'm rewatching LOST and I just started season 2.

ANYWAY. So I made these vegetable croquettes and they turned out pretty damn good. I saw Ina make 'em on Barefoot Contessa and I wanted to try and make my own!

First, grate a couple potatoes, a zuchini, and a carrot. I only had baby carrots, so I didn't use much carrot. I grated a couple and then I found myself dangerously close to grating my own fingertips. So I stopped that nonsense. I also didn't have any paper towels so I had to let the gratings air dry... on a dish towel.
While that stuff dried I got together the dry stuff. I mixed about a 1/2 cup of flour, 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs, a tsp. of baking powder, salt, pepper, and various chopped herbs from my garden: parsley, dill, rosemary, and thyme.

After I gave the gratings a good ol' fashioned pat down, i mixed them in a bowl with a few cloves of chopped garlic and a beaten egg. With my hands I mushed it all together and started adding the dry stuff until it was all goopy and sticky and gross. Yay! Gross! Then, in your hands, roll them into balls and set them on wax paper to get ready for their frying destiny.

Look at those little guys. Look at 'em!!! So after I balled these guys up I also put a little more bread crumbs on them, just to add a little extra crunch when I fried em. So in a pan, heated with oil (you know its hot enough when you can see swirlies in the oil when you shake the pan) set your ball in, crumby side down. Then press it to flatten it a little bit, and sprinkle some crumbies on there, that way when you flip it there're crumbs on that side too.

Now you wanna see something really ghetto? So you know how I said I didn't have any paper towels? Well... I've got to dry the oily goobers on something. I don't have paper towels, but I do have construction paper!



Mmm mmm mmm! Tasty little crispy critters!