September started out with quite a bit of grey and rain... including one storm where we lost power for a number of hours due to a lightning strike at the end of our block. Gotta love those live wires. All the neighbors were out watching, but from the safety and dryness of the porch (me included - you can see how heavily it was raining by looking at the street). Thankfully, no one was hurt, there wasn't any damage, and the fire department and PECO came out pretty quickly to fix things.
While the rain might've dampened our spirits a bit (ooh! seven points for the bad pun!), our garden LOVED it! We've had a really great first year with our backyard garden (the 10 or so square feet of it that isn't concrete), and we've enjoyed getting additional veggies from our community garden CSA as well. I sadly didn't take a picture, but for the past month and a half, we've had a collection of about 20-30 tomatoes in our fridge. I kid you not. I've been specifically researching recipes tat use lots of tomatoes (besides spaghetti sauce, though we've made a few deliciously fresh batches), but it seemed no matter how quickly I used them, there were more! Good problem to have, huh? We're now finally down to about 5 tomatoes, but that hasn't stopped us from enjoying lots of Caprese salads. Below are a couple shots of some of the basil and peppers from our backyard... pretty delicious, huh? 
One new culinary discovery for me this month - toasted garlic! I am a bit of a garlic addict, but I had never actually toasted it before. However, it's so delicious and so easy (and so much quicker than roasting), and I'm now a big fan. You just pop a few unpeeled cloves into a skillet over medium heat, and wait about 5 minutes until they start to develop small brown spots on the outside. Then, peel them and it's toasty soft garlicky goodness after that.
On the fun side of things, Josh and I have been rediscovering Rock Band. It'd been a while since we had played (mostly due to my gimp wrist), but we've been getting back into the swing of things lately. Josh usually plays drums, but here he's reacquainting with his old friend, the guitar...
September 22 was also a pretty important day... Josh's birthday! I love birthdays. Especially when they're for people I really love. And Josh would be one of those people. So it was pretty fun. We had a game night/mini celebration with some friends, which included an infamous Rainbow Cake (!) with chocolate frosting, crumbled candy bar topping (you bet), and lots and lots of candles on it....
As September came to a close, the weather finally began to realize it was time to change, and the leaves started turning. We went from the mid-80s and high humidity one week to the low 60s the next. I love the summer, but I can't deny that I am looking forward to the excitement and change this Fall wind is bringing. It's a new season in Philadelphia, and I'm ready to jump in and see what's in store (and go crunch a few leaves, too).
Did I mention it was a NEON Rainbow Cake?!
Birthday celebrations in the Chen household wouldn't be complete without playing at least one board game... so we gave Fury of Dracula (Josh's birthday present, as it was) a go. It's a pretty sweet game. Josh played Dracula and the rest of us were hunters trying to catch him. Needless to say, he creamed us. (Though we did beat him the next week when Lydia, Joao, and Danielle came to visit.)
As September came to a close, the weather finally began to realize it was time to change, and the leaves started turning. We went from the mid-80s and high humidity one week to the low 60s the next. I love the summer, but I can't deny that I am looking forward to the excitement and change this Fall wind is bringing. It's a new season in Philadelphia, and I'm ready to jump in and see what's in store (and go crunch a few leaves, too).
2 comments:
The garden is amazing and I'm envious. I grow basil, lavender, spearmint, cilantro and something else that hasn't bloomed on my windowsill. But what I would give for a garden. Sometimes I want to move in with De just for his backyard. I would make a magical kingdom and garden with his backyard.
Well, it's quite small, but we've really enjoyed it. We didn't do cilantro this year, but I definitely want to add it for next year! We're probably going to need to transplant some of our stuff inside soon... I definitely want to bring everything we can inside! I've gotten used to having fresh everything all the time, and I don't really want to go back to dried herbs. BTW, we have a cuban oregano that I think you would LOVE.
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