I feel stronger today, like my old energy is back so I tackled home cooking today. Or rather I taught my daughter, Twin I, how to make omurice and miso soup.
First she cooked leftover rice that was in the fridge overnight with some leftover tocino and leeks. Normally you put dollops of ketchup in the rice but my kids don’t like ketchup. Photo by CallMeCreation.com.Then I taught her how to make a plain and thin omelette. Photo by CallMeCreation.comWe assembled the rice first then covered it with the omelette and shaped it like this. Topped with slivers of leeks. Photo by CallMeCreation.com.
I also taught her how to make miso soup using soybean paste and kombu or dried kelp. Omurice and and miso soup for brunch today.
Then I felt more energetic than I expected so I tackled my container garden that was already so neglected that it looked like a forest full of detritus and detritus feeders.
First, I tried to save my birds of paradise plant from falling over because it was being pushed down by the neighbor’s trash. Then I’m teaching it to lean the other way. This is already the daughter plant (that grew from a sucker). The mother plant that I bought from my hometown in December died as it was not able to acclimatize in the city. Good thing the daughter survived and is growing another leaf. Tonight I transferred it to a more shady part of the courtyard so the leaves won’t be burned by the noon sun. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Then I tackled the dried leaves that kept falling from the old mango tree and the soil that was dug up by neighborhood stray cats. I took out the neighbor’s trash that they stuffed between their motorbike and my pots. Annoying really, because there was a lot. I pulled out the dead plants that I neglected and some weeds. The big one at the back is a taro plant. I tried pulling it out to check if there’s already taro but that damned thing was stubborn. The bigger plants at the back are fruit trees that I learned to be lanzones, kaimito and rambutan. And they will all go to my cousin who has a garden. I don’t have a place to transfer my fruit trees from my pot. The wire shelving was pulled out from my laundry area and it was just languishing there. It used to hold my pots and pans in the cooking area. Some survivors are my birdseye chilis. I will be sowing some vegetable seeds in the empty pots tomorrow. Photo by CallMeCreation.comHere are some of the surviving birdseye chilis that I quarantined as some of the other surviving siblings are being attacked by some kind of pest, maybe aphids. At the back planted in some old upside down plastic Coke bottles are some Sansivieria bacularis that I started to propagate. The ones in the water are the other bacularis that I separated from the mother plant that will be transferred to other pots when I have the chance to buy potting soil.These are the mother Sansivieria bacularis. They started as small plants in small Japanese cups that we bought from Quezon City Circle gardens for PHP 35 each in 2018. They were dying indoors probably because of lack of light so I took them out and transferred them to bigger pots. Look at how they have thrived outdoors. I think this unruly mother plant would have to be thinned out and I propagate the daughters. I planted seeds of ornamental flowers in these recycled mineral water bottles. These are next to my front windows so when they start to flower, I will be looking at my flowers through my window every morning when I have my breakfast.Since everyone is stuck at home, my neighbors in the apartment compound also started growing plants in pots and plant boxes. Yup, that’s my bike that I haven’t folded yet. I’ll probably clean and oil that tomorrow. My neighbors also are growing papaya trees, some Malabar spinach (that vine) and moringa tree. They said I can freely gather the leaves if I want to use them for cooking.
Tomorrow I will be composting some rotten guyabano fruits and cantaloupe that I wasn’t able to eat. I will gather the seeds first and let’s see if I can grow them. My squash died during the non-stop monsoon rains in July and August. Also some neighborhood stray cats started digging into my pots. Next time I will make some trellises so my squash would have somewhere to crawl or attach to.
Later tonight I will be ordering 20 meters of solar-powered fairy lights from Lazada that I will twirl around the mango tree then hang across the container garden towards my apartment’s overhang and hang it loosely there. It would be very pretty every night so my girls and I can sit outside while we grill or just hang out since the heavy rains have already stopped. Plus Christmas is coming soon. I will be ordering more curtain fairy lights to hang against my curtains in my living room window.
