amazing worms love mustard

Isn't this the prettiest worm you've ever seen? It was for me when we found them snarfing on our mustard plants. We tried to keep them alive to see what they would 'grow' into but, they didn't make it.

growing my own spices

There's nothing like have herbs and spices to cook with! And there's nothing like not having herbs and spices to cook with. While there are many wonderful ingredients to be found in the markets here in Xela....there are a few things that I have grown accustom to cooking with that are not to be found! My solution? Grow them! Mustard seeds are something I incorporated into my cooking while living in Portland, Oregon some years back. I was going to traditional Indian food-themed pot lucks. I discovered a couple of dishes that influenced my cooking still to this day and probably for my ever. One of the dishes I made that had a huge impact on me was Bombay Potatoes. You start the dish by frying a bunch of spices...YUM!

Harvesting mustard seeds is fun but, a wee bit tedious. Thank goodness I've found a huge bag of mustard seeds (the dark ones) in the market...at a pet food stall. They are fed to birds. Who knew? Not me!!! Out of all the plants we had room to grow we only got about 2 tablespoons of mustard. It was a fun project and I've never regretted growing anything!

Mike even loved the plants and helped out, of course he did, he's a very good boy!

fresh herbs....nothing like em.

There are so very many things that are fresh and amazing about Guatemala; fresh herbs being one of them!

Mind you it's really hard to find fresh Basil and that's a bummer but, this bunch of fresh Cilantro is what you get for Q1 (which is about 1/7 of a dollar). ...you can not beat that!

Fresh herbs are so healthful to eat and now I can easily eat them up with every meal! It's a good thing as you know who would say. Oh! And they are grown organically......sweet!