My Roof Top Tomato Garden

This is my last attempt at growing vegetables. Let me reminisce for a moment.

The first summer in this house, I turned the garden into a vegetable garden  (which later became our cocktail lounge and then the addition) and planted tomatoes, peppers and zuchinni. No sun, no success.

The following year, during the winter, I bought a kit to germinate seeds in my back room under fluorescent lighting. The mice ate all the plants. We got rid of the mice. That summer, I bought cherry tomatoes to plant in containers in the back. I figured I could move them around to follow the sun. No such luck.

I gave up on tomatoes for a while and decided to plant lettuces in containers just outside the living room. I generally got one batch of lettuce out of it and it was tasteless. The slugs got more of a meal than I.

Then there was the celery; when we were in Europe last year, my Aunt Agi had celery growing in her garden, so I thought, if she can do it… my celery was not that much celery as more shrubbery.

So here I am in 2009 and decided on my last ditch attempt at container gardening with tomato plants on the garage roof (it gets sun from around 10-sunset). JT and I hoisted up 3 full containers of soil (Yes full. Not well thought out) I generally save my soil with last year’s roots over the winter so it composts. Then I mix plant food for the current year and plant. Usually works out well, when the pots are on the ground. Except that they are quite heavy. Our neighbours came over because they heard us moaning as I lifted from the ground and JT pulled them up with rope. The garage roof is their new home forever, needless to say.

I planted three types of tomatoes, hoping to have bounties for salad all summer long. We have harvested 3 yellow cherry tomatoes so far. Not so bountiful, but at least they are producing.

Yellow Cherry Tomatoes – July through September

Super Sweet Cherry Tomatoes – August – September

Red Cherry Tomatoes – July through September

Build Day 7 – The Finale

As an add-on to last night’s post: On the front lawn I put out all the decent sized lumber pieces left over from our project (minimum size 3′ maximum size 5′) hoping that someone with a smaller project would pick them up. Well, during cocktails, a guy pulled up in his sedan and did just that; and then he came back and picked up MOST of our lumber from our previous deck!!! I am SO GLAD. Both JT and I had concerns that Billy would have to make several trips (and that just means more $$$$ for us!). I just LOVE that this guy thought our lumber was good enough to reuse (he actually asked if he could and he mentioned he had a cabin up north that he was building, so the lumber was great for him!).

By the way,  it did rain last night.

Trip #6 to The Depot and oh, look…rain!

We only had to build the steps today, so we were done by 11am! Check out the finished Steps:

The Finished Steps

The new view from the living room:

The Room with the View

And finally, the finished deck:

The FInished Deck

Build Day 6 – The Home StretchMo

Today is Canada Day, therefore everthing is closed (thank goodness we stocked up from The Depot, the LCBO and Metro!).  We got off to a great start and skirted the back of the deck. By 12:30ish we had the arbour up and capped. Lunch was a tasty wrap and a tower of tomatoes and buffalo mozarella….YUM.

Wraps with Tomato and Buffalo Mozerella Tower

Although the weather forecast called for rain, we didn’t get any! YIPEEEEEE. We worked like crazy to get the top box finished for the steps from the living room and by the end of the day, JT was skirting behind the BBQ and I was cleaning up.

The deck is done, but the steps to the patio still need to be done, and you know what that means…Trip #6 to The Depot tomorrow morning!

The Cocktail Lounge Arbour

The Cocktail Lounge

The Reclaimed Dining Area

Cocktails with Hungarian Cheese Sticks (my Aunte Agi’s recipe) will be served promptly at 5:30 on the New, Mother of All Mothers, Cocktail Lounge (furniture is TBD, we will use this in the meantime). Shortly thereafter, dinner will be served de plein air (as they say) in the newly reclaimed dining area! Cheers!

Build Day 5 – Will it ever stop?

The morning started out to be quite sunny. But clouds did manage to float in and we had a few minor showers, which didn’t stop us from working.

We got most of the uprights put up, ready for the lattice and we got the bottom box made for the steps from the sliding doors off the living room. The we broke for lunch.

Build Day 5 - the rain continues

During lunch, the skies opened up again and poured like there was no tomorrow. We decided to make our 5th trip to The Depot to pick up a few things. My bet was 4 JTs 5.

By the time we got home it was after 2pm and still raining, so we had to call it a day because tonight we are picking up our new Diesel Jetta and trading in the poor old buglette. Unfortunately, it is directly in cocktail hour. Cheers, anyway!

The New Diesel Jetta

The New Diesel Jetta

Build Day 4 – Rain, rain go away…

Paul and T are on vacation and they are in Hawaii. What the heck was I thinking that on MY vacation I would build a deck? There is not one muscle in my whole entire being that is not screeming and writhing with pain. Hawaii? Pain? Hawaii? Pain? Oh ma goh!

Today we got off to another good start: Trip #4 to The Depot. We ran out of screws (we have already used 300 and need another 300, or so!) and step stringers. Thank goodness for the drill with a screwdriver bit, otherwise I think I would have thrown myself onto a large sword by now!

We got on a roll and finished the decking by 1pm, at which time, we broke for lunch. During lunch loud, cracking thunder. I look up and the skies are black. We ran to get everthing in the garage, but just before I was able to grab the tray of food, the skies opened up and buckets of water poured down. Rain like no other. Then hail. It lasted about 10 minutes and then petered out to a light rain.

Sunny One Minute to Teaming Rain the Next

It rained pretty much the entire afternoon, but we managed to skirt the deck and get the stringers strung. Lowes sent the wrong deck boards for the steps so, guess what? Yep, another trip to The Depot!

Day 4 Deck Skirt

We’re also trying to figure out the steps from the sliding doors; they will be very tricky because the gas line for the BBQ comes our directly where the first step up is. We’ll figure it out. Here is a rendering.

Concept for Steps from Sliding Doors

And it’s that time of the afternoon again, yes, it is cocktail hour. Cheers!

Build Day 3 – Mother Nature Hates Us

Build Day 2 Weather

We started off OK at 9ish, but very overcast. We made a rookie error which cost about an hour and $20 but really 5.5 hours because it started teaming rain! And, of course, Trip #3 to Home Depot.

Mother Nature Hates Us

Rain, rain and more rain. At around 2:30 the rain stopped and we immediately got back into it.

We did well, but time, energy and screws ran out (the wood kind, get your mind out of the gutter). Here is our progress today:

6:30pm Progress

Weather permitting, we should be able to have cocktails on the new deck tomorrow! Cheers!

Build Day 2 – The House Fights Back

I am just getting too old for this type of sillyness! OHHHH my aching back.

To say Build Day 2 got off to a slow start is an understatement. Not for a lack to trying. One challenge after another. I won’t bore you with them, but suffice to say that we made our 2nd run to The Depot by 10am. JT bets 5 by the end of the build, I’m hoping for far less, but we already have the list for the next one (dare I guess 4???)

Here we are at 1pm…see what I mean about slow start?

Build Day 2 at 1pm

We got the old fence post cut (by hand), some more demo, I moved 9 cement blocks into position, blah blah blah blah blah!

But eventually and fortunately, we got on a bit of a roll, and by 5pm we had the base box accomplished (plus dug an extra post for support).

Build Day 2 at 5pm

Hopefully Build Day 3 will be smoother. For some god forsaken reason, both JT and I have this inhumane urge to finish quickly, even though I have the entire week off. Cocktails anyone?

Build Day 1 – Let the Festivities Begin!

We decided to get as much pre deck work done during the week as possible to allow for concentrated deck building during my time off.

Tuesday June 23 – Demo Day 1 (actually it was evening): Remove overgrown shrubs. Now THAT is manual labour. The root ball of one overgrown evergreen shrub was intensely embedded into the earth. On the plus side, we are quite fortunate that our soil is actually sand so digging isn’t that difficult!

Demo Day 1 - Remove Overgrown Shrubs

Demo Day 1 - Shrub Removal

JT did all of the demo himself during the day. It was horrible mainly because the deck was solidly built, but the temperature was absurd +30°C with high humidity. UGH!

Demo Day 2

Wednesday June 24 – Demo Day 2: I couldn’t believe what difference removing the pickets could make from looking out the living room doors — we could actually see our beautiful garden!

Demo'd

Jt brought the deck down in record time!

Demo Day 3

The space we gained was incredible!

Friday June 26 – Demo Day 4: JT spent removing debree so we would have space to work. That entire pile made its way to the driveway. All the new lumber which was delivered to our side yard on Thursday morning was moved into the garage to keep it safe and dry! Thanks JT, that was not the fun part!

The New Post

Friday June 26 Evening – Build Day 1: Building a deck onto an old house does not come without its challenges. We designed the deck with a large ‘arbour’ covering our neighbour’s brick wall (see photo above). For this we planned to sink four 6″ x 6″ posts (trying to keep consistent with the existing arbour) — no-can-do! It would seem that 3 out of the four existing fence posts are directly, exactly, couldn’t be more exact space where we wanted our new posts. In cement. Did I happen to mention that the existing posts were cemented into the same exact location where we wanted our new posts! UGH! (I may be saying that and perhaps a few choice words over the next week!).

Back to the drawing board, literally! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I had planned to use my brawn over the week, wanted to turn brain off….

We came up with a plan. We will retrofit the existing posts to make them ‘look’ like 6″ x 6″’s – Obstacle 1 averted.

Unfortunately, post #2 was in the wrong place and fortunately, there was enough space to the right of it to dig a proper hole to sink another 4″ x 4″ so that we can have equal space for our lattice ‘arbour”.

And that is what we did Friday night. Of course, cockails thereafter!

The New Cocktail Deck June 2009

When we decided to add onto our kitchen, we knew we had to give up our lovely cocktail deck JT and I built about a year or two after we moved into our home. But we had bigger plans! A new, bigger, better cocktail lounge to replace a semi useless, puney little deck off the living room! The mother of all mother cocktail lounges!

We had planned to put on this new and improved deck during the reno, but because of timing and such, we were were not able to then. We decided it was time, so I am taking a week off to help my husband build a deck. Believe it or not, I love this type of manual labour, blue job or not! A few photos for a general time line:

Pre Cocktail Area 2001 at the time we purchased the home

Cocktail Area Before Reno around 2002-3

Cocktail Area During Reno 2007

Cocktail Area after the Reno 2008

Site of the Upcoming Mother of all Cocktail Lounges

JTs Birthday Dinner

Last Thursday was JTs birthday, we won’t say how old he is, but suffice it to say that I am significantly younger! We decided to stay in for dinner and have our dinner out on Saturday at Le Select Bistro, when things are not so hectic as a weekday. JT decided he wanted his no knead pizza (actually, it’s Jim Lahey’s), so he made his own birthday dinner. But I was able to make him a little birthday cake while he was away earlier in the week.

The pizza had incredible taste, but one thing I would do differently is to add the cheese nearer to the end (I have amended my recipe here), with only about one minute remaining for baking, that way, the cheese doesn’t break down entirely. It still had great taste.

Onion Confit, Poached Pear, Gorgonzola, Spinach and Arugula Salad

Makes one 16 inch pizza

• 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface (need about 1/2 cup more!)
• Coarse salt
• 1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 3-4 oz Gorgonzola broken into small bits
• 2 pears, pealed and seeded
• 2 cups red wine
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup onion confit (see recipe here)
• Handful of spinach and arugula, washed

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, 1/8 teaspoon salt, yeast, and 1/2 cup water. Stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and rough. Let dough rest in a warm place (about 72 degrees) until doubled in volume, about 3 hours.
2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and cover with a clean, damp kitchen towel. Let stand until doubled in size, 30 minutes to 1 hour.
3. Peel and seed pears, cut in half. Place into a small saucepan and cover with red wine and the balsamic vinegar and poach until soft. Cool completely and thinly slice. Reserve.
   
4. Place a pizza stone (we use our trusty Chicago-land cast iron pizza pan) on the lowest rack of oven and preheat to 550 degrees for 25 minutes.
5. Flatten dough into a disk that is thicker in the center than at the edges. Using your fingers, gently pull on the edges of the dough to form a 6- to 8-inch circle; dough should still be thicker in the center. Drape dough over both hands, and using your knuckles, work dough out from the center into a 16-inch circle. Or you can roll it out with a rolling pin.
   
6. Roll dough onto the rolling pin and carefully unroll the dough to hot pizza stone.
   
7. Working quickly, spread the onion confit on first, add thinly sliced poached pears and bake for 9 minutes. Add the cheese and bake an additional minute so the cheese does not completely melt.
8. Remove from oven and add a handful of spinach and arugula.
9. Enjoy!

Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

The cake above is half of Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake recipe in small 5″ spring form cake pan (it made two mini cakes, the other is in the freezer). The recipe below is cut in half already.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup superfine sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• 3/4 sticks soft unsalted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• Special equipment: 2 (each 5-inch diameter) spring form pans buttered

Directions

1. Allow all ingredients to warm up to room temperature.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F.
3. Put all the cake ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, cocoa, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream into a food processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter. Scraping down the sides so that everything is mixed smoothly.
4. Divide this batter, using a rubber spatula to help you scrape and spread, into the prepared tins.
5. Bake until a cake tester comes out clean, which should be about 35 minutes, but it is wise to start checking at 25 minutes. Also, it might make sense to switch the 2 cakes around in the oven halfway through cooking time.
6. Allow the cakes to cool completely. Don’t worry about any cracks as they will easily be covered by the frosting later.

Frosting Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1-2 cups of icing sugar
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup Grandmarnier liquor (orange liquor)

Directions

1. Beat butter until light and fluffy.
2. Add sifted icing sugar and cocoa and vanilla extract and beat until everything is combined and the frosting is light and fluffy (I have an attachment to my Cuisinart immersion blender that is more whisk-like and mixer and this makes the fluffiest frosting ever!).
3. Cut a piece of parchment paper a little larger than the cake, place on centre of your working dish.
4. Cut cake in half and place on centre of parchment on the working dish.
5. Drizzle the orange liquor on this half.
6. Frost the other half with about 1/2″ frosting and place on top of the orange liquor half, like a sandwich.
7. Continue to frost the entire cake with the remaining frosting until it is all used up (or there is enough for the chef for a taste!)
8. Refrigerate covered tightly. I used an inverted Anchor glass dish with a rubber top.
9. When you are ready to serve, cut a new piece of parchment and place on top of your serving dish. Carefully slide cake to serving dish. Cake is excellent at room temperature, or just out of the fridge at midnight!
10. Enjoy!