Create an Herb Garden, Just About Anywhere

Who says you need a lush backyard with sprawling greens to grow your very own herbs? Ever since we moved into our brand spankin' new digs here in Jersey City, we've been harboring a pretty open obsession with the terrace. We filled it with a grill, some plants, flowers and a sweet little herb garden. I might be using the term garden a little...liberally. All it took was a $6 long plastic flower box, some potting soil and some starter herbs from Home Depot. While I was in Brooklyn celebrating Kim's birthday girls-night style, Shaun was home putting our little garden-that-could all together. It started out looking something like this:

And within a few short weeks, we had a lush green herb garden of our own, complete with bright herbs that not only look gorgeous but smelled delightful to boot. From left to right, Dill, Basil, Sweet Peas, Parsley.

Anxious to get cookin' with our new herbs, Shaun concocted a fun twist on the classic caprese salad. Using our freshly grown basil, Shaun and our new best friend, Mr. Weber, fixed a warm caprese salad that has become a nightly staple in recent weeks.

Grilled Caprese Salad
large heirloom tomatoes
fresh mozzerella
fresh basil
olive oil
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper

Heat up your grill, be it charcoal, gas or Foreman. Slice the tomato into thick slices. Chiffonade the basil, place atop the sliced tomato and top with a thick slice of fresh mozzerella. Drizzle a bit of olive oil, kosher salt and pepper and grill for a few minutes until the cheese is melted and the tomato has a bit of char on the edges. Enjoy!

And now we're in the midst of concocting lots of recipes to utilize our fresh herbs. Once they get growing, they tend to spring up pretty fast. The only way to keep 'em alive? Use them up in delicious dishes.

So there you have it - how you can make a mini herb garden just about anywhere, even on a tiny terrace outside your urban dwelling. We're just about thrilled that we no longer have to splurge $3 for a bundle of dill just so we can use a quarter of it for dill and yogurt dip, while the rest goes bad before being put to good use. And my Shrimp Sautee with Orzo will surely benefit from some fresh sprinkled parsley, rather than a few dried sprigs. But what about you? Are you of the grow-it-yourself mindset?

Our Haute Beach Wedding

This morning I'm thrilled to direct you over to Haute Apple Pie to check out a feature on Shaun and my 'haute' Aruban beach wedding! After a month filled with all the wedding you can handle, the fab ladies over at HAP are closing the month with a sweet highlight on our beach soiree. As we're about to embark on our 2nd anniversary trip to my favorite island, the reminscing has begun! Be sure to check it out!

World Cup Fare

I don't know about you, but I spent Saturday cheering on the USA, wearing one of Shaun's many USA jerseys, and eating enough buffalo wing dip to feed a family of five (more on that later). Though it was a sad turn of events, it got me thinking about World Cup 2006, when Shaun and I somehow scored first round tickets through the crazy FIFA lottery system and trekked over to Germany for our first Euro vacation.

With tickets to 2 of the 3 first round games, we made the plan to do a 3 city tour, spanning Germany and France. The trip began in Cologne, Germany. With fan fare unlike any I've other seen, there wasn't a whole lot to do in Cologne aside from walk the pop-up street fairs in honor of the World Cup and park ourselves at outdoor cafes for hours on end, watching games, drinking Kolsch (the official brew of Cologne) and eating wiener schnitzel and frites until our stomachs begged us to cease. Yeah, it was pretty great.

In a land where it's cheaper to buy a pint of beer than a glass of water, we sampled all of the local goods. From gelato with bits of ice cream cone mixed into it...To neverending bratwurst...

Even though it was years before The Avid Appetite was born, it's pretty clear that Shaun and I were destined to be world-seasoned food fans, don't you think? Anyhow, at the first US game in Gelsenkirchen, we encountered that fan fare enough to top any Subway Series game to boot. Fans draped themselves in American flags, sang American songs, and drank in the streets for hours on end (and in the blazing heat no less).

And we partook in the fun...

With days between games, we made our way to Paris for a few days and then circled back to Kaiserslautern, Germany for the tailend of the trip. Since our friend Geoff, along with his wife Blaire, was stationed at the US Army base there, we had our own personal guide to the town. Somehow, the nights turned back to food at an outdoor cafe (where I sampled bona fide moldy cheese) followed by beer and Jagermeister sampling through the town's street fair. With dark beer served by the meter and Jager at every turn, here's a peak at what happens when you mix the two after many many hours...don't try this at home...

Yep, Shaun ended up riding a metal pony in the middle of the town fountain. Anyhow, while I'll continue my depression over the US loss to Ghana in 2010, it's pretty fab to relive our German adventure of '06 and reminisce over our first major trip together in a real once-in-a-lifetime experience. Plus, ya gotta love a land that encourages train breakfasts consisting of bread, nutella and beer.

So there you have it - a peak at our World Cup adventure of '06. How are you feeling after Saturday's game?