Recipe: Bell Pepper Nachos

I am enjoying my daily harvest of bell peppers and salad leaves. These yellow banana peppers are vibrant addition to not only my garden but also to my plate. Yellow peppers contain 305 % vitamin C which is why it must not be over cooked.

Here is a fun recipe using that I loved.

Bell Pepper Nachos

Heat a pan and add a dash of olive oil. Add finely chopped garlic clove and spring onions. Keep stirring while you add a tsp of garlic powder, paprika or red chili powder, salt, 1/2 tsp cumin powder, 1/2 tsp of oregano and crushed black pepper. Add a cup of cooked and shredded chicken. Toss well. 

Make a slit in two bell peppers and remove all the seeds. Carefully fill each pepper with chicken mixture. Top with olives and cilantro. Bake for 3 minutes. 

Serve it with brown rice or with a salad. I made my salad using some mix salad leaves, dried tomatoes and parsley.

Growing your own vegetables makes your food so much more special. Grow your own food!

Happy Gardening

Z

Recipe: Chicken-and-Broccoli florets with Garden Salad

Grilled chicken and broccoli with garden salad . image credit :Zahra Ali

I love eating raw vegetables especially the ones from my organic kitchen garden. These scrumptious vegetables fill my plates with color, flavor and unbeatable freshness! 

Here is what my lunches usually look like. Cooked fish, chicken or beans with fresh salad. This simple recipe is packed with nutrients and will charge you with energy and brightness!

Chicken-and-Broccoli Florets

Combine a tsp of soya, 1/2 tsp vinegar, salt and red chili powder in a bowl. Add a cup of chicken strips to the mixture. Mix well and let it marinate for 10 minutes. 

Heat a grill pan or a basic non stick pan. Drizzle a tsp of olive oil. Add chicken and cook for two mins and keep stirring. Add finely chopped onions, a clove of garlic and a little ginger. Mix well. When the chicken is almost done, add broccoli florets. Stir and  cook for 3 minutes. enjoy!

Garden Salad

The idea of making a garden salad is to simply go out in your kitchen garden, pick your fresh produce and combine to make a colorful and flavorful salad!

Fizz lettuce and red pear tomatoes from my garden

Since I grow several varieties of leaf lettuce, its always fun to try a new type or to experiment with a blend.

I picked some "Fizz" lettuce leaves, " Black seeded simpson" lettuce leaves, red pear tomatoes, bell peppers and some red cabbage. 

Chop cabbage finely, use cherry tomatoes as whole, use your hands to tear the lettuce leaves, squeeze a lemon, add some salt and you have your very simple and fresh salad!

If you love your vegetables then grow them at home and make them as pure as possible by not using any chemicals on them.

Join our community  for more inspiration and ideas.

Happy Gardening!

Z

Aquaponics: No dirty business

Aquaponic set up at Nasreen Ashraf's place. image credit: Zahra Ali 

Aquaponics is the use of waste produced by fresh water fish, shrimp, prawns, crabs or lobsters to grow plants. Live fish are used to make fertilizer which produces ammonia that is high in nitrogen and is essential for plant growth. In return, the plants filter the water so that fish can live in it.

Tilapia is the most famous fish that reproduces and grows fast in an aquaponic system, but you can even start with a pair of goldfish. You can either leave the plants floating on the top of your tank or direct the water through pipes using an air pump to your grow-bed that holds plants with a growing medium. Water is then directed back into the tank to complete the tank cycle.

“Aquaponics is a quick, simple and cheap way of growing your food, and you don’t even need a green thumb!” says Abdul Aleem Shekhani, an aquaponicer from Karachi. Shekhani set up his first system in 2010 using his mother, Nasreen Ashraf’s storage boxes and store-bought PVC pipes, fish and other aquarium equipment. After two years, he upgraded his system and bought used bathtubs to turn them into a fish tank. The garden now produces everything from tilapia to cherry tomatoes to giant melons, unlimited sponge gourd, lots of basil and oregano. The set-up can cost anywhere between Rs1,200 and Rs1,500 and may even be cheaper if you reuse supplies.

“The only thing I do regularly is feed the fish and harvest vegetables when they are ready,” says Ashraf who also has a rooftop kitchen garden which needs much more work. “Vegetables that I grow using aquaponics have larger, greener and healthier leaves compared to the ones in the pots.”

Even though the method is relatively new, it is picking momentum globally. Ellezerdo Sarsalejo is a Philippines-based aquaponicer, who lives a few miles away from where the typhoon hit last year. He built a system using PVC pipes, barrels and large water bottles. Unlike Nasreen and Aleem, he did not use any edible fish. Within 75 days of starting his backyard aquaponic system, Sarsalejo was able to harvest dozens of bitter gourd which is remarkably quick. “You can double or triple your harvest if you have a good system,” he says. “I started an aquaponic system back in September 2011 as an experiment and since then it has been very successful.” Now Sarsalejo grows all kinds of vegetables and herbs, including cherry tomatoes, lettuce, basil, eggplants, huge beans, okra and bitter gourds that grow fast using his aquaponic set-up.

It is a well-known fact that during 1150-1350 CE, Chinampas — an ancient agricultural method which used rectangular areas of fertile land to grow crops on shallow lake beds — produced one-half to two-thirds of the food consumed by the city of Tenochtitlan, including maize, squashes, amaranth, tomatoes, peppers and beans. Hence, aquaponicers might be justified in claiming that the method can feed the world one day.

Zahra Ali Husain is a sustainability education specialist, writer and an environmentalist. She tweets @Zahrali 

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 23^rd, 2014.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/673704/no-dirty-business/