Hi and I am back from my love bubble! Feeling a little worn down, seeing as right after we landed from our honeymoon I got caught up in probably one of my worst colds of the past ten years. I tried to fight it for a few days, which just left me horizontal for 24 hours and scrolling (a horrible combination, I don’t recommend it). Today was the first day where I woke up with some energy, so I appreciate you waiting a day for the newsletter. With is comes recipes! And secrets!
You all know the newsletter gets my secrets first, so you’ll hear (and see) more about this on socials in the coming weeks, but I’ve been quietly starting a garden. The key word is quietly, in case something went horribly wrong. But when we came back from vacation, she had POPPED.
My garden + my Mill
When we moved into our house, the big exciting thing we planned to do was build a garden. I was hopeful and optimistic and thought I could do it the first summer we lived here. Little did I know I would also have to redo a roof, furnish a house (thank you FB marketplace!) and put out all the little we-just-moved-into-this-house fires. I’m grateful to have a home every day, but wow are there fires. So, gardening turned out to be low on my list in 2024.
But this fall when I got my Mill, I watched my food scraps turn into recycled grounds day after day, and that was the biggest push for me to really get planting. So now! We have a garden!! And she gets fed weekly with scraps from my kitchen. I mix the grounds right into the soil and give it a few weeks for the microbes to do their thing. The circle of life, everybody.
But jokes aside, Mill has absolutely changed how I see food waste, and I mean it when I say it is low effort, no mess and totally odorless.
I can’t believe I ever threw egg shells in the trash when they could be turned into high-quality nutrition for my plants. It’s one of my best ways to reduce household waste, and if you have the means, I completely stand by it as such a powerful investment (for you + the planet!).
If you are curious about Mill, now through 5/26 you can save $125 for their Memorial Day Sale with my link here.
(And of course I’ll be sharing garden updates - I have two types of tomatoes, ghost eggplant, zucchini, peppers, celery, and kale. And a rogue pumpkin that started growing from the pumpkin we carved this Halloween. We’ll see where she goes.)
*paid partnership, but the enthusiasm remains the same
And now, the weekly round-up!
Before my vegetables start giving (pray for them), I still feel like lingering a bit over my spring produce. New potatoes, snow peas - I just want to enjoy them a few more times before it’s big tomato energy, you know?
Snow Pea Tuna Salad - Tuna salads tend to be a bit briny, and I love how a sweet, fresh snow pea can play off that flavor. It feels really balanced and I love the crispy-crunch. You can also eat this open-face if you want more of a salad feel!
Tinned Fish Jacket Potatoes - I’m going through a Patagonia Provisions phase (code JUSTINE15 for 15% off, via my Instagram sponsorship!), and this was originally supposed to be about grilling your tinned fish. Yet I found popping them in the oven is just as effective. The oil surrounding the fish simmers into concentrated flavor, so you don’t need much else to make a fantastic lunch.
Broccolini, Balsamic, Burrata, Amen - A little bonus recipe from my cookbook. It’s now free to access on the blog, and extremely pizza-energy but with all your vegetables cooked in. If you like it, feel free to check out the book for other recipes that are similarly vegetable-forward.
And that’s it for this week! If you’ve made it this far, know that next week is wedding cakes. Get ready, it’s about to be 4-tiered in here.
Ily and have a great Sunday.
Xoxo,
Justine_Gardens
Good luck with the garden! It's the best. As is composting. We have had a huge garden in Umbria for over 30 years and any time I'm away the though of simply throwing organic waste into a trash bag pains me.