January 15, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I am really happy this morning. I am really happy because I have always had so many kumquats in my life. Kumquats are a citrus and the kumquat tree is relatively easy to grow. It bears these small little fruits that you can eat the entire thing including peel. My mom has given me kumquats. Friends have given me kumquats. We have a kumquat tree and my mother-in-law always has them in a square plastic container of food from the garden that we need to eat. She puts it in the center of our large kitchen island to prompt the family cooks to use that ingredient. There are always kumquats.

But we should appreciate our kumquats because through the power of Ecosia, I now know that organic kumquats are $10 a pound. Isn’t that crazy? $10 a pound when I’ve neglected previously gifted kumquats. I know kumquat trees are relatively cheap as I see them at the local home improvement stores a lot yet the organic fruit is $10 a pound. We have two kumquat trees in our front yard. We also have a lemon and lime tree. We always have fresh lemon and lime, and now kumquats.

I wil be honest on this blog, now that things are working. I am composting and guerilla gardening on the top of the HMO parking lot structure. It looks actually really good up there now that I’ve been working on things a bit. Intially before I started composting at home with our Aerobin 400, I was bringing bunny poop and food scraps and composting directly into the large previously dead concrete containers. I fished out all the cigarette butts and plastic food waste that other HMO workers had thrown in the big planters. I had dumped all that organic waste a few months ago into some of the planters, and now it looks really good and is decomposing. The soil actually does look richer. I won’t compost directly there anymore since I have a composter at home. I don’t want to tip off the security guards. But what am I really doing wrong? I’m just trying to help our HMO sequester carbon and reduce the heat island effect that our large parking structure causes. They really need to thank me. I will bring some of my precious home compost later to supplement the soil. I periodically take a walk up there and water the succulent leaves I’ve thrown in the planters. I’m detailing it on Instagram. I’m trying to create life and it gets me outside to exercise a bit during lunch or after work. The top of the parking structure is really interesting, as I’ve seen people play volleyball, take walks, and a group that sit in the shade and just talk. I’ve told all the people up there that I’m gardening. I’ve left some fig wood short sticks up there if anyone wants to dig in the soil a bit. Feel free to water the succulents if you are up there or fish out the cigarette butts.

So up on the HMO parking lot structure I planted an agave plant that has been dying at my house. My mom had gifted this plant to me alive and beautiful, and between my mother-in-law and myself – I think we over-watered it. Now that I’ve been taking care of more succulents – I realize sometimes you need to neglect them, just leave them alone and they do what they have to do. I also think the pot they were in was too small. So I transplanted what I know is a beautiful agave plant to the big planter up on the HMO parking lot. The soil is richer since the compost pile has been going for a few months. I’ll make sure to water it here and there. I threw some succulent leaves in as well, because I think you need a diversity of plants for a container to thrive. Nature is doing it’s thing, and anyway it was littered with cigarette butts before I cleaned it up.

Back to the kumquats. So I honestly for the first time in my life created my own dish! I don’t think many people can replicate it because it took having some random kumquats all the time, and I planted radishes and beet greens. We had had a heavy beef dish which was very heavy for lunch. My mother gave it to me which is the only reason I would eat beef. It was very heavy and salty though. I was in the mood for something light and airy for dinner. We had tilapia with tortilla coated crust from Costco, which I calculated out at some point is actually pretty cost effective and does not come in too much plastic. And then I harvested two of my growing little precious radish plants and some beet greens. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I just knew I wanted to eat them. I washed them lovingly and coarsly chopped them up. The actual radishes are so sweet that I wanted to just eat them myself. But the entire point is to feed my family these beautiful vegetables. And then somehow magic happened.

Kumquat and Radish, Beet Greens, Green Bean and Bell Pepper Vegetable Saute

Ingredients: just what I listed above

Instructions: Clean everything and chop it up. I used left lover butter. Lovingly cut up the small little kumquats. Saute the radish, beet greens, frozen green beans, and red bell peppers. And in the end, add the kumquats.

Absolutely no salt and such a bright and sweet airiness. Only our son who eats too salt, was not a huge fan. Our daughter, Mr. Plastic Picker and I ate it all up!

And that is it. That is the beautiful kumquat saute/stirfry that I made up myself. My dream has been to plant a tree up on some make-believe theoretical desolate parking structure. And I am going to plant a kumquat tree. And then I will take my little patients up there and we will harvest little kumquats together, and make Dr. Plastic Picker’s Kumquat and Radish, Beet Greens, Green Bean and Bell Pepper Vegetable Saute that has no salt, just bright citrus flavor.