using what I've grown

 I love that these little tiny 100¥ pots grew and grew ..

I've had a difficult time growing veggies here in Okinawa.  A rescued plant yielded two beautiful oddly shaped egg plants before it was consumed by voracious pests.  Those lovely egg plants were cut, marinated, breaded, baked and eaten with ranch dressing.  Delicious.  Everywhere I've lived but here I've enjoyed tea from my mint plants, but I was not able to bring plants with me here.  Here I started from scratch.  I no longer have the hardy plants I made from cuttings from Papa Tony's mint (the plants from my childhood home).  I have some scraggly -though somewhat insidious- mint growing in containers, but not enough for a good tea.  I've got lots a lemon balm.  And, before I got on a bruschetta kick, lots and lots of basil.  In fact, so much basil that I thought it would last forever.  Apparently not.  This week, ready to make up a batch for my study time,  I ended up with seven roma tomatoes begging to be par boiled and peeled but NO basil.  I had to run to the commissary, where I paid three dollars for enough basil to make two batches of bruschetta.  Since the basil seeds cost less than a dollar and potting soil about two dollars and yielded enough basil for three months of twice a week bruschetta, that felt like highway robbery. Oh well,  although we may be moving again, sometime this week I am going to get some potting soil and start growing multiple pots of basil, before I get too spendy.  Of course, it will be a while before I see results, but I am sure that going to commissary and seeing that price tag will help me with my patience.
I didn't take a picture of the bruschetta I made the day I wrote this post and saved it!  Where is my head, but I'll try to add one and just post this now.