Almost all week one of these white gems has bloomed. This particular variety of orchid cactus does not put up many flowers at one time. But they are wonderful. They are also gone by noon. At least they are still blooming in the morning.
Here is the entire plant, giving you an idea of the size of the flower.
Take another look.
Here is another set of flowers we watched all week. Last Saturday they were a little over an inch is size.
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| last Saturday |
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| Monday |
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| Wednesday |
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| Thursday afternoon |
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| about 8 inches long |
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| Thursday 8:45pm |
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| 8:45 pm |
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| 8:45pm |
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| 9:30pm |
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| 9:30 pm |
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| 7am Friday |
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| 7 am Friday |
Different candy or blackberry lilies are blooming.
Other flowers still are there.
This is Casa Blanca. It is a late bloomer.
Julia's recipe
Banana Cream Pie
The last time our daughter Katie visited, she expressed an interest in banana cream pie, which seemed like a good idea. And it was. Katie made that pie with a gluten free cookie crust and made-from-scratch vanilla pudding. And whipped cream on top. It was excellent. So I made it again last weekend, and it was still excellent. And easy, as I used a box of pudding rather than making the pudding from scratch.
Here are the ingredients, rather few in number, really. For the crust: 1-1/2 cups of vanilla wafer crumbs and 5 tablespoons of butter. For the pudding: 1 large box of cook-and-serve vanilla pudding (don't use instant), 2 bananas and 3 cups of milk. For the topping: 1 cup of whipping cream and 1 tablespoon of sugar.
I started by making cookie crumbs in the food processor, to make the crumbs small and uniform. You could go old school by putting the cookies in a plastic (sealable) bag and rolling/whacking them with a rolling pin.
It takes a surprising number of cookies to yield 1-1/2 cups of crumbs. I think it was about 45 or 50 cookies altogether. I started with about 30 cookies, buzzed them up and didn't have enough crumbs, so I did some more.
I put the crumbs in a bowl and melted the 5 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. I poured the melted butter over the cookie crumbs and mixed it in with a fork.
I turned the oven on to 350 degrees.
I dumped the buttery crumbs into a deep-ish 9" glass pie pan. I used a 1/2 cup measure to tamp down the crumbs and mush them against the side of the pie pan. This technique is displayed now and then on TV cooking, and I am here to say it works.
When the oven was ready, I put the pie pan in the oven for about 15 minutes. No need to use pie beans (or other weights). The pie crust stays put while baking.
Here is the pie crust fresh out of the oven, looking all golden brown and delicious.
The pie crust needed to cool a bit, and while it did, I made the pudding. I emptied the box into a saucier (a handy kind of pan to have to make pudding - no corners!), added 3 cups of milk and whisked over medium high heat until it boiled. Then I let it boil for a minute and that was it.
Pudding in process.
When the pudding was done, the pie crust was sufficiently cooled (still pretty warm really). I poured about 1/2 of the pudding into the pie crust.
Then I sliced up a banana and spread thin pieces all over the pudding.
Bananas vary a lot in size. Some are so big as to require a friend to eat it with you. We had smallish, one-person bananas.
I covered the banana layer with the rest of the pudding. Then I pressed a piece of plastic wrap over the filling, and I put the pie in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. The pie is best served cold. And the crust behaves better if it has some time in the fridge.
When it was pie time, I took it out of the refrigerator, took the plastic wrap off, and sliced another banana to cover the top.
Then I whipped the whipping cream, added the little bit (1 tablespoon) of sugar and spread the results all over the pie.
Here it is. Crunchy crust, bland and smooth pudding, banana bits and whipped cream. A great dessert.
As recounted above, the pie crust can be made with gluten free shortbread or vanilla wafers (we found gf shortbread at the Hy-Vee). So gluten free is easy. No problem for vegetarians, but I think people with a vegan mindset or people with a lactose intolerance are going to have to try something else. Maybe a nice mango. Or an unadorned banana.
Odds and ends
No deer again this week. I was feeling good about this new spray I got, until...A neighbor who had been hosting the deer in his backyard told me he thought they had just moved on.
I have spotted some tiny buds on the big night blooming cereus.
We are off again this weekend to Springfield.
I intend to rescue some iris.
Philip
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