November 24, 2019- It is almost show time

We are back home in Iowa, after several weekends in Maine.
We are settling into that winter routine, complete with coming home from work in the dark.
The 2019 garden year is mostly over. The pulmonaria,  epimedium, and the hellebores are still green, almost looking almost normal. They look like that, at least when the temperatures get above freezing.
There is a little more garden cleanup to do as the Sycamore tree is just starting to drop its leaves.
There is no snow at the moment, even though those snowflakes wink on and off in the 10 day forecast.

Actually yesterday, Saturday, was one of the first great garden days for me for months. Between travel and work there have not been many days where I could just spend time in the garden and do things.

Remember how I planted bulbs in Maine?
Katie had acquired so many bulbs. You sometimes do not know how many tulips are 200 until they arrive.  So while in Maine we planted many in her backyard, gave some away, and shipped some here to Iowa. I had seen how the temperatures were going to be above freezing for a while, so I thought I might just get around to planting them.
Well, yesterday I planted them. There were maybe 15 tulips and a few dozen daffodils.
I got out my new bulb drill, which most importantly had a new battery, and dug many holes.
Unfortunate for my body there was still stooping work, even if the bulb drill gave you nice holes. You do have to make sure that the bulbs go in the holes right side up. Actually what you just have to avoid is having them go in upside down. That still meant bending or stooping, I do not know which was worse.

In fact it was so easy to plant Katie's bulbs I stopped by the garden center and got some more bulbs. They were on sale.
Not too many. But just enough to fill in a few places.
Many places can use splashes of color in the spring.

So it was a great day, with sun and temperatures in the 40's. Today is suppose to be another day like that. Maybe I should get some more bulbs.

Before I talk about the contest let me show you some orchid pictures. They are sort of carrying the indoor garden at the moment.





This plant is starting to bloom all over. It may get to come to the living room to enjoy some natural sunlight and greater visibility.
















This little cattleya has been blooming for weeks. It is ending its bloom in style, as it turns brown in an orderly and patterned fashion.













This is the dining room cattleya. It still has 2 of the 4 bloom clusters, with two more on the way.














This really strange orchid is called
Stenorrhynchos speciosum. I got it about 5 years ago and it reliably puts up these red spikes with little white flowers in the late fall.

Winter Garden Picture contest- 
coming very soon

I have started preparing for the winter garden picture contest.
I go through all the pictures for 2019 picking out those to participate.
I think this year there will be 12-13 weeks with 4-5 pictures each.
Going back through all those pictures is sometimes difficult.
There were highs and there were lows during the year. That was/is all too evident as one walks through the year in pictures. Is there a verb tense for both the present and the past?

But the garden was good this year, despite the deer.
There were some new plants. I will show you some of them over the next 3 months.

Speaking of deer, Iowa City finally got approval to bring in a sharpshooter to reduce the deer population. I read somewhere that there were something like 60 deer per square mile. Can that be right? That would mean there is one in my backyard right now. I do not see it. Maybe it is in the back garage.



Here are just a few pictures during the year that will not be in the contest. They do give a feel for the year.

Julia's recipe

Pizza

I never had pizza as a kid. It was exotic restaurant fare - more exotic than Chinese food, although we did not eat Chinese very often either. When I was in college, we would go downtown (into Chicago) to Old Town, where one could eat deep-dish pizza at Uno's or Due's. And one did, but without being tempted to make it at home. Nor were we interested in frozen pizza. So pizza for many years was road food - whenever we drove to Springfield (MO) to visit P's folks, we would stop at a Pizza Hut in some little town on the way and then take the leftovers with us. P's parents liked the reheated pizza for lunch.

As I said, not tempting to the home cook. Until I had a conversation with a nice man named Robert the Wine Guy at the New Pi who spoke of going home to make homemade pizza for supper, which he said could be done in about 1 hour. So I asked for his crust recipe, and he obliged. We have been making pizza maybe once a month ever since. Thank you Robert.



Here are the ingredients. On the left, for the crust: a little less than 2 cups of all purpose flour; a little less than 1 cup cornmeal; 1 tablespoon of rapid rise yeast; 1 teaspoon white sugar; 1 teaspoons kosher salt; 1/2 teaspoon black pepper; 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 cup of 130 degree water.

On the right, for the toppings: about 3 tablespoons olive oil; some kosher salt - maybe 1/2 teaspoon; about 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese; about 1/3 -1/2 cup of tomato sauce; 2-3 cups of coarsely grated mozzarella; 2-3 cups coarsely grated provolone; 1/2 cup diced red or green pepper; 8 oz. sliced button mushrooms; about 1/2 teaspoon each of basil, oregano and red pepper flakes and maybe 2 oz. of little slices of pepperoni.

In order to get the pizza on the table in an hour, you will need a stand mixer. The stand mixer will work the dough while you prepare the toppings. If you don't have a stand mixer, you can still make this pizza but it will take longer.

I started by turning the oven on to 500 degrees. My oven is usually pre-heated 10 or 15 minutes before baking time, which is fine.




Next first steps: the dough. I put 1 cup of the flour plus the yeast and sugar into the bowl. Then I added the cup of 130 degree water, and I mixed that until it was thoroughly combined.















Then I added the scant cup of cornmeal, another (but scant) cup of flour plus the salt, pepper and olive oil.

I mixed that up.

Robert used the term "scant" for the cornmeal and second cup of flour. I think about 1 tablespoon short of a full cup is about right.










After the batter was mixed, I changed to the bread hook and let the mixer do its work (on medium speed) for about 20 minutes. I turned it off from time to time to scrape down the sides.

If the mixer begins to ooch across the counter, turn the speed down.







Meanwhile, the mushrooms and peppers got sliced and diced, respectively, and sauteed together in a skillet in a little (maybe 1 tablespoon) olive oil for maybe 5-7 minutes.  I grated the cheese and opened the can of tomato sauce



After the dough had been whirling around for 20 minutes or so, it had begun to clump around the hook which is a good sign. I took out 2 pizza pans and divided the dough - 2/3 to one pan and 1/3 to another. I had lubed up the pans with cooking spray.

I got my fingers wet and pushed and stretched the dough into a circle. It did not cover quite the whole pan, but close. I had a few thin places, and I patched those with thicker bits from around the edge. The dough is not a problem as yeast doughs can be, I think because of the cornmeal which helps it relax.

I then did the same thing with the smaller chunk of dough on the other pizza pan. I ended up with one kind of big circle and one smaller amoeba shape.




At that point, I started building. First, I poured maybe 1 tablespoon of olive oil (a bit more on the big crust, a bit less on the littler one) onto each crust, and I spread the oil around with a pastry brush. Fingers would work. Then I sprinkled on the Parmesan, dividing it proportionately, and the salt, red pepper flakes, basil and oregano.

The pizzas, as pictured, were about finished with this stage.








I ladled about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of tomato sauce around the big crust, followed by the mushroom/green pepper mix and then topped that with the pepperoni.

Note: the mushroom/green pepper mix should not be wet. So use a slotted spoon if need be.













The smaller crust is a white pizza - just herbs and cheese. I put about 1/3 of the provolone and the mozzarella on the smaller crust.

And the rest of the cheese went on top of the pepperoni.

















Here is the big pizza, fresh out of the oven. The big pizza baked in about 10-12 minutes; the smaller pizza in 7-10.














The smaller pizza came out crisper, due (I am sure) to the absence of tomato sauce and veggies.

In order to have the larger pizza come out crisper, I would suggest baking the crust for 2-3 minutes before adding the tomato sauce and toppings.This would give the crust a head start to crisp up.

And it should go without saying that there is a world of topping options. I recommend putting the herbs on the crust or at least under the cheese. I use a modest amount of tomato sauce. I had not used pepperoni for quite a while. In an earlier vegetarian time, we used some kind of soy based pepperoni. Which tasted like pepperoni, oddly enough. Sometimes we just have veggies, sometimes pork sausage. Always Parmesan, mozzarella and provolone.





And here we are. We served our pizza with a plate of antipasto bits and a green salad.

Homemade pizza, just like Pizza Hut pizza, is good cold or reheated.

Odds and Ends

Feeling positive is contagious.
I started yesterday by figuring out a problem with the computer.
Our hard drive got sick and was replaced while we were in Maine. This new engine reset many things, including all those remembered passwords.
It also changed some default settings, which mostly I do not know how to fix.
Well I figured out one of them right after I got up yesterday. That got the day off to a good start.
Then the bulbs holes were easy and I got the bulbs planted.

Today I will plant some snowdrops I got yesterday.
I wonder how soon snowdrops will appear.

Date countdown 
So today, November 24, what are some landmark dates, and how far away are they?

December 21, 2019- 27 days- the winter solstice- the days will start getting longer-

February 3, 2020- 71 days- the Iowa caucuses

March 21, 2020- 118 days- by some calculations this is the first day of Spring 

November 3, 2020- 345 days- election day

Find the sunshine.
I understand we particularly need it this time of year.
Philip