May 3, 2020 It is bluebell time

The garden may really be about at its best right now.





It is bluebell season.
The crabapples are blooming.
The rhododendron is blooming.
There are tulips and epimedium and trillium.
And the little iris have just started.
The deer are staying away.
Rabbits? Haven't seen much of them.
The hosta are exploding.

Everything really hit the fast forward button yesterday as it must have gotten to 75.
There is this little matter of the pandemic.
And some crazy nut trying to run the country.
But getting my hands in the dirt, and finding something new in the garden at every turn, means that those thoughts were almost forgotten.

There are so many wonderful things in the garden that this week there will be team competition.
It will be team competition of all things right now.

But first I should tell you about last week. There was some voting. We looked back at the classic finals of 2007. That was so many years ago. We still had G.W. Bush as president and there was an unpopular war.

But last week you picked the calla lily as your favorite.









Here was the final vote.
13 years ago, for you history fans, the winner was the white waterlily.














It seemed fitting that you liked the Calla lily. Just a week ago I found last year's calla bulbs in the basement, being ready to go out and get started.
They survived the winter in good shape and are now planted with little colored plastic straws to mark the location.







Here is how this week's team competition will work.
I have grouped pictures from right now into teams.
You will have to try to pick which group of pictures will get your vote.

#1 The bluebell team

Some bluebells stay pink for a while. They will eventually turn blue.




Here is the white one. It comes back and is allowed on the blue team.

#2 The hosta team

Liberty is always a show stopper.




This is Valley Glacer.




High Society.




Montana Aureomarginata. Sometimes pictures do not give you a good idea of how big a plant will be.

#3  Team Tulip

This is the group from Katie last fall. She bought too many so we brought some home from Maine on a visit.

Deer?
I have not see evidence that they are around.
I still have my spray available but haven't used it in about a month.
Deer really like tulips.

#4 Team Daffodil

The for get me nots were a surprise addition.

#5 Team Iris

Most of these little iris bloomed for the first time yesterday.
This is iris cristata.

#6 Everyone else

This pulmonaria is really wonderful. The flowers are dark. The leaves are good too.













The captain of this pickup team of everyone else is this rhododendron. It gets better every year.

Julia's recipe

Chicken Tortilla soup

I am interested in recipes that come together quickly and taste good, as is everybody who needs to eat and/or feed some people.  I am aided in this pursuit by the fact that I usually have some cooked chicken and chicken stock in the freezer. Katie mentioned, one day recently, that she was making tortilla soup for dinner. I remembered having enjoyed tortilla soup at my brother and sister-in-law's house (Hi Jim and Jane), so I decided to try it out.



I took the basic ingredients list from Katie: 1 cup chopped onion; 1/3 cup seeded and sliced jalapeno; 2 tablespoons chipotle/adobo sauce; 1-1/2 tablespoons peeled and sliced garlic; 1-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt plus another 1/2 teaspoon;3 tablespoons oil; 1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes (whole would be fine); 2 cups cooked chicken; 4 cups chicken stock; 2 cups water; and 4 corn tortillas.

I started by prepping the vegetables - onion, jalapeno, garlic. And I drained the diced tomatoes, saving the juice for later use.






Philip helped me assemble the food processor, although I think I finally have that down.

I put the onions, garlic, jalapeno, chipotle and adobo, and drained tomatoes into the work bowl and zizzed it up. I stopped pulsing a few times to scrape down the sides. The garlic bits seemed particularly prone to getting flung out to the edge and sticking to the inside of the work bowl.

I don't know why I am pointing at the work bowl.


I turned the oven on to 425 degrees, to bake the tortilla strips a little later.






When the mixture was kind of smooth but not entirely smooth, I put 2 tablespoons of oil in a big enameled pot. I used regular oil; olive oil or some neutral oil like canola would be fine. Not coconut.
I warmed up the oil (but not crazy hot) and then dumped in the tomato mixture and added 1-1/2 teaspoons of salt.

I let the mixture cook for about 7 or 8 minutes over medium heat, stirring from time to time to keep it from sticking. The mixture deepened in color and started to smell good.






Next I added the chicken stock, the liquid from the can of tomatoes and the water. I brought it up to a simmer and let it cook for about 15-20 minutes. While that was cooking, I cut up the cooked chicken into longish shreds where possible or (as for the chicken that would not shred) into small pieces.


After the soup had been cooking for about 10 minutes, I added the chicken so it could heat through.







And I turned my attention to the tortillas. They were surprisingly hard to cut up into strips, which had been my plan. I ended up mangling them into smaller pieces of various sizes and shapes, as shown.

I put them on a silpat-lined rimmed baking sheet (the silpat to prevent sticking - parchment would work or you could take your chances). Then I sprinkled the heap of tortilla bits with 1 tablespoon of oil and about 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt.








I spread the tortilla bits around on the baking sheet and baked them for maybe 10 minutes, watching them closely so they wouldn't burn. When they had become crisp and sightly browned (most of them, anyway), I scooped them off the baking sheet and into a little bowl.

I tasted the soup and liked the seasoning. You may like a bit more salt.











Here's the soup with a few tortilla chips on top. We served it with a green salad and some nice raspberries with yogurt.

A few notes: feel free to use store-bought chicken stock and leftover rotisserie chicken. You could buy a bag of corn chips and save yourself the trouble of hacking up and baking tortilla pieces. I wonder whether salsa might work instead of diced tomatoes and the jalapeno.

There are optional garnishes for those who like to embellish: sour cream, chopped scallions, chopped jalapenos, bits of queso fresco or Monterey Jack cheese or the controversial herb, cilantro.

You will have observed that this is a gluten-free dinner! Also dairy-free (depending on embellishments)! The leftover soup, like practically all soups, reheats nicely for lunch.

Odds and Ends

I have a hosta called County Mouse. It is part of what got started with Blue Mouse Ears, maybe 15 years ago.  They are little. They are cute. They developed many little variations.
So my question is if there are 4-5 shoots coming up, are they County Mice?

It is time to throw many plants outside. The front porch staging area is full.
Maybe some of the cactus can go out.

The weather will get cool later this week.

I bought 2 cherry tomato plants yesterday for the garden annex.
I was given some wonderful pepper plants from a friend.
One is a chocolate ghost.

That is it from the exploding garden here in Iowa City.
Stay safe.
Philip