November 22, 2020 getting ready for the contest and giving thanks

Thanksgiving is this week. 

It is a time to give thanks, as best we can.

Let me make a list.

It is not snowing.

We are not sick. (I say this quietly.)

The garden was good this year. 

There are many things to anticipate in the springtime. That is really only a little over 3 months away. (I suppose that depends on how you think about late February.)

And the person, who will not be named, has been voted out of office.

The picture contest is coming.

I started writing this yesterday, very early on a very dark Saturday morning. I have been selecting pictures for the contest for about a week. That contest preparation requires me to revisit the last year. That makes me think about time. Sometimes I think we spend too much time either in the future or the past. Whatever happened to right now.

This is not just a lead into some depressive rant about politics or the pandemic. I actually want to talk about the garden. In particular I want to discuss the Picture Contest. 

I have had a garden picture contest each winter for a long time. It started so long ago that the exact year becomes fuzzy. Actually I am relatively certain it was 2006. (I looked in the archives of this blog, which is available on the right side near the top. I looked at November 2009. That post said the fourth picture contest was starting.) The first year it was conducted by email. Do some of you remember that far back? Then the blog started. This allowed paperless voting. 

In the contest you vote for a picture of the week, each week. The pictures come from the garden during the calendar year that is ending. The winners each week then have playoffs at the end of 3 months, with a picture of the year being chosen. By that time winter is supposed to be over. (It usually is.)

The contest requires me to look through all my pictures for the year. I then select 60-70 pictures for perhaps 13 weeks of voting. That of course brings back the memories of the entire year. And what a year it has been. That is true for the garden and the country.

What would be the highlights for 2020?

Pandemic. Derecho. Election. New granddaughter. Katie graduated seminary and was ordained a priest. We couldn't attend any of that good stuff.

This summer we added a little sunny garden plot, rented from the city. We grew tomatoes. 

For months we sold plants  in the back driveway for the local food pantries. Maggie started coming to dinner again (at the far end of the table) after 6 months away due to pandemic anxiety.

April 9, 2020

City garden plots at Chadek Park

 Christopher 

Maisie

There is still life in the garden. 

The hellebores are really growing. They become islands of green in a garden that has already turned brown.

The amazing thing is that every few years a hellebore bloom...at Thanksgiving.

Right on schedule I found this bud yesterday. Then I noticed a second bud and a third. Since the warmer temperatures are going to be with us this next week, I think it will really bloom on Thanksgiving.

Of course there is snow in the forecast for Sunday. It is that time.

Some of the epimedium also stay green, well into the fall.

Islands of green.

We do have a center piece for the table on Thursday. This cattleya has so many flowers, that will keep blooming for weeks.

This picture was taken on Friday, November 20, when the sun was out.

If you want fall interest in your garden fall crocuses are one thing to do. I planted these in late September.

I actually did not notice the tiny little white crocuses until I just now saw them in the picture. Can you see them? I hope the sun will come out tomorrow so I can give them some attention.

Julia's recipe 

Spicy pork-noodle dish: Mapo Ragu

Mapo ragu is the name given this dish by the New York Times cooking website. Ragu is an Italian word, meaning sauce, usually meat sauce, for pasta. Okay. Mapo is a Sichuan word meaning pockmarked grandmother. Huh? The web tells us (I looked it up) that there is a traditional and spicy Sichuan dish called mapo tofu, with a sauce including both tofu and meat served over noodles of some kind. So this name appears to be a goof on the name of the Sichuan dish. There are several backstories to explain the pockmarked grandmother, centering on it being her recipe. No explanation for the pockmarks nor, for that matter, the grandmother identification. I am sure the grandmother would have preferred not to be remembered for a skin condition. History can be cruel. So too naming in general. Someday I may talk about the naming of animals. For example the lesser kudu or the tawny frogmouth. But I digress.   

Here are the ingredients: 4 tablespoons vegetable oil; 4 cups (!) sliced onions; 1 lb. ground pork; 1 teaspoon smushed garlic (about 4 or 5 cloves, depending on size); 1/2 of a 14-16 oz. package of rice sticks or other rice noodles; 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger; 1 tablespoon soy sauce; 1 tablespoon brown sugar; about 2 cups roughly chopped kale; maybe 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt and 3 tablespoons garlic-chili paste. Plus about 1/4 cup thinly sliced scallions to garnish. 

The recipe specified Korean gochujang chili bean paste. I am pretty sure that's not what I had. I did have garlic-chili paste, and the dish tasted great. I say use whatever Asian garlic-chili product you have.  

 

I started by prepping the onions, garlic and ginger. 

I heated 3 tablespoons of the oil in a big skillet and then added the onions plus the kosher salt. I turned the heat down and let the onions cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

While the onions were cooking, I washed, de-stemmed and roughly chopped the kale. And I cleaned and sliced the scallions.

Here are the onions, reduced in volume and turning golden brown. 

I put the onions in a bowl. I added the 4th tablespoon of oil to the skillet and then the pork. I broke it up and cooked it over medium heat, just until it stopped being pink. 

I added the cooked pork to the bowl of onions. 

Next, I added the ginger and garlic to the skillet and stirred them around (medium heat) for a couple of minutes. 

Then I added the soy sauce, brown sugar, and garlic-chili paste. More stirring. I added about 1/2 cup of water. Still more stirring. 

Then I dumped the onions and pork back into the skillet; stirred again and turned on a big pot of water to cook the rice sticks. 

As the water was coming to a boil, I added the kale to the skillet, stirred it around, added another 1/2 cup of water and put a lid on. It took about 5 or 6 or 7 minutes for the kale to wilt. Other greens can be used, and so wilting times will vary. 

When the water boiled, I added the 1/2 package of rice sticks. The rice sticks cook in less than 5 minutes. Thicker rice noodles will take a little longer. Govern yourself accordingly.

When the rice sticks were done, I spread them on the bottom of a serving bowl, poured the sauce on top and garnished with the scallions. 

This is a pleasantly spicy dish. And a one-dish meal -starch, protein and vegetables all in one. Apparently, one can add Sichuan peppercorns (I don't have them in my spice rack) which kicks up the spiciness considerably. 

You will observe that this is a gluten-free dish (if you are careful about your choice of soy sauce). It could become vegan by substituting diced firm tofu for the pork. I would add the tofu to the spiced sauce with the onions near the end. It reheats nicely for lunch.  

Odds and Ends

It was a difficult year for trees in Iowa. "Derecho" was the name for this inland hurricane we had in Iowa in August. Iowa City was spared the worst. There was still considerable damage, not to mention the 4+ days without power. But Maisie was born early in the morning after our power came back late the night before. It was a real reason to celebrate.

We pay attention to the trees on our morning walks before work.

This is one of our favorite trees along that walk.

Here is out little garden plot after a few weeks this spring. Lettuce was rewarding, not only growing in the spring, but also growing from a second planting in the fall. We intend to have some on Thanksgiving.

A community garden is really interesting to belong to. You can see what other people are growing. Someone grew waterlilies. Of course I was about the only person who grew amaryllis.

You can meet some of those people. 

Not everyone keeps their plot in tip top shape. 

We will absolutely do it again. This coming year we will not grow as many cherry tomato plants.

I have about 8 uncarved pumpkins, in the garage, waiting for the really cold weather to arrive. That point is when the temperatures stay below freezing.

At that point we can carve them and hang them up in the trees for the entire winter.

Here are the two front porch carved pumpkins. They are starting to sag a little.

Be safe. Enjoy your Thanksgiving in a responsible way. Give thanks that a new day is coming. At some point there will be hugs again.

And join us again this winter to celebrate the year in pictures.

Pictures are from the past. They can provide a bridge to the future.

Philip