February 7, 2021 Week #11- the cold is here

Last Monday was groundhog day. I think that somewhere that damn giant rodent saw his shadow.  That is the only explanation for first, another small blizzard on Thursday, and then the big blast of cold weather.  Single digits totally encompass the 9 day forecast on the weather app. On several days  0 will be the high. I try not to think about the consecutive nights getting down into the negative double digits.

Actually if you add up the high temperatures for the next 7 days, the total is 28.  (It was 17 when I first wrote this.) If you add the lows you get -65. (It used to be -83) Brr.

Fortunately February is a short month. We will stay warm inside and have grandchildren to keep us from thinking about the weather. I am developing baby-toting backache. It is there particularly when I try to find a comfortable position for sleeping.  It also does not go away as the days go on. But Maisie is quite a baby. Yesterday, for example, she decided her brother jumping into the air was the funniest thing she had ever seen. She laughed and laughed. He would jump again and she would laugh once more. This went on for more times than you would have thought.

Here she is trying her first taste of avocado.

Christopher actually went sledding yesterday afternoon. He and his parents had the hill to themselves. Apparently it was not that cold. (It was maybe 10 degrees.)

He was dressed warmed than he appears in this picture. 

The outside garden is under quite a white blanket at the moment.  Inside, the orchids are carrying the show. The seedlings are growing, except for the ones that take a long time. I should just stop looking at those trays every day. They will all come up one day when I have not looked at them for a week.

Last Week in the contest

There was the tightest contest all season. That is saying something since we had one week  there was a tie. 

The winner was the pasque flower. Just one vote behind was the hellebore group. The daffodil and double bloodroot were right behind those two.

But the winner was certainly a worth participant.

Here was the full vote tally.

This Week is Week #11

This week the pictures are from from later in the year than last week. There is even one from outside in November. 

I wish I had more time for commentary. It just was not there this week. Can you imagine that?

#1 Cactus flower

 July 29, 2020

A neighbor gave us the first cactus plant. They make side shoots which can be pulled off and grown into another plant. They bloom starting in July. 

#2 Orchid Cactus

August 25, 2020

This variety of orchid cactus joined the garden a few years ago. It is appreciated in part because it blooms late in the season. In fact new flowers will keep blooming right up to frost.

#3 Pink Lilium

 July 11, 2020

I have added many new lilium in the last 2-3 years. Pink is good.

#4 Strange fall crocus

November 4, 2020

This is a fall crocus that just got wacky. I cannot find it in any catalog. Maybe it was just that odd mutation that shows up in lots of plants. But I really liked it.

#5 Bright red Peony

May 27, 2020

Peonies arrive after the spring bulbs are ending. They need a fair amount of sun. In May some of my big trees have not leafed out. I moved some of them this past fall. We will see how that works.

Bonus Pictures

There are just a few pictures. Let me just say it has been a busy week.

Cactus

I have grown these cactus plants for maybe 10 years. This one is the oldest, and at this point it is certainly the strangest. It started growing additional plants on top, about 5 years ago. It is an absolutely strange plant at this point.

Speaking of strange, one of the great parts of the 2020 garden year was the very successful plant sale for the food banks. It went on in the back driveway for maybe 3 months. People would bring plants, to supplement the ones I set out. Someone brought by this wonderful plant joke. They had carefully put red beads on the cactus thorns. I would have to tell people they were not real. Then they appreciated the plant joke.

Right Now

Rooting continues. Actually as the New Pioneer coop is carry less bulk spices during the pandemic, my supply of little glass jars is growing. (We have to buy spices in new containers.) This picture is the annual asclepias. It is the root champion of the winter of 2020.

When outside closed, I brought it a sage plant, a parsley plant, and a mint plant. The parsley has done the best. The sage plant survives. I decided to see if I could root cuttings. Apparently not, at least with sage. But the sage cuttings have bloomed.

Go figure.

Here is the light stand in the room where Christopher is staying. He gets up at 6 in the morning, so the plants get their 12 hours of light.

Yesterday the hibiscus bloomed. It has done remarkably well with light from an east window. I expect the fact it is next to the light stand helps.

The paphiopedilum is doing well. Since it has not bloomed for me before I have no expectations as to how long the flower will last.

Julia's recipe

Ricotta gnocchi

A few weeks ago, I posted a recipe for soft dumpling/noodles like my grandmother used to make. I just ran across a recipe for free-form ricotta gnocchi, similar in some ways to my grandmother's dumplings and easier than other gnocchi recipes I have seen. Winter is a good time for warm starch blobs, or in this case warm cheesy starch blobs. I adapted this recipe from the NYT cooking site. 

I was Using Things Up so my batch was bigger than the recipe called for - I made about 1-1/2 times the recipe.  Since Katie and Elisabeth and their children have been staying with us and therefore around for dinner for a while, I am cooking for a bigger crowd (including Maggie when her work schedule permits) than usual. 

I am going to lay this out as a more normal recipe which will feed 4 people nicely as a side dish.

The ingredients: 1 16 oz. container of whole milk ricotta; 2 eggs; 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese; 1-1/4 (or so) cup of white flour and some salt and pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon each). Plus a pot of water with 1 tablespoon of salt.

For the sauce: 3 tablespoons of butter and some fresh sage leaves (which we had because we are overwintering a sage plant). Instead you could use pesto or some tomato sauce (not too intense) for serving instead of sage in brown butter. 

I plopped the ricotta into a big bowl, added the parmesan, eggs, salt and pepper and stirred to combine. 

I put a big pot of water on the stove to boil with the 1 tablespoon of salt.

Next, I added 1 cup of the flour and stirred it in. The goal is a soft but not too soft dough.

Here I am assessing the dough. I decided it needed another 1/4 cup of flour. 

When the pot of water came to a boil, I scooped up a ball of dough - using a small disher  - and plopped it in. The little ball of dough held together (this is good) so I knew the dough was stiff enough. 

I put a big skillet on the back burner on medium-high heat and melted 3 tablespoons of butter.

Here is the gnocchi making operation - I used the disher to scoop small balls of dough into the water. When they floated, they were done and I fished them out of the water with a slotted spoon.

Meanwhile, the butter was beginning to brown (I turned the heat down) and I added the sage leaves. 

As the gnocchi finished cooking, I added them to the browned butter/sage skillet.

I poured all of the gnocchi and browned butter into a serving dish. We had salmon with mayonnaise and mustard on top and broccoli and salad. Dinner!

The salmon and the broccoli were the dominant flavors with mild cheesy starch blobs for contrast. 

Odds and Ends

In going through pictures I found this picture of a croton leaf.  The plant that goes with this leaf was one of several great new additions to the garden this past year. Sometimes leaves are as nice as flowers.

Let me close with the best pictures of the week. 

Christopher is actually an experienced person with a laundry basket on his head. But in our house you can easily run laps on the first floor.

Maisie, who is five months old, has things to say. She does not yet have words. Sometimes she can be loud in her expressions. I video taped one of her more verbal presentations and played it back to her. She was really interested in whatever that was. She was so interested that she was quiet.

That is it from cold Iowa City, early this Sunday morning. It is -11 outside. 

It will warm up someday.

In the meantime we will stay warm making cookies and applesauce. We will wear many layers if we have to go outside.

Julia got her first shot Friday, and I am scheduled for this coming Thursday.

The dawn is coming.

Be safe.

It is always good to hear from you.

Philip