August 30, 2021- It rained

We are home 

and back to work. 

There are people with problems

where we cannot fix them all.

So we put one foot in front of another.

It is hot. 

We wonder when will we be able to open the windows?

But it rained - three inches this week. 

How is the garden?

I cannot say enough about having rain. Weeds grow but come up easily. You just feel so much better working in the garden when there is moisture.  There are still wonderful moments.

This beauty greeted us last Sunday on our return. It is a variety of orchid cactus.  This one blooms into the fall and continues to bloom well into the daytime hours. I understand that a cool spell will trigger something that will have it bloom again.

It did rain this week, beginning on the night before we returned. We had about 3 inches of rain spread out over about 5 days. It rained so often that we remembered the rain events for where we were. One day was right before work. Another time we were at the pharmacist after work.

I put away the front yard hose on Thursday. Well, I rolled it up so it was not cluttering up the front yard. We will probably need it again in a week. Indeed the last few days were so hot that by the end of the day the annuals were all wanting more water.

Gardeners - I suppose one question is whether they are optimists or pessimists.

 

As I write most of this, it is very early Saturday morning. It is still quite dark as late as 6am.  I need some light in order to  get outside and continue with....garden cleanup. There is no shortage of places to begin.

It is that time of year when there is a routine. Some early leaves are already sprinkling the garden. The weeds in parts of the yard are hiding the flowers. The sycamore tree seems to have shed its all of its bark which is now all over the back yard. 

So you start somewhere.

I am working on getting the front yard under control. I slowly weed the sidewalk bed, cutting back the daylily foliage to maybe 6 inches. I then weed around the plants, perhaps add some fertilizer. If available I can fill in the holes with annuals. Yes, it is almost September and I am planting annuals. After all we could have another 2 months before that "f" word comes - frost.

Fortunately this year I have a nice supply of coleus and impatiens. 

You know what time it is when pictures of seeds start to appear on the blog.

This is one of the blackberry lilies, aka pardencandas.

They are sometimes called blackberry lilies after the appearance of their seedpods.

 

This of course is the seedpod for the jack in the pulpit. 

It was all green a month ago. It will be all red in another few weeks. In the meantime it puts on a really colorful show.

The other name for the plant is arisaema. 

The plant is really interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arisaema_triphyllum

The flowers are described as dioecious and sequentially hermaphrodites.  I did not know the word dioecious. It means a particular plant or animal that will be one sex or another. With the jack in the pulpit that changes over time.

Who knew?

According to wikipedia, which of course means it is true, the flowers are pollinated by fungus gnats. Those little critters are our enemy in the winter months. 

You know fall is coming when a plant emerges that has the word 'fall' in it. This is the fall blooming crocuse.

It has just been in the last few days.

These fall crocuses are the ones that have lots of daffodil like foliage in the spring.

They seem to always bloom about September 1. 

The fact that they are under the surface growing means you do have to be careful weeding.

It helps to remember where they are growing.

Julia's recipe

A different cornbread

Corn bread interests me. I did not eat it growing up, as it is not an Eastern European or Greek thing. Later, in my own kitchen, I made the kind that was dry and crumbly until I ran into the moist corn bread recipe in Recipes for a Small Planet. That recipe (which is on this blog) is my favorite, but I am open to trying something new from time to time. This recipe came from Bert Greene, the Long Island restauranteur whose vegetable-focused cookbook, "Greene on Greens," is an old favorite. He referred to this as Awendaw cornbread with a story about Gullah people on the sea islands off South Carolina. I was not sure I should take nutritional anthropology insights from a Long Island restauranteur, so I looked it up on Google.

It turns out that Awendaw refers to a native American people who grew terrific eating and cooking corn in colonial times (and before). Various recipes (mostly from self-identified South Carolinians) appear on Google, none quite like this one. Some call this dish a grits souffle or a spoonbread. All include grits (aka polenta) and cornmeal and egg and water and salt. Some include milk and butter. This recipe also adds sauteed peppers and cheese and is softer than some cornbreads but it is not spoonbread.  

I made my cornbread in a pan that is 9" x 9".  If you double the ingredients, you will have enough for a 9" x 13" pan. 

The ingredients:

3 tablespoons butter (divided);

1 cup diced peppers (I used a combination of green and orange);

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes;

1 cup milk;

1 cup water;

1/2 teaspoon salt (any kind);

1/2 cup polenta (or grits - I used Bob's Red Mill);

another 3/4 cup milk;

1/4 cup cornmeal;

1 egg; and 

3/4 or so of grated cheese (I used nice sharp cheddar). 

I don't know what the pepper grinder is doing in the picture. You will also need something to lube up the pan. I use cooking spray. Oil or butter would work too,

I started by prepping the peppers. I cut them into little strips. I think a dice is better. When I made this recipe again, I diced the peppers into about a 1/4" dice. 

I grated the cheese (using a medium grater - not the coarse side) and set it aside. 

I melted 1 tablespoon of butter in a little skillet and cooked the pepper pieces and the red pepper flakes over low-medium heat to soften the pepper bits. It took about 10 minutes - low heat, no browning. 

I bought1 cup each of milk and water to a boil in a saucier (a rounded sides pan) and whisked the polenta and salt in.

I whisked the mixture over medium heat until it thickened. This took about 10 minutes. Maybe a little longer. It is surprising and gratifying to have a small amount of polenta turn into a thick slurry. 
 

Here is the polenta all thickened up. Next I stirred in the other 2 tablespoons of butter.

I took the cooked polenta off the heat; moved the pepper bits to a bowl and measured the other milk (3/4 cup) into the skillet. 

I heated the milk to boiling. 

I don't know why this bread calls for both polenta and cornmeal but all of the recipes I looked at do. 

I poured the boiling milk into the polenta, whisking the milk in. The bit of color in the milk is from sauteing the peppers. Good stuff.

I think this is an action shot: whisking vigorously!

More action, I think.

After the milk was whisked in, I whisked in the egg and the cornmeal. Then I stirred (wooden spoon at that point) the peppers and the cheese. I poured the mixture into the prepared pan and baked it in a 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes. I started checking after about 35 minutes. A skewer or toothpick should come out clean. The top should be nicely golden brown.

And here it is on its way into the oven.

We served it with baked fish and farmer's market green beans and cucumber salad. 

If you are averse to peppers, leave them out. If you like peppers but not the prep, you could use a small can of diced jalapenos of whatever heat level you prefer. 

I would encourage the addition of cheese. Cheddar is nice. Pepper jack would be good or even parmesan. 

The cornbread is softer than moist corn bread, but it stiffens up overnight and is easily eaten out of hand on the second day. 

Odds and Ends

We had a 5 hour layover in Chicago on our way back from Maine. This was a scary prospect. But since our bags were checked, we just left security and went to visit Julia's family. It was really nice. I would almost think about scheduling that kind of layover in the future.

We did see this while we were in the airport.

Marijuana is legal in Illinois, but not where many passengers are going. 

Using one of these drop boxes are presumably for people going to jurisdictions where marijuana would be a crime. (For that matter I have no idea whether there are federal regulations prohibiting dope on planes.)

Actually I do not think about crimes while flying. If you assaulted a fellow passenger while in the air, whose laws govern?

I do want to thank all of you who responded to last week's special post. 

Julia and I live in a little quiet bubble without a lot of outside contact. Your responses really do mean a lot. 

Be careful out there. My 50th college reunion was just postponed again because of germs. It had been scheduled for June 2021 and then moved to this October. Now maybe next year.

Next year....

Find a small way to make the world a better place. 

Philip