August 21, 2022- Rain improves the garden and the gardener

 

August is fading away. At the beginning of the week I had the sprinkler going. It was something of a challenge to get out into the garden. 

By the end of the week it had cooled off and then it rained. We must have received over an inch of very gentle rain. With those current conditions it is a real joy to work in the garden. I felt a little like a plant that was wilted and then magically looks better with some rain. 

Yesterday was perfect for pulling weeds, which was helped by the fact the weeds are large. They are also close together so you can stoop in one position and get a lot done. 

With the rain arriving I can also announce I have lettuce coming up.

This however was the main attraction this weekend. 

This is orchid falcata neofinetia.  I have had it for a long time. I have a picture of it blooming in 2008. It reliably blooms in the summer. It was blooming last year right about this time.

Other pictures from this week. 

This is Black Beauty. It is an orienpet. That means it is a cross between a trumpet lily and an oriental lily. Its best feature is that it is very late blooming. It must be 2-3 weeks since the last one bloomed.

It is tucked away in a corner of the garden, where mostly it is not seen. It is now on the list to both be moved and to get some more like it.

This is the second year plant Sedum Atlantis. It survived last winter and is quite nice.

The lantana will be good until frost.

Starry Starry Night, the replaced hibiscus is blooming as it should.

Color and interest does show up in the fall. This hosta leaf is nice.

This is late blooming daylily Flames from Hades. It is in the jungle by the lamppost, sometimes known as the lamppost bed. That bed is one of those places that weighs down the to do list, making it more aspirational that practical. The color of the flower is set off by all that green.

Julia's recipe

Udon noodles with crab and vegetables

Sometimes the midwestern home cook finds herself in possession of something thoroughly foreign. In my case, it was 2 Dungeness crab claws. They came, unbidden, from the Sitka Salmon folks. The crab looked like deformed hands, which was weird. The Sitka folks had the forethought to send a recipe along, which helped a lot. I have variants to suggest using shrimp, which I think will more accessible to those of us who do not live in crab parts of the world.

The ingredients:

some crab (I had 2 "hands");

1 quart chicken stock (I used bouillon);

1 quart water;

1 cup sliced shiitake mushroom caps (stems set aside);

2-1/2 cups sliced bok choy;

1/4 cup sliced scallion;

1/4 cup soy sauce;

2 tablespoons mirin (rice wine)

2 tablespoons rice vinegar;

1 tablespoon sriracha;

8 oz. package of udon noodles; and

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil.

A bunch of ingredients, but if you so some Asian cooking, you probably                                                                                                                have them on hand. 

The first thing I did was separate the crab meat from the crab claws. And I separated the shiitake mushroom caps from the stems. 

Getting the crab meat out of the claws was brutal, requiring both poultry shears and kitchen shears. The recipe said in a breezy way - crab - "picked clean of meat from claws, knuckles and legs." I am not quite sure what that means. But I poked around and ended up with maybe 1 cup of crab meat bits and a pile of crab shells. 

I put the stock and water into a pot. Then I added the crab shells and the shiitake mushroom stems. I simmered the pot for 20 minutes and then strained the stock into another pot. 

Then I added the soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar and sriracha to the pot with the strained liquid and put that pot in the stove. 

The recipe did not explain satisfactorily what to do with the mushroom caps or crab or scallions. I thought it would be a good idea to cook them. So I sliced the mushroom caps, cut up any large-ish crab bits and sliced the scallion, setting half of it aside for garnish. I put the toasted sesame oil in a no-stick skillet and cooked everything for maybe 3 or 4 minutes. 

Somewhere in this time-frame, I cut the bottoms of the 2 bok choys and washed them (they can be a bit dirty in the bottom part). I sliced both the white part and the green part into maybe 3/4" strips crosswise.  

When the broth came to a simmer, I added the bok choy. I cooked it for just a few minutes.

Then I added the udon noodles, which cook pretty quickly. I don't remember how long the noodles cooked. I tasted and knew they were done when they were chewy but not too chewy.

Time to assemble. I scooped some of the crab-mushroom-scallion mixture into the bottom of a soup plate. Then I fished some of the noodles and bok choy out of the broth and added it to the soup plate, followed by a couple of ladles of the broth. Topped with some scallion garnish.

On the table. We also had salad and melon. 

More accessible version: use raw shrimp with shells instead of crab. Maybe 3/4 lb. Peel the shrimp and use the shells to make the stock. 

Even more accessible version: use already cooked cleaned and frozen shrimp, thawed. Instead of shells, use one or two bottles of clam juice instead of some of the water.

It was a good soup. The best crab soup I have ever had. Also the only crab soup I have ever had. But good. And reheatable for lunch.

Odds and Ends

I suppose we have all heard about feral pigs. This is high up on the list of things I do not worry about. 

During the week there was another competitor for that list. Feral donkeys. I kid you not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/science/donkeys-mountain-lions-death-valley.html

And speaking of feral pigs...

This story also appeared this week. I am so glad that large crocodiles are making a recovery from the endangered list. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/science/invasive-species-pigs-crocodiles.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Sunrise in Iowa City is now at 6:21. I suppose I should wrap this post up and go tend to the farm.

The students are back in Iowa City. Some groups of them still travel around in packs. One large group went to the farmer's market yesterday. 

Work is busy and in a time of transition. The summer clerk had gone back to school. I interviewed a new clerk on Friday who called me Mr. Mears. That was odd, and even a little grating. However I did not correct her at this point.

The world continues with some small signs of positive change. Some of those things are on the horizon and may not actually arrive. 

Yesterday we took some food to a family who needed help for a few weeks. As we left, Julia said we do know how to feed people. I thought about that.  I then thought about how as a state and country and world we did not particularly know how to feed people. Maybe we do not want to feed people. Maybe that is too harsh. We know how to feed people, sort of. 

Whatever.

There is a lot of work to do. That starts by getting rid of some of the weeds. Watch out for the feral donkeys. 

Philip