March 26, 2023- We have a winner

 It is early on Saturday morning. Spring is here. Officially. New things are appearing in the garden every day. You just have to bend over or actually stoop down. Friday I found a little hipatica growing by some fancy snowdrops. Then there was the first Oriental poppy. Things are popping.

What I hear as I sit in the dark...wait for it...is the sound of the snowplow going by. I am going to stop writing for a moment.

Here was the screenshot of the radar at 5:30.

I look up the weather, and feel better. It is only 33 degrees. Sunshine is expected this afternoon as the temperature approaches 50. The snow will be gone, leaving only a memory of that loud scraping sound so early in the morning.

It really was quite pretty. It snowed 2-4 inches and there was no wind. Everything was coated with a line of white.

By about 9 the snow had stopped and the sun was trying to shine through the haze.

By 1 o'clock most of the snow was gone. It was 50 degrees and sunny. It was a little wet. But by the end of the day outside garden work could continue.

It was a good day for the late emerging aconite. By now the flowers have ended on the first ones to have bloomed. But there really was a lot of yellow lots of places.

It was also a good day for crocuses.

That will be a way to introduce the winner of the winter contest.

The contest is over

We have a winner

The purple crocus picture dominated at every opportunity. 

Purple is good. Clumps are good.

The violet had a lot of support. In the end it was never close. 

The full vote was

The crocuses got 41% in the finals, 57% in the playoffs, and 49% in Week #5.  What a solid base of support.

Here is a slideshow of the finalists in the 2022-2023 winter picture contest.

So what happens now that the contest is over? Well the blog will continue, celebrating flowers and presenting recipes. I will try to spice it up with a few votes from time to time. Maybe next week I will have a contest between previous winners. (I do not include in that vote the current winner.)

Right Now

The snow always provides some good pictures. Here is a little iris riticulata.

This is a picture of a branch of the elm tree yesterday. You can see the buds coming.

It was a week for the crocuses to shine.

This was last Sunday.

Here was Monday.

In parts of the yard the aconite continued their show. That was particularly the case after the sun came out yesterday (Saturday) , after the snow.

Look at the difference in yellows in this picture. The aconite are yellow. The crocus is gold.

The little tommies came out along the front path. Everywhere I look the little voice in my head whispers "more."

This is a different color yellow. These little wonders were in the grass in the front yard. The grass makes for a different background.

Here is that little hipatica. 

This is a little corydalis. I try to plant this with the aconite. It will bloom soon. Pink or purple.

Julia's recipe

Paella

A few weeks ago I continued my exploration of shrimp dishes, and I made a version of paella. I have made jambalaya and shrimp risotto and several shrimp and noodle dishes. So paella seemed a logical next step. Paella recipes often call for in-shell seafood like clams or mussels, but I live in the midwest. Although it is possible to buy such things, it seems too far from the ocean to do so. I do buy flash-frozen shrimp and that's what I use when shellfish are called for. In my kitchen, this paella turned out to be a variation on jambalaya, with the paella spices giving the dish a different flavor profile even though many of the ingredients were the same. I consulted a couple of cookbooks, including the Joy of Cooking and America's Test Kitchen and then closed the books and got on with it.

The ingrdients:

1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken thighs;

about 1/2 lb. frozen cleaned shrimp;

2 andouille sausages;

1 bottle clam juice;

1 quart chicken stock;

1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes;

1/2 cup diced onion;

1/2 cup diced red pepper;

1 tablespoon smushed garlic;

2 cups white rice;

2 tablespoons olive oil;

a pinch or two of saffron;

1 tablespoon paprika - all sweet or some sweet and some smoked;

1 teaspoon dried oregano;

salt and pepper. 

I started prepping the vegetables, dicing the onion and the red pepper and smushing the garlic. Then I cut the chicken into small pieces - maybe 1" or 1-1/2". 

I put the stock and the clam juice in a saucepan and when it was warm, I added a pinch or two of saffron which dissolved and turned the liquid a lovely golden color.        

Next, I put the olive oil in a big (12") oven-proof (no plastic or rubber handle!) skillet. When the oil was warm (but not screaming hot), I added the chicken bits and cooked over medium heat. 

The saucepan in back contains the stock and clam juice and saffron. 

While the chicken was cooking, I cut the andouille into rounds. 

Here are the bowls with garlic and peppers/onions waiting their turn.

When the chicken was no longer pink, I added some salt and pepper - maybe 1 teaspoon of salt and about 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper. If your chicken stock is salty, use less salt! 

And then the onions, peppers, andouille and garlic. I stirred it all around until the onions were a bit wilted. 

Then I added the spices and the can of diced tomatoes. More stirring.  

Shortly thereafter, I added the rice. 

I began ladling the warm stock into the skillet and stirring it in. 

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

When all of the stock was in the pan (and the pan was very full indeed). I put the shrimp all around the top. 

I carefully put the skillet on a rimmed baking sheet, put the rimmed baking sheet in the oven and baked it for about 20 minutes, until the rice was done. 

My shrimp were frozen when they went on top of the rice. If you have fresh or thawed shrimp, add them about half-way through the oven time. 

Out of the oven. Several recipes call for the addition of peas, presumably for color. 

I do not like peas. Never have. Don't try to talk me out of it. 

We had asparagus as a side dish, and it added a nice touch of green. We had both leftover paella and leftover asparagus, which we reheated together and it was very nice. And colorful.

Next time, I think I will put some chopped up raw asparagus on top along with the shrimp. 

If you have access to Spanish chorizo (which is a dried sausage as is andouille), use it. And if you have access to little clams or mussels, add them instead of or in addition to shrimp. 

Odds and Ends

The plant sale for the food banks has started. This week a friend brought two very special snowdrops. Those British people know how to obsess over little things. Their obsession over snowdrop variations is coming to this country. A single bulb of either one of these snowdrops retails for over $25. I started a silent aution at $50 per pot, as there are multiple bulbs in either pot. That seems like a lot of money but the sale is to help feed people.

This is snowdrop Desdemona.

This is Lady Elphinstone. It is a yellow centered snowdrop that is also a double. I recently read a book about a nazi prisoner of war camp called Prisoners of the Castle, by Ben McIntyre. One of the prisoners, who was held as sort of a prize prisoner,  was an Elphinestone. I assume the snowdrop was named for his grandmother or some other relative.

You are never too old to learn something. Of course things you learn you may have learned before. I have two different species of Eranthis. The more common one, all over the backyard, is Eranthis Hyemalis.

What I planted in the sidewalk bed in 2020 is Eranthis Cilicica. It in fact blooms later that Hyemalis, so it is just emerging. I will have pictures next week.

Did I mention there is more snow in Iowa this morning? It appears it is not coming here. 

I have seedling work to do, even if I am inside, as I was yesterday morning. I have many many Shirley poppies. Also lupines. It is still at least a month before frost free time.

Then there are the deer. They come, mostly staying on the path. I find that odd. They do seem to know what is not a snowdrop or aconite. I have some deer tape, which if I string out and spray with some product, might interrupt the deer path between out house and the one on the east. I also have some deer spray. I need to get this on the tulips as they emerge.

News from the state legislature is not good. The rumblings in the form of bills, are now getting passed and becoming law. We now have a public school bathroom bill, demonizing trans kids.  Soon we will loosen some of the child labor laws. It is rather awful.  I just took out more about how awful it is. 

Pray for peace, and reconciliation. Keep trying to find ways to help.

Philip