April 23, 2023- just a bit of chaos

Katie and family arrived Tuesday afternoon. The children adjusted their schedules and now we have normal chaos. So many library books, and now board games. Did I mention Caitlin Clark and Easter Eggs? All rolled into 4 days.

Outside is somewhat limited this weekend as the temperatures have plunged. We are skirting the frost/freeze with some of the crotons huddling on the front porch at night.

This post will be a little short this week. Probably late too. I have limited access to my desktop computer, which is the computer with the pictures. That computer is in the room where Maisie sleeps.

Speaking of Maisie

Here is Christopher

He was wearing his Iowa sweatshirt, They all went to the Coralville Food Pantry Friday and met Caitlin Clark. She was quite nice, and has raised over $50,000 for the CFP.

We are the tortoise with our backyard sale. However, we had our best week ever as donations begin to arrive. I will have to start potting hosta soon.

Last week in the voting you liked the twinleaf and the tiny trillium. The twinleaf blooms for such a short time. There will be seeds. I wonder about growing it from seed.

Here was the vote

This week's best pictures

1-Monsella tulip with orange friend

I cropped this picture to get rid of the dandilion. I have started digging dandilions as part of the garden rotation.

2. Wide open tulip

3. Iris Bucharica

This little species iris has been in the garden for 20 years. Several plants do return every year. I have resolved to get more.

4. Odd windflowers

5. Yellow epimedium

I find epimedium so hard to photograph.

There you have it for the week of April 16, 2023

Other pictures

#1

#2

I love the color combination on this daffodil.

#3

This picture shows you baby lupine which are showing up many places these days. I let the flowers stay on the lupine plants until they dry and  send their seed all around. I do have to be very careful when weeding. I do not believe these seedlings will bloom the first year. Having a fresh crop of seedlings means that you have lupine in a few years. (I do think it was a good winter for lupine.)

Look at the bottom of this picture. I was digging dandilions when I noticed something, just coming up.

It is a lillium of some sort, probably an Asiatic. You will notice the main bulb, and then some seedlings.

Saturday morning there was this little sprinkle of ice crystals everywhere. It did not do any damage

I love how the epimedium and bluebells play together. Sprinkle in a hellebore and some daffodils. 

Maisie decided to wear her helmut yesterday.

We went to the university art museum yesterday, for the first time since it reopened. The art was interesting. But there were projects set up by teachers of art in training. The children must have spent 45 minutes with several projects.

Julia's recipe

Another meatball recipe- vaguely Greek

This recipe appeared in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, demonstrating that good eats can come from a variety of places. The meatball mixture is refrigerated for about 20 minutes while the tomato sauce is made and then the meatballs bake in the sauce in the oven. Although it is late April, when I went to Hy-Vee on Saturday morning, there were snow flurries. So turning the oven on is not a problem. This recipe makes a lot of meatballs. We froze the extras, and I can report that they freeze well and it is always nice to have a tasty main dish that only needs to be defrosted and heated up. 

The ingredients (meatballs):

3 slices whole grain bread (or whatever you have);

1/2 cup milk (whole preferred);

1 lb. ground beef;

1 lb. ground pork;

2 tablespoons butter;

1 cup diced onion;

1-1/2 teaspoon smushed garlic;

2 eggs;

2 teaspoons ground cumin;

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon;

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano;

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes;

1 teaspoon salt;

1 teaspoon black pepper and 

some minced fresh parsley.

The ingredients for the sauce:

1 cup diced onion (yes, onions in the meatballs and the sauce);

2 tablespoons olive oil;

1 teaspoon smushed garlic (again, yes);

1/2 cup dry wine;

 1 big can (28 oz. tomato sauce);[

1 bay leaf;

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin;

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon;

1/2 teaspoon sugar;

1 teaspoon salt; and 

1 teaspoon pepper.

I toasted the bread. Really. Then I tore it up and put it in a little bowl with the milk. I let it soak for maybe 5 minutes while I worked on the veggies. 

Next I chopped the first onion and smushed the first garlic.

I squeezed out the bread and threw away the milk. The squeezed out bread was in little bits which I put in a bowl.

I melted the butter in a skillet, added the onions and garlic and cooked the vegetables over medium heat. The idea is to have the onions soften slowly and take on a little color.

While the onions/garlic were cooking, I added the ground beef and ground pork and eggs and spices (cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, oregano) to the bowl with the mushy bread. 

This is a video of me mixing the stuff in the bowl with my hands. Not my favorite cooking procedure, but with ground meat and other stuff, there is no alternative to mixing by hand.  

When the onions were done, I let them cool for a few minutes and then added them to the bowl.

When the mixture was cool enough to work with, I mixed some more and finally added some chopped parsley. I happened to have some parsely on hand, so I used it, but I don't think it is essential. 

Then I set the meatball bowl aside. The meatball mixture needed to sit quietly for 20 minutes. During this time, I turned my attention to the sauce.

But first, I turned the oven to to 400 degrees.

I put the olive oil in the same skillet I had used before and cooked the other cup of onions and other teaspoon of garlic. When the vegetables were soft, I added the wine and cooked the skillet until the wine was mostly gone. Then I added the tomato sauce, cumin, cinnamon, sugar, bay leaf, salt and pepper. I stirred it up, brought it to a boil, and simmered it for 15 minutes. 

While the sauce was simmering, I got back to the meatball mixture. First, I sprayed a 9" x 13" pan. There was a lot of meatball mixture. I patted it into 18 oblong shaped patties, and put the patties in the pan. 

I gave the sauce a stir and took the bay leave out.

I ladled the tomato sauce over the meatballs. I did not just dump the sauce on top for fear of a tsunami effect on the meatballs.

I covered the pan of meatballs with foil and baked the meatballs for about 30 minutes. Then I took the foil off and baked it for another 10 minutes. While the meatballs were baking, I made some orzo and some asparagus. When the meatballs were done, we ate maybe 4 of them and had a lot to freeze. 

I recognize that this is not a weekday dinner: it takes too long. But the meatballs are good, and as I said at the top, they freeze well. 

The thing that makes this recipe Greek-ish is the inclusion of cinnamon in addition to oregano and cumin. It is very good. 

On the table! 

Odds and Ends

I think we missed a frost last night too. (Saturday night.)

Christopher and Katie got some unexpected exercise after supper last night. They chased the group of deer away from the yard. There were 8 of them. Oh my.

Chirtopher is now 6. He is curious about things mentioned in adult conversation. Some people they know in Maine are waiting for an immigration ruling on their asylum request. He asked what that was. He then asked what they were afraid of in their home country.

It is a cruel world in many places. Like Missouri and Florida and Tennessee. This list goes on. Oh.I remember. Iowa has joined the list. Competition for the most cruel is particularly scary. 

Pray for peace. Pray for more kindness.

Pray that we can all find those little things that make it a more welcoming world.

While we are at it, let us find ways to keep the deer out of the garden.

Philip