June 25, 2023- on the road

As high summer arrives in Iowa we are off to cool and wet Colorado. I can't wait to see the wildflowers at altitude.

Of course there will also be granchildren.

Update: We are in our cabin at the Y camp in Estes Park. We survived the rental car difficulties (which car will have enough room for all our luggage.) In our first day we learned about the limits of texting as a way to communicate. (Service is spotty,) We are all adjusting to altitude with a range of success. I have a headache that medication will not make go away.

As we watched from afar Iowa City finally got rain. It was half an inch according to some measures.

Please note that with less than reliable technology, it is not clear when this will be posted. It is unclear when next Sunday's post will be delayed a day or two.

We are leaving a hot and dry Iowa. The drought o meter is larger and closer than it has been. (See maps in Odds and Ends section. ) There is no apparent end in sight. Heat in excess of 90 degrees continues. 

Update as of early Saturday morning- there seems to be a nice bit of rain out towards Omaha. Maybe it will rain in Iowa City later this weekend.

High summer is here. The daylilies have just started. The lilium are good. Everything could use more moisture. I have to be sure to give water to the corners of the yard that do not get sprinkled. (A life metaphor is in there someplace.)

Last week you liked the pink shirley poppy.

The vote was...

well technical issues prevented copying the poll. It also means I cannot put up the poll for this week.  I have contacted the person who designed the poll. This poppy picture was the big favorite this last week.

It seems to have been a week when technology was intent on bedeviling us.

Best pictures this week-the week of June 18-24

#1 Deep red poppy

The Shirley poppies are about finished. It hasn't helped that they are not in range of the sprinklers.

#2 Lilium Knight Rider

It is almost black. What about its name? This plant is currently marketed in this country under the name "Night Rider." I believe that is incorrect name, but no one listens to me. The plant was developed in the Netherlands, where the TV show Night Rider is/was very popular.

Night Riders were the KKK in the American South. I really believe this was just a mistake in translation. 

#3 Asiatic lily John Hancock

The droplets are from the water wand. This lovely Asiatic lily has been in the garden in the front parkway for about 5 years. 

#4 Canada lily

This is a wildflower from...Canada.

#5 unknown daylily

There you have it. At least at the moment there is no poll. You will have to express your preference the old fashion way- commenting on the blog or sending an email.

Other pictures and events

finding seedlings- I have taken to throwing tree peony seed in the ground every September. I then have no expectations of any of those seeds germinating. This is particularly appropriate since I am told they may not germinate until the second year. 

Well, here are some of those second year germinations. I stumbled across them in the front yard. It was in an area where I put down some seed in 2021. There were about 5 that I found. I dug up and potted 2 of them.

These pictures show the old seed, in case you were wondering about what the plant was.

Here is a second or third year plant. I have 4 of these good sized seedlings that are maye 3 years old. Maybe they will bloom in two years.

Here is another Shirley poppy. They really are finishing. I will deadhead a few plants to see if that encourages new buds. Mostly they are along the curb on Fairview, where the sprinkler does not reach.

Some Asiatic lilies like the John Hancock plant, just come back without spreading. Some spread and some just get bigger.

Look at this Asiatic lily group

More Shirleys

How close up do you like?

#6

#7

#8

This is Fiamma. It is one of the more rigorous lilium in the garden. It blooms with that tall yellow lily. They put on a good show unless they are eaten by the deer.

Julia's recipe

Asparagus soup

        In answer to the question, what else can you do with asparagus after roasted plain, roasted adorned, steamed, stir-fried and stirred into rice dishes, there's soup. Very nice soup, in this case accompanied by cheesy crackers that some together pretty much in sync with the soup. I made this soup the week after I made the strawberry ice cream (knee deep in fresh and local) and so I was able to use some of the leftover heavy cream in the soup. I could pat myself on the back for being a thrifty cook, but that would be wrong.  This recipe is from the food & wine website, and I tinkered with it a bit. 

The ingredients for the crackers:

1-1/2 cups all purpose flour;

1-1/2 cups grated parmesan (I did not grate it myself, but I used imported from the Co-op);

1 teaspoon dried thyme (only I pulled a bottle from that part of my alphabetized spice collection and it turned out to be sage. Worked fine.);

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest;

1-1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) butter;

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, unless you are using unsalted butter, in which case 1 teaspoon; and

2 egg yolks.

These things are all on the right side of the picture, with the pepper mill that belongs on the other side with the soup ingredients. 

The ingredients for the soup:

1-1/2 lbs. asparagus cleaned and cut into 1" pieces, which worked out to about 3-1/2 cups of pieces;

1 cup diced onion;

2 tablespoons butter;

1 quart chicken stock or better than boullion to make that much;

1/4 cup fresh tarragon leaves;

1 cup heavy cream; and

salt, pepper and lemon zest to taste.

I started with the crackers, which needed to chill for a while. I put the flour and grated cheese in the work bowl of the mixer and added the thyme (or in my case sage) and some salt. Then I zested the lemon over the work bowl so as to get as much of the goodness as possible into the bowl. 

I turned the mixer on for less than a minute to combine the ingredients in the bowl. 

Then I cut all of the butter into little cubes and tossed it in along with the egg yolks.

This is kind of like making shortbread, except for the cheese and the sage and the eggs. Maybe not so like, but in both cases, it is better to have the butter working its way toward soft, to facilitate making a dough. 

I ran the mixer on low to break up the butter and eggs. When the mixture looked a bit clumpy, I took out a piece of plastic wrap and plopped about half of the mixture onto it. I then mushed the mixture around with my hands to form a log of maybe 2" in diameter and

6" in length. I wrapped it up, put it in the refrigerator and did the same with the other half of the mixture. 

None of this is pictured, but below there is a picture of me cutting one of the logs into slices. 

I turned my attention to the soup. I melted the butter in a Dutch oven and diced the onion.

Dutch oven with melting butter and onion.

I turned the oven on to 325 degrees in anticipation of the crackers.

While the onion was cooking over medium heat (to soften not brown), I cleaned and cut the asparagus. I am of the snap-the-asparagus-where-it-breaks school, as opposed to the cut-the-bottom-inch-or-so-off-all-the-stalks school. I have found the cut-the-bottom approach can leave a fair amount of woody stem. I break the spears where they break, which is not always the same place on each stalk

Then I rinsed and chopped the asparagus and when the onion was soft, I added the asparagus.  I did not have chicken stock so I added better than bouillon paste to the vegetables, let it cook for a few minutes (scraping the stuck-on bits up) and then added a quart of water. 

I let these ingredients come to a boil, then turned the heat down to simmer. 

While the soup was simmering, I used a serrated knife to cut each log into about 1/4" slices, which I arranged on silpat-covered rimmed baking sheets (cheese sticks to stuff).

I baked the crackers for about 20 minutes until they looked set and golden around the edges. 

I let the crackers cool (and set) on the baking sheets and then moved them to cooling racks. 

Meanwhile, the asparagus had softened in the pot. I thought I could use a stick blender to make a smooth soup. I was wrong. Asparagus is too fibrous, even when cooked to the point of extreme doneness. 

So I switched gears and got out the blender. I put a couple of cups of hot soup in the blender at a time. I held the top down with a towel because there is an eruptive quality to hot soup in a blender. As each batch got smooth, I dumped it into a soupd tureen. It did not take long (maybe 3 batches) so the soup stayed hot. 

After the soup was all blended and in the tureen, I stirred in the heavy cream, added some salt and pepper to taste along with a bit of lemon zest and a handful of tarragon leaves. 

On the table! I don't know why the tarragon drifted to one side of the tureen. Maybe the house is sinking. The crackers were still warm and a bit soft - they crisped up on the second day. Soft or crisp the crackers were cheesy and rich. The soup was delicious. 

We had salad and berries and yogurt, as we often do. 

Philip had soup a day or two later for lunch, cold. He said it was delicious cold too. 

Vegetable soups (including potato or mushroom) are a nice change from meat-based or bean-based soups. Now the question is, what else can you do with asparagus?

A final note - the recipe called for the addition of "1/2 cup frozen baby peas, thawed" at the end at the time the cream is added. My views on peas, baby or adult, are well-known. I omitted them. If you like peas, feel free to add them.  

Odds and Ends 

Bots from Singapour- There is a statistic below the poll each week that says how many page views there have been. Over the last several month there have been 200-300/week. For about the last week there have been 3000-3500. They are the bots from Singapous. Thank goodness they do not vote or leave comments.

Deer report. The little deer is staying around. I was out weeding at 6am Wednesday when it rose out of where it had been laying and scared me something fierce. It has joined me two other mornings this week.  I do chase it away. It is really agile for a little thing.

I did have my camera with me one time.

How dry is it? Here are maps.

"Normal" is about 16 inches so far for the year. We are about 1/3 low. Most of that has been in the last two months.

Coming soon- Pennants

Our freinds Pat and Stewart have sent us many pennants. They will go in our freshly hung ropes in the walnut tree. The pennant hanging will be in two weeks, when the garden will be part of "Open Gardens" in Iowa City. That is a special occasion when many gardens open up to visitors. Of course this will not mean much different for our garden as it is open all the time.

So we will hang the pennants to celebrate.

That is it from Iowa on this Saturday morning. I am up rediculously early. Our flight does not leave until about 9. We will be in Denver by 10. There is an hour time change. Katie and children arrived yesterday. We go to the Y camp in Estes Park late this afternoon. 

Pray for peace and reconcilliation.

Philip