August 18, 2024- The month slips away

 

My goodness. August is slipping away. All sorts of flowers that bloom in September are blooming now. I am not sure what that means.

The Japanese anemones started to bloom on August 4. Then this week the first toad lily bloomed. I think of them as blooming in October. 

The hybiscus flowers are finished. 

Before this one finished it gave this wonderful picture. I like the shadow of the pistel.

As it ends it makes this greenish seed pod.

Another sign the seasons are changing appears in the jack in the pulpit seed pods. They turn from green to red.

Here is that first toad lily.

This airplant is tillandsia. We have had it since 2015. It blooms this time of year and then every once in a while during the winter. It spends the winter over the kitchen sink. This is a ball of some kind, with lots of little airplants woven into the structure. The individual plants first turns red and then blooms. Those blue/purple things are the blooms.

And speaking of reliable, this cattleya just opened this weekend. It also bloooms during the summer and again around Christmas.

The phlox are still blooming.

Let us see if this works. A friend gave me a workaround that might let you have videos again.

As I went around the garden yesterday afternoon, I did find some gems.

Here us that blackberry lily hybrid.

Non-hardy hibiscus.

Plant trick- This is a jack in the pulpit that had some ferns grow up around it.

The cactus will just keep blooming for some time. This may open any night now.

Julia's recipe

Coconut curried rice and cod 

I ran across this recipe on the NYT website. It is similar in technique to the recipe for sesame salmon rice bowls, with different ingredients and different presentation. Also fast; also good. The NYT explained that this recipe is derived from an Indian vegetarian preparation, appropriated by the Brits while they were in India. The NYT version takes the recipe to the West Indies to add coconut milk. So here we go, around the world with a colonial power.

The ingredients:

3/4 lb. cod, cut into 1" (or so) squares;

1-1/2 cups basmati rice;

3/4 (or so) thinly sliced onion;

2 tablespoons olive oil;

1 tablespoon curry powder;

1 can full-fat, unsweetened coconut milk;

about 1/2 cup of water (not shown) 

2 or 3 eggs; and

salt and pepper.  

Notes:

I think any long grain white rice will work. I think small pieces of other fish (say, salmon or sole or shrimp) would work instead of cod. Or bite-sized pieces of chicken breast. I used thinly sliced red onion, which I had on hand. White or yellow would be fine. The original recipe called for 1/2 cup of frozen peas to be added near the end, for color contrast presumably. I never use peas. You may feel differently. Next time I will add a handful of baby spinach for color. Or sliced scallions.   

I started by cutting the onion into thin slices.

I heated the olive oil in a big skillet (with high straight sides), on medium heat. First I added the curry powder to the oil. When I could smell the curry, I added the onions and a bit of salt (maybe 1/2 teaspoon) and pepper (mayber 1/4 teaspoon). 

When the onions were limp, I added the basmati rice.

I stirred the rice around so it could pick up flavor from the olive oil. 

When the rice was coated, I added the can of coconut milk and about 1/2 cup of water

.

I stirred the liquid around while the coconut milk solids melted.

I brought the rice to a boil, put a lid on the pan and reduced the heat to low. I set the timer for 5 minutes.

While the rice was cooking, I cut the fish into cubes and sprinkled them with salt and pepper.

I added the fish pieces all around the top, put the lid back on the pan and cooked it for another 8 minutes. Still on very low heat.

Then I cooked several eggs for about 8 minutes (after the water boiled).

After 8 minutes, the fish was completely cooked and the rice was also completely cooked. 

I think I added another 1/4 cup of water near the end of cooking. I took the lid off the skillet near the end of the cooking time and I thought it needed a little more liquid. You should check too.

On the table, decorated with eggs. When I make this again, I will pay attention to color and add some green near the end of cooking, in one way or another. 

That said, it tasted good without any green things. You could taste the coconut milk and curry and the onion and fish too. 

It's a one pot dinner, which I also like. We had it with fresh green beans from the farmer's market and as usual, salad and berries and yogurt.

Odds and Ends

Gardeners are never satisfied. It was starting to be dry after such a wet July. It was really hard to pull weeds up until the middle of the week. Then it rained 2.5 inches. Now weeds come up easily.

I guess that means there is no excuse for not pulling them.

I am weeding the front parkway. In the empty places I am putting caladium.

Cleaning up a weedy bed can be energizing. You bring some order to what had been chaos. You just have to have avoid looking at the chaos in the other beds.

Another week is gone.

Happy birthday Maisie.

Remember the derechio.

Pray for peace.

Pray to find the work you can do to make the world a kinder place.

Philip