April 6, 2025 So Much to do, but feeling better about it

 April is here and everything is coming up. The slipper orchid clump has shoots up about an inch at this point. I found a clump of martagon lilies. I will try the deer repellant on both of these precious plants.

There is so much to do. Somehow I feel better about getting it done. Part of that of course is the Wisconsin election. Part of it is a fresh supply of compost, that gives me enough to pot things up to my heart's content. Part of it was some person bring some lovely peonies by for the plant sale.

But first, garden news.

The first hosta to unfurl is almost always Chinese Sunrise. Here it is, about on schedule.

After that stage with hosta you begin to worry about hard freezes. I think we have a 25 coming in a few nights. Will anything get covered? We shall see.

One task that remains is cutting back last year's foliage on the hellebores. I think I will cellebrate hellebores in net week's post. They really stand out this time of year.

Pictures

One thing about this time of year is sort of sad. The first spring flowers are finishing. They disappear and along come the weeds.

The snowdrops and aconite are done. So are the crocuses. All that is left are the pictures.

So....

For your voting pleasure I present this year's crocus display.

You can help determine which should be set aside for the initial cut for the fall contest. Will our outlook be better then? Have we truned the corner?

You should certainly resolve to get another couple hundred crocuses this fall.

#1 Light purple trio

#2 White trio

#3 Pink in a field of yellow.

#4 Pink and white combination

#5 Lots of tommies

#6 gold

#7 striped

#8 muted pink

#9 White with its blue friends

#10 Just White

Other pictures from this week

This adenium is blooming at the office right now.

We were in Des Moines Friday night into Saturday. The downtown sculpture garden is always pleasant, even on a chilly morning. These two charming fellows are both title Moonrise. The artist is Ugo Rondinone.

The star magnolias are blooming all around town. This one is in our bakyard.

This cheerful little naturalizer is chionodoxa. 

Julia's recipe

Rigatoni with Bolognase

Back to the NYT, with another quick main-dish recipe. I like Italian food, but it's not in my background or my DNA. Which is to say I am not sure how close this quick recipe comes to an authentic (acceptable) bolognese. We liked it, but as I said, not my background nor Philip's. Strictly tourists to Italian cuisine and culture.  

The ingredients:

1 lb. 80% ground beef;

1 cup chopped onion;

3/4 cup shredded carrot;

2-3 red Thai curry paste;

1 15 oz. tomato sauce;

1 cup heavy cream;

1 lb. rigatoni or other big shape pasta;

and salt and pepper.

What else is actually needed? 

A little olive oil. Even 80% ground beef can dry out and stick. I sued a tablespoon or two of olive oil while cooking the meat and then the meat and vegetables. 

Also we found the final product a bit bland. So we added some sriracha at the end. Maybe a teaspoon. In the alternative, you could add red pepper flakes (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon) to the meat during its browning phase. 

I started by putting the meat in a hot skillet (I heated the skillet on high for a few minutes before adding the meat). I used a potato masher to break up the chunk of meat. The recipe called for the meat to be broken up into little pieces as it cooked. I added some salt and pepper. I turned the heat down just a bit - medium high.  

While the meat was cooking (about 5 minutes after being smushed up), I cleaned the onion and carrots and cut them into biggish pieces.

At some point during the 5 minutes, I scraped up the browned bits of meat and added a little olive oil.

I put the vegetable pieces in the food processor. The recipe wanted the veggies to be finely chopped. Seemed like food processor territory. 

Here's the texture. Finely chopped but not mush.

I pushed the meat to one side, added a bit more olive oil and then dumped the veggies in. I cooked the vegetables by themselves for a minute or two, then mixed the meat and vegetables together. I cooked the whole mixture (meat and vegetables) for a total of about about five minutes.   

I then added the red curry paste. Not an Italian ingredient for sure, but potent and zippy and that's good. 

I also added a bit more salt and pepper (onions and carrots not being seasoned on their own).

Next I added the tomato sauce and 1/2 can of water. I turned the heat down so the sauce simmered. 

I put a big pot of water (with about 1-1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt in the water) on the stove for the pasta. When it came to a boil, I added the rigatoni and cooked the pasta according to what the box said. 

When the pasta was done, I ladled out 1/2 cup of pasta water. 

Then I added the pasta to the sauce. I added some of the pasta water. I don't think I used it all. 

Last, I added the heavy cream. And this is where the sriracha should be added too. Heavy cream and pepper sauce - perfect. 

On the table. Less tomato-y than some pasta-plus-sauce dishes. And creamier. With a bit more heat - very good indeed. 

We had it with the usual green salad plus blueberries and yogurt. 

As you can see, the recipe made a lot. It heated up nicely to lunches.

On the plate.

Odds and ends

The prayer list is long at this time of the world.

Remember the Ukrane? It has been mostly pushed off the front pages. It is still there, with springtime coming to a war zone.

Remember children everywhere. Protect them from adults. 

Remember the people of those countries who have lost their medical assistance, thanks to you know who. The term cruel comes to mind. (If it comes to mind quickly would it "jump" to mind?)

But then give thanks. 

Give thanks to the voters in Wisconsin. Did you know that Judge Susan Crawford, who was just elected, went to law school at the University of Iowa? She graduated in 1994. 

Give thanks for friends, both who we see and those we wish we could see more often. 

Give thanks for tree peonies, inclulding the little sprouts that might bloom in 5 years. 

It is time to sign off and send this to the post.

Come by the garden if you can. Be kind.

Philip

The contest has a winner- March 30, 2025

Busy busy busy. 

Where is that quote from? One point for the author. One point for the book.

But that is my life.

Last week there was the first daffodil.

Now every crocus is blooming, the first trillium is blooming and the star magnolia is blooming. Pictures are firther down.

The Finals- The Results

The picture contest was a cliff hanger, all week.

At one point it was

Later it was

I just waited for those last Saturday votes to get counted.

Here is the final tally after the polls are closed.

The number 5 seed won, in a whisker.

It was perhaps the closest finals vote ever.

Here is your winner, the Blue Siberian Iris.

I should mention the Siberian iris are coming up too.

The contest is over. The blog continues. I will even have more voting, but not for a week.

Right Now

There is so much going on in the garden.

The hellebores are opening and putting on their display. When fully up and blooming they are almost 12 inches tall. As such they are the tallest plant in the garden, for now.

This is a corydalis. It is established and spreads.

This is a late blooming crocus. It was Christopher's favorite. Katie send me a picture of their backyard yesterday, in Maine. It was covered with snow.

Crocuses do tend to clump over time. It seems that deer mostly leave crocuses alone.

The aconite is finished blooming in parts of the yard. But not all. It does tend tontake over at times. However it disappears by June.

The Virginia bluebells are emerging. I pot up a lot of the them for the plant sale for the foodbanks.  The form a root/tubor, looking like a carrot.

The scilla is everywhere, creating wonderful combinations.

The white crocuses are also larger and bloom later.

Julia's recipe

Lemon Poppyseed bread

Here's another lemony recipe from Michael Knock, the food writer for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. This is a glazed quick bread. Just the name of the bread is inviting. Like Michael Knock, I like sweet things with lemon - lemon meringue pie, lemon pudding cake, lemon pound cake, lemon cookies. So this recipe spoke to me. I made it the other day, and it was as good as I thought it would be.  

The ingredients:

1/2 cup regular oil;

1-1/3 cups white sugar;

3 tablespoons lemon zest - 3 lemons;

1/2 cup lemon juice, divided;

2 eggs;

2/3 cup buttermilk or sour milk;

1-1/2 teaspoon salt;

1 tablespoon baking powder;

1 tablespoon poppy seed; and

2-1/2 cups flour. 

I don't keep buttermilk on hand so I make sour milk when buttermilk is on the parts list. If you want (as I did) 3/4 cup of buttermilk, put about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in the bottom of a 1 cup measuring cup then add enough whole milk to get to 3/4 cup. Do this early on in the recipe work, and you will have thick-ish sour milk by the time you need it.

No additional ingredients for the glaze: just 1/4 of the lemon juice and 1/3 cup of the sugar. I'll get to the glaze later.

I started by measuring the oil and 1 cup of the sugar into a biggish bowl. Next I zested 3 lemons right over the mixing bowl. So I'm not sure I had exactly 3 tablespoons. If you zest the lemon over the mixing bowl, all of the zest and volatile oils end up in the bowl. If you take the intermediate step of measuring the zest, you will leave some flavor behind. So I think that equating one lemon with 1 tablespoon's worth of zest is a good way to measure. Three lemons for three tablespoons of zest. I had a nice amount of lemon zest in the bowl with the oil and sugar. 

I turned the oven on to 350 degrees and sprayed two 8" by 4" loaf pans with no-stick spray.

The recipe said to use one 9" x 5" loaf pan. I don't think that would have worked - too much batter.   

Next I juiced all three lemons. I ended up with more than the 1/2 cup I would need. The extra went into the lemon juice bottle in the refrigerator.

I added 1/4 cup of the lemon juice to the oil and sugar and zest. I noticed there was some pulp left on the reamer so I fished out the little seeds and added the pulp to the bowl too. 

I used a hand mixer to blend these ingredients.

I stirred the dry ingredients (salt, baking powder, poppy seeds and flour) together in a small bowl.

I had made sour milk in a one cup measuring cup. It is a generous cup, so I was able to add the eggs and stir the milk and eggs together in the cup.

I added 1/3 of the dry ingredients and then 1/3 of the milk-egg mixture, three times, ending with the last of the milk-eggs.

More alternating wet and dry.

More mixing.

I scooped and scraped the batter into the two prepared loaf pans, equal amounts (more or less) in each.

While the loaves were baking, I mixed the other 1/4 cup of lemon juice and the other 1/3 cup of sugar in a very small saucepan.

I cooked the mixture over low heat until the sugar melted and the mixture thickened slightly.

I baked the loaves for about 45 or 50 minutes. They were done when a skewer poked in the center of the loaf came out clean. 

I left the loaves in the pans for about 10 minutes then turned them out onto a cooling rack.

When the loaves were not hot any more, I poked maybe 20 little holes in the top of each loaf. 

Then when the syrup was warm but no longer hot, I brushed it all over the top and sides of the loaves. That's why the loaves look shiny. Very good and very pretty. This recipe is pretty much a standard quick bread, nothing particularly difficult, except maybe zesting 3 lemons. If you like lemony treats, give this a try.

Odds and Ends

"Busy, busy, busy, is what we Bokononists whisper wherever we think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is." from Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

The world is a mess. 

Imagin paying people a million dollars to vote a particular way. What is wrong with that picture?

Pray for peace.

Figure out what you can do to help, even a little.

If you are in Iowa City come by and see the garden. I certainly do not have to be here.  If there are deer in the garden chase them away.

The contest is over, for 2024-25. I am already watching for pictures for the next one.

But do not go away. I will continue to share little pieces of the garden. It is always good to hear from you.

Philip

The finals- March 23, 2025

 Spring is officially here. 

When I have time to look (more later) I find so many old garden friends emerging. You have to take the time to stoop and look. 

Stop the presses. Yesterday when I came home from the office amd walked around to the east side of the house, there was 

                                                        the first daffodil.

This  is iris bucharica, a different looking iris. I had planted some more of this plant 2 falls ago, as it had disappeared over the years. Near the top of the picture you can see a dwarf bearded iris, which looks very different.

Last week in the playoffs 

You selected this picture to advance to the finals.

Here was the vote totals. The violet kept it close. 

The finals

You have selected three pictures for the final final contest of the winter contest.

Let me get right to it. 

Here are the three pictures 

#1 Pink Dogwood

 April 26, 2024

The top seed has made it to the finals. It had a tougher time in the playoffs, but here it is.

I think about the top seed, either in pictures or in sports. Do you root for the top seed? If the top seed is your home team you certainly do. However, perennial (pardon the term) top seeds can sometimes be really irritating. Think New York Yankees or the LA Dodgers. 

There is that entire rooting for the underdog. By the way Pat, where does the term "underdog" come from? You must have discussed that at some point on your blog, located at https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog

#2 Blue Siberian Iris 

May 17, 2024

The fifth seeded wonderful blue Siberian iris managed something of an upset in moving into the finals. It advanced over the second seed, the cactus.

#3 Phoenix white Tree Peony

 May 4, 2024

The tree peony is always wonderful. 

Vote away. I am always interested in the why. What made you select one picture more than the others?

Right now

On cloudy days the crocuses do not open.

Combinations are good.

These are some of the "tommies." Those would be the tommasinianus crocuses. They are known not to be tasty to critters,

This is a little riticulata iris. I could have more of these.

This is a really healthy columbine clump. It does come back every year.

In the first week or so of crocuses, there are only the tommies. Then the bigger ones with other colors show up.

The hellebores are growing really fast now.

Julia's recipe

Greek Fish Soup

I made avgolemono soup recently. It is a Greek soup, made with chicken (full name: kota soupa avgolemono). Most importantly, there is an egg-lemon-rice sauce that is stirred into the soup late in the cooking process that both flavors and thickens the soup. The recipe is on the mearskitchen blog. It was delicious, and so I wondered about other avgolemono soups. 

I consulted my first Greek cookbook, Hellenic Cuisine. It was published in 1957 by the St. Helen's Philoptochos Society and the St. Constantine and Helen Parent-Teacher Association of Westland, Michigan. It was sold at the book department of Marshall Field's department store in downtown Chicago, and my mother bought me a copy early in our marriage. It is unusual in my experience for a church cookbook to be sold at a fancy department store. By the way, Mr. Google tells me that "philoptochos" means  "friend of the poor." It's a women's church group. 

I found two recipes for other avgolemono soups. One was made with fish (psarosoupa), for which the recipe is below. The other is made with lamb innards (mageritsa), and this soup is traditionally served early (like 1 or 2 am) on Easter morning after the late night church service on Easter Even (Saturday). 

I actually had mageritsa many years ago after I attended a late night service at the Greek Orthodox Church in Des Plaines, Illinois. It was better than it sounds. Later that day, the main course at dinner would be roast lamb. To this day, I serve lamb as the main course at Easter dinner. But lamb innards are not readily available, and that's okay with me.      

The ingredients:

1 lb. or so of fish (I used sablefish);

1 cup chopped onion;

1 teaspoon smushed garlic;

1 cup sliced celery;

4 tablespoons olive oil;

1 tablespoon flour;

3/4 cup medium rice;

1/3 cup lemon juice (plus a little more);

2 quarts water; and

salt and pepper. 

I used sablefish because I had sablefish. It comes from Alaska. It has fine bones down the middle of each fillet. And it has black (sable) skin which is hard to remove when the fish is raw. 

This is easier than the first direction from the recipe: "Wash, scale and cut fish into five or six serving pieces."  

Use a mild, filleted fish like tilapia or cod or haddock or rockfish.

First I chopped the onion and smushed the garlic. And prepared the celery by cutting each rib in half length-wise and then slicing.

I put the olive oil in a Dutch oven and then added the vegetables. I cooked the vegetables for maybe 5 or 7 minutes, until the onion was translucent and a bit soft. I started at medium-high and turned the heat down after a few minutes so the garlic would not burn.

I added a little salt and pepper to the cooking vegetables.

I cut each piece of fish in half down the middle and cut out the strip of bones. 

Then I sprinkled each piece of fish with a little bit of lemon juice and then with salt and pepper. 

I set the fish aside until needed.

When the vegetables are softened, I added the flour.

Next I added 2 quarts of water. I brought it to a boil and I then turned the heat down to a simmer. I let the soup simmer for about 25 minutes. 

At the end of the 25 minutes, I added the fish. I cooked the soup for another 10 minutes or so. At that point, the fish was done and beginning to flake into chunks on its own.

After the 10 minutes, I added the rice and removed the fish. 

I cooked the rice in the broth for 5 minutes; then I turned off the heat and covered the pot and let the rice finish cooking off-heat. 

Next, I took the skin off the fish (pretty easy once the fish was cooked) and broke it into chunks. 

When the rice was cooked, I ladled about 1 cup into a measuring cup. There was a little broth that came along; that was fine.

I poured the rice into my blender.

Followed by the lemon juice. 

I turned the soup back on low heat to keep it warm.

Lastly, I added the 3 eggs. 

I zizzed the mixture for about 1 minute.

Then I poured the mixture into the soup, on low heat. 

I stirred it in, turned off the heat again and added the fish chunks.

And here it is. It was very good. Very flavorful, even though the seasoning was simple and basic. A bit lemony, a bit vegetal, a bit fish-flavored. 

In the bowl. We had it with salad and raspberry custard pie. A nice dinner on a cold spring evening. 

Very nice reheated. It had thickened a bit in the refrigerator. I added maybe 1/2 cup of water and the soup warmed up with no texture problems. 

Odds and Ends

Some everyday patterns have been altered since the first of the year. For a long time I would get up early and  go out and get the morning paper. That tradition continued even after the local paper was bought out by Gannett. 

This year they got rid of all the paper carriers. Instead we now get the paper by mail. So there is no morning paper. I guess people just turn on the computer and get their news that way.

I am tired. Part of that is amount of gardening I did yesterday. I got my 10,000 steps, just gardening. 

Part of it is the world. Part of it is the enotional toll of having a big hearing on Friday afternoon. It is so much better to have a hearing at the beginning of the week.

As it turned out I drove for 90 miles friday  for my hearing, only to have the other side ask for a continuance, which was granted. So the hearing did not even happen.

Sometimes I think about not working so hard.

In reflections- and before I read the latest awful thing...

Pray that the voters send a big message on April 1. 

Pray for peace. 

Pray for all those who came to this country who had the welcome mat just jerked away. 

Pray for all of us who are trying to figure out what to do about small minded people.

Celebrate spring, which comes in Iowa no matter what the bad people do. 

Philip