November 17, 2024- fall moves right along

 

It has stayed above freezing. Someone said that we, in Iowa, were now in a warmer gardening zone. I suppose I should investigate those plants I could not grow a few years ago that were in zone 6.

Some perennials on the back driveway are sending up new growth. They had looked dead in September.

This is sneezeweed. It is a sunny perennial which means it should go to some other garden. I will winter it over and sell it in the spring.

There is lots of new growth on the iris. I sometimes wonder if I should worry about that growth.

We actually saw some reblooming iris up the street,...blooming.

With warm falls I suppose reblooming iris should become a regular member of the fall plant show.

There is not much green left in the garden. The pulonaria are very happy.

There are little lupine everywhere. They are something to anticipate in the spring.

The kale gets better. I read  somewhere that the color gets better when the plant freezes.

Julia's recipe

Corn Cakes

Earlier this summer, I posted a recipe corn bread that included corn kernels. In response, I got an email from our old friend David who said he liked corn cakes. New to me. I looked for a recipe; found one and ran into my first problem - the recipe called for corn flour. Not grits, not corn meal, not masa, not cornstarch. Corn flour. I could not find it in local stores, but I did find it online. It was Bob's Red Mill brand, which I am familiar with, and we bought it online from an outfit called iHerb. I used the corn flour to make a batch of corn cakes from a recipe from the internet. Not so good. Then I noticed that the Bob's Red Mill people had their own recipe for corn cakes, printed on the back of the bag. Bingo. Here's their recipe.

The ingredients:

1-1/2 cups corn flour;

1 tablespoon white sugar;

2 teaspoons baking powder;

1 tablespoon chili powder;

1 teaspoon salt (I used kosher);

1/4 teaspoon baking soda;

1 cup buttermilk (I used 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup regular milk);

2 eggs;

6 tablespoons melted butter;

2 cups thawed and patted dry OR fresh corn kernels;

1/4 cup diced onion;

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or 2 tablespoons finely chopped jalapeno);

1/4 cup vegetable oil; and

plain yogurt or sour cream to serve.

When I was gathering the ingredients, I forgot the chili powder. It's not a pronounced flavor, but use it. I did; I just forgot to get it into the picture.  Use a little more red pepper flake if you like spicy. Or leave it out altogether if you don't. I had corn that we had frozen this summer. I thawed it and then put it in a paper-towel lined sieve over a bowl. I didn't want watery corn. Not a problem as it turned out, but I do recommend patting the corn to remove excess moisture. 

I put all the dry ingredients (corn flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, chili powder, and salt into a bowl. 

Then I melted the butter - I wanted it a bit cool when I mixed it with the eggs.

I put the wet ingredients (except the corn, onion and red pepper flakes) in a bigger bowl - that's the yogurt/milk mixture, eggs, and melted butter. I whisked them up.

Then I chopped up the onion. 

The butter cooling. 

After the butter cooled, and the wet ingredients were whisked, I added the dry ingredients and whisked them in. 

The little bowl is the corn, onion and red pepper flakes. 

Whisking.

Then I added the contents of the corn bowl to the batter. 

I stirred the corn into the batter with a spatula. No more whisking. 

I heated 1/4 cup oil in a big skillet over medium-high heat.  

When the oil began to shimmer, it was time to cook.

I used a 1/3 cup measuring cup as a scoop, and I got three little cakes at a time. 

It's always a bit challenging to fry cakes. Corn cakes or for that matter pancakes. 

I ended up jiggling the temperature up and down. 

I put all the corn cakes into a paper-towel line plate to absorb any surface oil. 

The recipe made 9 or 10 corn cakes. Maybe 11. 

We served the cakes warm, as a side to a tomato-based fish soup.

We ate our soup first, and then had our corn cakes with salad. 

The corn cakes are eaten (at least when warm) with a fork. And topped with plain yogurt or sour cream. 

Corn cakes are a nice change from biscuits or corn bread, more savory than either one. 

We did not them all. The leftovers can be eaten out of hand cold or reheated in a skillet. 

Odds and ends

Julia's off to Maine today for a week. It is to be 60 degrees for several days here in Iowa this coming week. 

Last week was a very busy week at work. I need to spend more time in the garden.  Maybe I will plant some lettuce. Not outside.

Look at this lettuce from the farmer's market yesterday,

I do not know if any of you know Nadia Bolz-Weber. She is a Lutheran minister in the Denver area who helps up through difficult times. Here was sonething she wrote last week. It is sort of a variant on the Micah quote.

"Dear God, There’s so much to fear right now that I’m sort of losing track of what to worry about most. So I’m gonna need some help focusing.

Show me what is MINE to do. Then grant me the strength to do it, and the humility to rest knowing it is enough.Help me remember that even if there is more to worry about in life right now, it does not mean that there is less to love in life right now.  

So protect every inch of our joy, Lord.

And if you could help me stop reading shit on the internet, that might really help too. Amen."

Be safe.

Refuel.

Resist.

Garden

Philip

November 10, 2025-gardening for the resistance

 It is difficult to know what to write. I start to think about flowers and I wonder why? Yesterday our daughter Maggie and I picked up sticks in the garden. There were a lot of them. We sold some jade plants for the foodbanks. I got my hands in the dirt.

This cattleya opened this week.

Actually I moved the cattleya to the living room. In that spot I got this picture without any clutter.

This is another orchid that just started to bloom. It is a catasetum. I think the particular variety is named "after dark." One of its features is that the spike hangs down.

Orchids can keep you going when the outside shuts down. This catasedum will probably stay in bloom for months. The second spike is just getting started. 

Other orchid pictures

This is the plant stand upstairs.

Here is a newly potted orchid called Coelogne viscosa. (Pronounced See-;odge-oh-knee)

Several had grown out of their pots this summer. I repotted them yesterday and used my new rocks. Two plants became seven. That is sort of how repotting goes, if you do not have people right there to take a few.

This a little orchid I have had for 9 years. It has these really tiny flowers that bloom off and on throughout the year.  They have more flowers right after they come in for the winter. This plant gets to be above the kitchen sink with the airplants.

Outside we still have not had the frost. There is not any frost in the ten day forecast,I am selling jade plants,

Here is an updates on the little guy in bud.

 The ornamental kale are looking better each week. 

Other pictures from this weekend.

This is one of the living room crotons in bud.

Julia's recipe

Sesame peanut noodles 

I like a good noodle dish. This is from the NYT, and it is called Takeout-Style Sesame Noodles. There's a back story about an enterprising Chinese restaurateur named Shorty Tang. Earlier, I posted another peanut noodle dish - a recipe from the New Pioneer Co-op. I like the New Pi recipe (Thai Peanut Noodles), but I think I like this one better. Of course, it's fast and highly flavorful. At least in my kitchen, it's a pantry dish - the only thing I had to buy was the noodles. 

The ingredients:

14 oz. shelf-stable soba noodles (see below for comment);

2 tablespoons plus a bit sesame oil;

3-1/2 tablespoons soy sauce;

2 tablespoons rice vinegar;

2 tablespoons tahini;

1 tablespoon peanut butter;

1 tablespoon sugar;

1-1/2 teaspoon smushed garlic;

1 tablespoon grated ginger;

2 teaspoons chile crisp (see below for comment);

some little matchsticks of cucumber; and a handful of lightly salted roasted peanuts.  

The recipe called for "1 lb. noodles, frozen or preferably fresh". Presumably Chinese, but that's not much help for a midwesterner.  The only thing I thought was to find noodles that were not dried. So at the New Pi, I found shelf-stable soba noodles. Not dried. They worked just fine. I think you could use dried noodles, Asian or Italian, but I would not use a pound of dried pasta. I think you would end up with too much. I'd say 1/2 or maybe 3/4 pound of dried noodles. 

As for chile crisp, I always have some on hand. I make it from time to time. and I'm pretty sure the recipe is on the blog. If you don't have chile crisp, use the same amount of garlic-chile paste or chile oil.  

Also, if you have Asian sesame paste rather than tahini, use that. I didn't. 

I started by grating the ginger and smushing the garlic. By the way, I keep my ginger in the freezer. I use ginger from time to time but not all the time. Freezing it keeps it from getting soft or moldy. 

One does, however, need to grate about twice as much as you need because it will melt and shrink in volume. 

I put all of the sauce ingredients (2 tablespoons of sesame oil, the rice vinegar, soy sauce, tahini, peanut butter, sugar, and chile crisp plus the ginger and garlic) into a bowl. I used a whisk to mix the sauce. The tahini and peanut butter took some whisking. 

Here is the bowl with all the sauce ingredients, before whisking. 

I brought a pot of water to a boil and dropped in the noodles. They cooked in less than 5 minutes. Then I drained them.

I dumped the noodles into a serving bowl and added a little sesame oil as clump prevention. 

Then I poured most (but not all) of the sauce over the noodles. And tossed.

I peeled and seeded and sliced up 1/2 of a cucumber. Maybe 1/3 cup of cucumber bits. 

That's my hand sprinkling the dish with peanuts. Compost bowl in the background!

On the table. The contrasts were good - soft noodles, crunchy cucumber and peanuts, kind of spicy sauce.

I had also cooked some green beans. Then I dumped them into the bowl that still held a bit (a couple of tablespoons) of the sauce to give the beans a light coating. 

On the plate. We had plain salmon (baked with a little olive oil, salt and pepper) to contrast with the spicier noodles and green beans. Followed, as usual by salad. And bread pudding for dessert. 

I think both the noodles and the green beans will make a nice lunch. 

Odds and Ends

Swallowtail butterflies and staying in the north. 

I just read about the swallowtail butterfly caterpillar.

Apparently not all butterflies migrate.  The Swallowtail winters over with the assistance of something like antifreeze. 

Here is more information.

https://www.montananaturalist.org/blog-post/how-swallowtail-butterflies-survive-the-winter/

Here are pictures to remind us all of better times.

This last picture is from Maine.

The next four years will be difficult. That could be an understatement. But the clock has started.

With friends and natural beauty we will get through this.

This is a commentary on Micah 6:8.

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

Philip

November 3, 2025-A plant called Hope

Welcome to November -the time of maximum anxiety

While many hosta are done- this one still looks good. 

It is Hope Springs Eternal

What a collection of emotions this week. Scared. Tired. Hopeful. That sort of sums it up. The order is rather accurate. 

And then there is the garden.

The rain is back. We had over an inch the middle of the week. It has been raining for the last 10 hours. It has been a while since there was a rain that lasted this long.

Yesterday I worked in the garden. It was therapeutic. I transplanted a few plants, anticipating the rain. Here is one of the ornamental kale. The worms are in the past, and some are starting to look good. I should give them some fertilizer.

It is a little hard to tell in this picture, but this little kale is 10 inches high. It is also 

in the front yard bed. 

This is the very large lantana, that overwintered last winter.  Time will tell whether the plant recovers from the transplant. This next week's weather should help. It will be in the 50's for most of the week. As I check, that is about normal for the first of November. Normal drops from 56 at the beginning of the month to 42 by the end.

Mostly there has not been a frost. I still have some plants outside. Colin brought in the last of the really heavy ones Friday. That included the two large Night Blooming Cereus. The darn plant vines. Sometimes I have trimmed them when they come inside. However they do bloom on last years growth. 

Gem of the week

There are not many "oh my" moments this time of year. This little hoya gave me one of them this week.

It is Hoya nummularioides Porcelain Flower. It is one of several new plants that was healthy but small. 

I brought it inside with the hoyas about a month ago. 

Monday of this past week I must have picked up the plant for some reason. Then I noticed the bloom.

This picture gives you a better idea of the tiny size of the flower.

Let me give you more  perspective.

Different plant.

I would like to write a little about Jade plants. They are still mostly outside. 

The official name is Crassula Ovata. It is native to South Africa.

This time of year they do really well in the cool sunny weather. We brought the big one inside yesterday.

Here is the group on the back driveway yesterday.

In the sun they can develope a nice red edge.

In the fall I make cuttings, starting a few dozen plants for the coming years. In the second picture above you can see the cuttings and the one year old plants.

Here is the cutting that is going to bloom. I will continue to have pictures eack week until it blooms.

At this point it has a dozen other new plants with buds.

Here is what a jade plant blooming looks like. This is a picture from my niece Julia's yard in southern California. 

More pictures

Our sycamore tree had some branches that were either touching the top of our roof, or close to it. Our insurance company insisted that we get them cut. We finally had the tree guys come, with their big machine. It had to go in the garden. They were careful. I did have to pull up a bunch of labels. Matching the labels with the plants will be a task for the spring time.

In this picture you can see the bucket way up in the air.

Most of the zinnias are done. It was a touch year for the zinnia group. 

I really liked the color on this next picture.

A few toad lily flowers persist.

Another zinnia.

Julia's recipe

Hummus

Although I grew up eating Greek food, I did not have hummus until later. I associate hummus with middle eastern food, around the corner of the Mediterranean from Greece, past Turkey toward Lebanon and Israel and Palestine. I remember, maybe 35 years ago, eating in a small middle eastern restaurant in Mount Prospect, Illinois (the suburban neighborhood of my family). That's where I remember having hummus and baba ganoush and pitas for the first time, as well as the more familiar shish kebab and tzatziki. All terrific. We have bought hummus from time to time ever since. Recently we were having pita pocket sandwiches with ground lamb and tsatziki and spiced cashew rice. So I decided to make my own hummus. It was way easy and very good.  

The ingredients:

1 can of cooked chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans);

6 tablespoons lemon juice;

2 tablespoons water;

1/2 cup tahini;

4 tablespoons olive oil;

5 medium to large garlic cloves;

1/4 teaspoon cayenne;

1-1/2 teaspoons paprika;

1/4 teaspoon cumin; and 

some salt - maybe 1/2 teaspoon, maybe more to taste. 

I peeled and flattened the garlic cloves. Sometimes I have to smash them to get the papery skins off. No need to do more than that. This is a food processor project. 

I drained the chickpeas. I never know what might be in the liquid of canned beans. 

I added everything to the food processor work bowl. I approximiated the amount of tahini, which is hard to measure precisely. 

After everything was in the work bowl, I clamped the lid on, eventually remembering the trick to that. I pulsed the mixture a few times then let the food processor run for maybe another 30 seconds. 

I took the lid off and tasted the hummus. I thought it needed a little more salt, which I added and then briefly zizzed again. 

And that was it. I ootched the hummus out of the work bowl and onto a plate. 

I had been cooking the rice dish in a Dutch oven in the oven. It was done, and I turned off the oven. I put the pitas in the turned-off oven to warm up for a few minutes. 

I poured a little olive oil around the top for looks. One could garnish with minced parsley or a little paprika or minced kalamata olives or minced roasted red peppers.

It was very good. Smooth and savory but not harsh (despite the garlic). The leftovers held up in the refrigerator for the few days until they were all gone. 

Hummus is also good cold.

The only odd pantry ingredient (maybe) is tahini, which comes in handy in various middle easter or asian recipes. And it keeps pretty much indefinitely in the refrigerator. 

Odds and Ends

I had an extra hour this morning to work on the blog. I usually get up at 5. So of course my body woke up at what is now 4. There was plenty of time to check on spelling and add a picture or two. I also read encouraging news in Iowa about the election. I am old enough however, to only go so far with that news. It will be a long next 3 days.

I will appreciate the extra daylight in the morning. I will not like going home from work in the dark.

I need to start thinking about the picture contest. It started in 2005. How long ago was that? 

But the outside garden is not done yet. With no frost in the future there will still be things to do for a while. How will we all feel next week at this time?

The winter farmer's market starts today in Iowa City. The wonderful Saturday's market is over. The violet person should be there.  

My rocks arrived. Here is one orchid that is now stabilized.

Our favortie inflatable is over on Court Street. I do believe it glows.

The dreaded leaf drop has arrived. It hit several crotons rather hard. It was probably my own fault. I am working on that watering schedule.

It was 85 degrees on Wednesday. I was able to avoid the temptation to turn on the airconditioner.

The prayers for rain have been answered.

Let us work on that whole war thing. Remember Ukraine? Remember children?

While we are at it, let us pray for voters to have some good sense. The emperor really does not have any clothes on.

I mentioned I was scared, tired and hopeful. 

Maybe hopeful can move up to seond place.

Philip