Celebrating little bearded iris-September 24, 2017

Greetings
We are on vacation. We left the midwest very early on Thursday morning, having encountered over 3 inches of rain in Moline, Illinois. One of my favorite things is trying to find a hotel in the dark, in the rain, with road construction all over the place, and poor directions. Not.


We are in Maine at the moment visiting Katie and Elisabeth and of course our grandson Chritopher Philip. There will be pictures when we get home in 10 days.
I cannot show you garden pictures from this last week because we were mostly gone. Then there was work.
We are all way too busy.

For your viewing pleasure this week, I searched my archives and found these little bearded iris. They are one of my favorites. They bloom mostly in April. These are on my mind as I planted some new ones just this last week.

But here is is this week's post that we put together on the fly so to speak.

In last week's voting the preferred picture was the anemone closeup. It is a good one.

Here were the votes
Anemone closeup  13
toad lily 8
pink and yellow lantana    7
white and yellow  7
yellow and orange   4
double pink   4
single fall crocus  3
overview of lantana  2



This week's pictures are little bearded iris from over the years. I do not have names, so numbers are the best I can do.

#1

I find the color combinations so wonderful. Sometimes is just that fuzzy part that is the contrast.
That part is called....wait for it....the beard.

#2

#3

#4

#5
Brown and blue is an unusual combination, but one that works.

#6

#7

Who needs a color contrast when the color is this nice peach.

#8

#9



Yellow and white is quite stunning.

#10






















I trust you can see how one can be captured by these little guys.
If you are interested in voting you can vote for numbers.
You can pick 2.


No bonus pictures this week, but there is a recipe. Julia is way ahead of me.

Zucchini Bread

by Julia Mears

Zucchini bread is another of those summer solutions to the problem of excess produce of a perishable kind. We cannot freeze zucchini for the winter as we freeze corn or green beans. We can, however, freeze zucchini bread.

My recipe for zucchini bread comes from the cook at the orphanage where my mother lived from the time she was 12 until she was about 19. The cook was a remarkable woman whose name was Hazel but who was known to all as Mitt-Mitt. Not sure why. I believe that she had been an orphan herself from England and that she ended up being adopted or taken in by homesteaders in Nebraska just in time for the big drought in the latter years of the 19th century. She made it through and must have had a number of adventures that I do not know about, although I do know she was married to a cornet player in John Philip Sousa's band who, I think, was a bit of a wanderer which is how she came to settle in as a cook at an orphanage. In her later years, Mitt-Mitt lived in a little house on the outskirts of Council Bluffs, Iowa where we once visited her. She sometimes visited my mother and other grown-up orphans in the Chicago area, and on one of those visits she brought a loaf of zucchini bread and a recipe.

I started by grating a medium zucchini using a medium grater. I needed 3 cups of shredded zucchini, and I pitched the little nubbin of ungrated zucchini at the end.

That is me grating zucchini.

And here are the other ingredients, waiting their turn.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and lubed up a 9" x 5 " loaf pan and a 4" x 2" loaf pan. One could also use 2 8" x 4" loaf pans.

I measured 2/3 cup of plain vegetable oil into a big bowl, and I added 2 eggs, 1-3/4 cup of white sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. I mixed those ingredients with a big whisk and then added the shredded zucchini and mixed it in with a big wooden spoon.

Next I gradually added and mixed in the dry ingredients: 3-3/4 cups of white flour, 3 teaspoons (aka 1 tablespoon) baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Then I chopped up about 1 cup of walnuts and stirred them in. The nuts are not necessary but they are nice. Pecans would work or maybe macadamias, if you are not a walnut person. I don't think almonds would work, but I am willing to be persuaded otherwise.

I poured/scooped the batter into the two pans, filling each one until there was maybe 3/4" of room at the top of the pan. Into the oven. The little loaf baked in about 45 minutes; the big loaf took about 65 minutes. As usual, I used a bamboo skewer to assess done-ness. When the skewer comes out clean or with crumbs, the bread is done. If the skewer comes out goopy, you need some more oven time. I set the timer for 2-3 minute intervals if I have bread (or a cake) that is almost done.

Enjoy. Now or later.






Odds and Ends
Why is it that right after you stay at a motel the motel tells you about a much cheaper rate that is available?

In dealing with an eight month old child one learns just how much of the day is centered around food.

Why did Iowa City not get any of that rain from Wednesday night, that rained on us all night in Moline?

Philip