June 24, 2018 The lilies have started

High Summer is just about here in the garden.
The Project Green garden walk was yesterday. I think it was a success. There were hundreds of people.The weather was grand. It was cool and mostly sunny and dry.
We appreciated the dry after a second week with close to 5 inches of rain.

The daylilies have started. The Asiatic lilies are going strong.
I am mostly exhausted. Getting the garden ready really was a task, even if I tell myself that the tour was no different than any day, as the garden is always open for visitors.

I should add the right after the tour was over yesterday we went to Grinnell for the evening with Christopher. Katie was giving a program at a retreat there, and that's where we spent the night.
This will be a somewhat abbreviated post.

New Pictures

The star attraction for the week was this night blooming cereus. And it was not a flower than many people got to see. It was not blooming for the tour.
This was not the one we have had for years. Rather it is a new acquisition. It is smaller and more exquisite. But like the others, it was done by about 10 in the morning.
This picture was taken about 7 in the morning.
You can see the flower from 2-3 days before on the left.

The Asiatic lilies are good. This is one I planted last fall.

This is one of the first daylilies.

This is that annual asclepias that I have grown over the years.

I will try to write more next week when I have more energy.

Julia's Recipe

Rice Salad

This is a recipe from the Joy of Cooking, of which I have many copies of different ages. I like the older editions better. Philip does not entirely understand my cookbook collection. Anyway this recipe is in an older edition, not sure about the more recent hipper editions. I tinkered with proportions some. This is a good way to use leftover rice, although it is worth making rice just to be able to make the salad.

Here are the ingredients: leftover cooked white rice, celery, green pepper, scallions, canned sliced black olives, and the makings of a vinaigrette: olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper and regular (not smoked or hot) paprika.

I had about 5-6 cups of rice, some American, some basmati. When I make rice for the dish, I make American as basmati rice grains can be hard. I did not, however, have any problem with it this time.

I put the rice in a big bowl and turned my attention to the vegetables.

Our grandson Christopher was visiting last week, and he watched me slice up celery in fine pieces (say 1/8 -1/4"). Katie, one of his moms, was just outside the frame. No irresponsible parenting here.

I had about 1 cup of sliced celery; then I cleaned and diced a green pepper, ending up with a little more than 1 cup. I cleaned and sliced 2 scallions (I sliced them in half lengthwise and then sliced, to have smaller pieces) and ended up with about 1/4 scallion.

I added the vegetables to the bowl and then I opened and drained 2 medium sized (not itty bitty) cans of sliced black olives and added them, as shown.

We discovered that Christopher likes black olives. Who knew?

I made a vinaigrette of 1/3 cup of olive oil and 1/6 cup of white wine vinegar. Don't have a 1/6 cup measure? Measure 1/3 cup olive oil and then add vinegar until the liquid measures 1/2 cup altogether. It's math!

I added 1/2 teaspoon of salt (table salt, not kosher, which does not dissolve well in cold liquids) and also 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and a little more than 1/2 teaspoon of paprika. I poured the dressing into a jar with a lid, shook it up and poured it over the rice. A little mixing and it was ready.

Here is the salad ready for the table. We had pulled pork sandwiches (actually more like pulled pork tacos, served on corn tortillas with pickled radishes and cabbage), and the rice salad went nicely with it. It is best served at room temperature, as the flavors are better than when the salad is cold.

Also make sure that you taste for salt - people have different preferences, I find. Note that this is a gluten-free, vegan recipe!

We didn't have much left over, which went at lunch the next day!



Odds and Ends

There was a lovely breeze Friday night. After a long weekend of sweltering temperatures, there had been nothing but rain for 3 days.Then Friday evening a stiff breeze came out of the north.
Saturday was wonderful.

Friday evening also brought a nice treat. Some neighborhood children arrived with a bucket full of farm pond tadpoles. They were 3-4 inches long and already had feet. I had mentioned that I might like some tadpoles and there they were. The pond could get interesting in the next month as everyone gets used to the new arrivals.

Philip