November 13, 2022- the outside garden is over

What a week.

After some rediculously warm days earlier this week the temperature crashed on Friday. It was 78 degrees on Thursday, before the front came through. We said goodby to the 70's,  the 60's.  the 50's, and even the 40's. There is no day in the next 10 when the temperature will get to 40. The lows will be in the teens. Winter coats are here to stay.

But during all that warmth I got the last of my bulbs planted.  I planted  the kale that did not sell. What a great feeling. I planted corydalis,  daffodils, erythroniums (dog tooth violets), little yellow iris riticulata, and quite a few species tulips.

This was all motivated by the fact the ground is going to freeze. It looks like it will stay frozen, for a while. I do look forward to seeing how the kale holds up. 

For those of you that remember that also means it is pumpkin carving time. I actually have about 20 little pumpkins waiting to be carved and then hung in the trees. Maybe I will start this weekend. 

For those of you who do not remember, let me explain. If you carve a pumpkin when it then freezes and thaws, it will rot. If it stays frozen it will last until spring. Indeed if it is out all winter there is a good chance it will dry and not rot. Whatever...

Here was one of last year's pumpkins. The picture was taken on January 16, 2022.

This is what another pumpkin look like in March.

The was one true sign the outside season is over.  I put away all the hoses. That of course coincided with the fact that it has rained, again. We had the big rain about a week ago. (2.5 inches) Then this past Friday we got another inch. In 11 days in November we had about 4 inches. That compared with a little over 20 inches for the previous 10 months combined. We needed the rain and the ground soaked it all up. I particuarly appreciated the rain this week, as I had just planted those last bulbs.

I did have to take in the rain gauge. Otherwise it would break from the ice expansion.

I cannot reflect on the week without a brief comment about the election. Talk about anxiety and tension. Why does it seem like every election is the most important one. Let me just say that nationally it was not as bad as we had thought it would be. I will make no comment about Iowa. 

Let me show you pictures from this week.

Some of the fall crocuses bloomed in all that warm weather. It was particularly good to hear from people who I had supplied with those crocuse. Many of those people did not even know fall crocuses were a thing.

Of course when one fall crocus blooms you want more. Maybe I need to plant 100, myself. Katie who I had sent over 100 was having a nice bloom. Somehow Maine is not as cold as Iowa. They certainly had a later frost this fall.

Here is a little vidoe showing the few crocuses earlier in the week.

At the office this wonderful little cactus is blooming.

Here is a picture from the "farm." That would be the city garden plot a Chadek Park. You can keep your space from one year to the next, if you want. We want that, prticularly now. Our space is about where that pile of dirt is located, the one on the left. Notice the water source nearby. That is new. Imagine how plants will do with full sun and a water source. And a fence to keep out the deer. (One very locale bit of news is the sightings of a deer, with antlers, in the neighborhood.)

This is the plant we have had for a few years called "frizzle sizzel." It is an albuca. It spreads and has its growth cycles. In checking the last year's pictures I find it blooms in December/January.

We have a winter farmer's market in Iowa City. It just started. It is two times a month at the County fairgrounds, south of town. One vendor this season will have African violets.

We got this one last Sunday. Understandably the vendor will not bring those plants to the market if it is very cold.

We moved this sansevieria to a new locating this week. The plant is old. We have had it for 20 years. We got it from a friend who was moving away. It was a large plant then. I should put it in a bigger pot, but I worry about its stability. 

Here are the recently planted kale plants purchased 10 days ago. They got into the ground just before the freeze.

Julia's recipe

Pork tenderloin with Indian spices

Sometimes recipes come from unexpected sources. This recipe is from Parade magazine, the pop culture supplement that comes in my Saturday edition of the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Or did. I gather that, henceforth, the Parade magazine will only appear on-line, which means I won't see it as I don't expect to expend the energy to figure out how to get to it on-line. But for today, here is a recipe for pork tenderloin that is good and easy, although there is a marinate-in-the-refrigerator period that means you have to plan ahead. Not a last-minute get-dinner-on-the-table now recipe.  

The ingredients:

1 pork tenderloin (unseasoned), about 1 to 1-1/2 lbs.;

1/2 cup whole milk yogurt;

1-1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger;

1 teaspoon (or a bit more) of garam masala;

3/4 teaspoon smushed garlic;

1/4 teaspoon or a little more hot paprika;

1/2 teaspoon honey;

1/4 teaspoon cayenne;

1/2 teaspoon salt, kosher or not; and

1/2 or so teaspoon of lemon juice. 

The recipe called for a different masala: tandoori masala. I used what I had. And it called for Kashmiri chili powder or hot paprika. Hot paprika is what I had.

The pork gets marinated and so the first step was to make the marinade, by putting the yogurt in a little bowl and adding all the spices, grating the ginger into the bowl, adding the smushed garlic and the salt, lemon juice and honey.  I mixed it all up. 

Next I prepared the pork. There was some silverskin on one end. It looks a bit shiny and sinewy. I found the innermost end of the silverskin and poked a small sharp knife under it. Then I pulled it up while cutting along. It is easier to do than explain. 

After I had removed the biggest piece of silverskin, I found two sort of side shoots and cut them off too. 

Silverskin actually is sinewy and so it shrinks and gets unpleasantly chewy if not removed. 

For some reason, I have only had to deal with silverskin on pork or lamb. Don't cows (or chickens) have sinews? Can't say.  

I left the pork sort of curled around in the bowl and poured the marinade over it. I swooshed the pork around to make sure some of the marinade got underneath. 

Then I put a plate on top of the bowl (I am not a big fan of plastic wrap) and put the plate-topped bowl in the refrigerator.  I did this part at about noon on a Saturday. 

At about 5:30, I took the bowl out of the refrigerator and turned the oven on to 375 degrees. 

I scrubbed 2 small sweet potatoes, poked them with a knife to allow steam to escape to prevent sweet potato explosion, and put them in the oven. 

I have never actually had a sweet potato explosion, but I have never courted that danger either. 

 

I let the pork sit for 20 minutes. Then I took it out of the marinade, leaving the excess behind. I put an oven-safe non-stick skillet on the stove and seared the meat. It did not require butter or oil. Just the meat in the pan.

I don't usually do sear, but pork tenderloin cooks very quickly so if you want some color on the meat, you need to sear it. It only took about 2 minutes per side in a hot skillet. 

Searing. 

One side seared. After the searing, I put the skillet (oven-safe, as you will recall) into the 375 degree oven with the sweet potatoes.

I baked the pork for about 20 minutes, until a meat thermometer registered somewhere in the 135 to 140 range. 

Out of the oven. I let the pork rest for about 5 minutes before cutting it into slices. 

On the plate, with the aforementioned baked sweet potato. 

The other side dish is spinach with scallions and Indian spices. I figured I might as well go with the Indian theme. (The spinach recipe is somewhere on the Mears Kitchen website if you're interested.) Plus salad and raspberries with yogurt. 

If you have 2 pork tenderloins, double everything but the yogurt. I think 3/4 cup of yogurt would be plenty. 

Pork tenderloin is really meltingly tender, right from the oven or the next day. 

Odds and Ends

As the the outside color fades and the leaves come down, we notice the trees in a different way. That includes seeing wonderful trunks. We noticed this one earlier in the year. I like how there were eyebrows.

 

The temperture change this week really was dramatic.

Say hello to this wonderful gnome. I just had it framed. It was outside at my mother's house for decades, under the eaves so it would not get wet. It was painted by a family friend who was quite the artist.

It is cold again. That happens. Some prayers have been answered. I guess that is how it works. It is appropriate to give thanks where that is due. But it is still time to remember the people who mostly are mostly not remembered.

we must continue to find the little ways to make this county and world a better place. Or even the neighborhood.

Philip