“When Thou, the Deathless Life, didst go down to death, then didst Thou slay hell by the lightning flash of Thy Divinity. And when Thou didst raise the dead from the lower world, all the powers of Heaven cried aloud: Christ our God, Giver of Life, glory to Thee.”
-From the Troparion, Sunday of the Myrrhbearers
May God slay all vestiges of death and hell in us, by the same power that raised Christ from the dead. Christ is risen!
About this time in the last couple of years I was planting seeds of these large pole beans called Painted Lady. It all started one springtime when my friend L. asked me to come to her house and see the puzzling beans that had been growing there after having arrived from she-knew-not-where.
When I saw them, there was new spring growth of runner beans with large leaves and gorgeous flowers, and there were a few pods left on the vines from the previous fall. Inside the pods were large speckled dry beans. I had never seen anything quite like them.
I went home with a few of the beans for seeds, and searched online garden sites for plants that matched the description.
It didn’t take long before I found identifying pictures and information stating that these are the only pole beans with a bi-color flower. They are called Painted Lady after Queen Elizabeth I, who earned that nickname for wearing a lot of makeup. There were sites where one could buy seeds. One woman was selling a packet of five beans for a tidy sum. But I got mine for free! I planted them pretty soon, but it was too late in the season for them to do anything but make a few flowers before they were cut down by the frost.
L. had more beans again that summer, though, and she gave me more, which I planted earlier and more successfully, as you can see by the photos.
Not only did my second planting grow well, but the plants I had started too late the previous year sprouted again–they are perennials! These beans are too good to believe. Who ever heard of a perennial runner bean?
Everything about Painted Ladies is large. The flowers, the leaves, the pods, and the beans. The vines want to grow to the sky. I strung jute twine vertically along the fence, tied loosely at the base of each plant, for them to hang on to as they twisted upwards.
We never solved the mystery of how they got started. The seeds seem a bit large for a bird to drop in, and L.’s neighbors don’t garden. In any case, It felt magic. The fairy-tale seeds grew vigorously and rewarded me with the harvest in the top photo. I wanted to share the bounty and the adventure with my gardening friends, so before I cooked any of my pile I measured a bit more than five beans into packets to give away. I saw too late that I had accidentally named Queen Victoria instead of Queen Elizabeth on the packet. 😦
The beans when cooked have a typically mealy texture, and not a strong flavor. The skins are somewhat chewy. I’ve only used them in soup.
This week the rain or drizzle has been constant, and forcing us to put off planting the garden. I’ve been thinking a lot about how much work there will be when the ground dries out just a bit. But just writing about this happy gift makes me remember the surprises that make me glad to be out there doing my part to be ready for heavenly blessings.
This hutch is a treasure I recently inherited from my grandparents. The sticker on the back says it came from Bernhardt Furniture in Lenoir, North Carolina. http://www.bernhardt.com/history.php It was sold through Bullocks in Los Angeles, so I’m guessing it was bought in the middle of the 20th century, when Grandmother and Grandfather lived for a time in southern California.
It’s not in a style we have anywhere else in our house–and we have several “styles”!–but I think it will do very nicely as a storage for my tea party supplies, and it looks much prettier than the hodgepodge of storage units that were stacked in that spot previously.
The frittata is the easy way to make an omelette. I can’t remember the first recipe I ever saw for this dish, but I doubt it was authentically Italian, as the name might imply.
Over the years, in any case, I’ve evolved my own basic recipe, which is to fall back on if I go too long between frittatas and can’t remember the proportions.
Today is Cinco de Mayo, so even though I’ve already published two posts today, I’ll try to get this one out there and be timely for once. I forgot about the holiday for most of the day; our family hasn’t usually celebrated it though the festivities are all around us here in California. It was pure happenstance that I decided that the frittata I was planning for dinner would be made with Tex-Mex flavors. Then after it was in the oven someone mentioned the holiday, and I was very pleased with my unconscious “choice.” When I saw how lovely the pie looked, I whipped out my placemats that might actually look more South American than Mexican…but in any case, they looked more fitting than the everyday ones.
But back to Italy, where they have this tradition of combining eggs with vegetables and cheese in an oven-baked pancake. If you use a cast-iron skillet the result is rustically beautiful, so I always like to put it on the table for everyone to see, and cut it into wedges there.
Eggs are so nutritious and inexpensive, I like to make an egg dish for dinner once every week or two at least. Most people who eat at our house these days don’t have eggs for breakfast very often, so it’s not redundant to eat them in the evening.
This recipe can easily be stretched for more people, or adapted to what you have and like, by adding more eggs or vegetables, cheese, cooked potato, herbs & spices, etc. It is hard to ruin it and I rarely measure out the ingredients, except for salt, which I keep consistent at 1/8 teaspoon for every 3 eggs. This example has an Italian flavor, but you could make it Mexican, Chinese, or Middle-Eastern with a few changes.
Spinach Frittata
1 10-oz. package frozen chopped spinach, thawed & drained
12-13 eggs, beaten
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon oregano
black pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 10-12” cast-iron skillet (or other pan of your choosing) with butter or olive oil and let it get hot in the oven, if you like, while you prepare the batter. Beat all ingredients together and pour into the pan. Bake until eggs are set and top is golden brown, 15-30 minutes depending on your pan, etc. Cut into wedges or squares to serve.
Obviously this makes enough for a big family. I usually incorporate 1-2 eggs per person, depending on their size or appetite, and sometimes add an extra one or two “for the pot,” because if there are leftovers I’m happy to eat a slice for breakfast. The amount of spinach is plenty for the quantity of egg, but sometimes I use just as much spinach with only eight eggs. As I said, it’s hard to ruin it. I’ve made versions with added ricotta cheese, crumbled bacon, and leftover greens that had been cooked with onion and garlic. And I served one at a tea party once so that we wouldn’t overdose on sugary stuff.
Tonight, for my Tex-Mex Frittata ( I think the Hispanics have something that uses similar ingredients but not baked in this form, so I don’t want to use their term) I used:
After I’d heated some olive oil in an 8″ cast-iron skillet, I poured in the egg mixture and put it in the oven at 450° this time, because that’s the temperature that was dictated by the recipe I was trying out, Crash Hot Potatoes, thanks to Pioneer Woman at http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/ . The guys really liked these potatoes, which you can see in the photo above.
If, in addition to your veggie-laden egg pancake, you serve a steamed vegetable on the side and a tossed green salad, you might almost make up for the rest of the day when we tend to have so few vegetables. And as my husband is always reminding me: Though “experts” may debate about what is the healthiest diet, high-carb, low-carb, low-fat, low-sugar, etc., everyone but everyone agrees that we should all eat our vegetables.
Gladsome Lights 