Tag Archives: soup

I flit and hover before departure.

birds, home, my garden, travel, , , ,
smallage

In the middle of the afternoon, a flock of little birds — maybe kinglets? — flew into the garden and frolicked all over, visiting the pomegranate flowers and the fig tree, but not the fountain. Their zig-zag swooping looked like play, but maybe they were finding various tiny things to eat. In less than five minutes they were gone.

I watched them all that time because I was leaning against the kitchen counter holding one of my favorite Dansko sandals braced against my body, as Shoe Glue cured in the cracks in the sole. I want to pack these shoes in my suitcase this evening to take on a trip tomorrow, and somehow this task got pushed to the last day possible.

So many things got pushed here to today, or were left in a sort of limbo waiting for me to gather my wits — or something. I wish I could be more organized, but today has been fun, for the most part, after I got down to business.

Part of that work was cleaning out the refrigerator, or at least removing produce that won’t keep five more days. I had plans to make soup with whatever was there or in the garden. That would also have been good to do yesterday, but then, there was no pressure…

The initial reason for the soup idea was a head of celery I wanted to use up, but I found lots more in my own garden to add: tomatoes, lemon basil, tarragon, parsley, smallage, zucchini and eggplant. There was only one of the skinny long eggplants, so what else could I do with it but cut it into rounds and plop them in.

tarragon

I watered all the newly planted irises, yarrow, lavender, etc. in the garden, and all the potted plants, and I fed the worms. My worms are doing great! I’ve had lots of vegetable trimmings and even whole leaves and fruits from the garden that were so damaged by birds or insects that I couldn’t use them, so my “vermis” had plenty to eat, and seem to be reproducing a lot. When I dig around a little in the bins I always see at least one big cluster of worms of all sizes, which I consider to be the “nests” of young ones.

The strangest thing about today was that I spent the very middle of it in a literature class online, the first time I’ve ever done such a thing. It’s to study Beowulf, and I couldn’t pass up the chance, and it started today. That was very satisfying. I’m sure I’ll have more to tell about it as the weeks go by.

It really wasn’t until after that class session that my serious flitting began — interspersed with hovering, which can mean to hang fluttering or suspended in the air. Or, to keep lingering about; wait near at hand. Those little birds I’d seen weren’t doing any of that, but then, my garden is not their home. I lingered in the garden as long as I could.

And then, I took time to start writing here, which probably means that I won’t get the floor swept before I go. These days when I live alone, I give myself permission to leave without putting everything shipshape; no one is here to care. I can sweep next week.

[Next morning, this morning]: So, I didn’t finish this soup-and-worm story before bed. Now I’m at the airport waiting for my flight that has been delayed two hours, and I can wrap it up here.

Once I got to the airport, I could calm down. The way from here doesn’t involve a multitude of things to remember or tasks to accomplish. I won’t have much time to think about my garden. But from now until I return, I won’t be fully settling. While my plane flies at great speed, my mind will still be hovering, and I don’t expect it to touch down until I am home again.

Springtime garden soup.

food and cooking, my garden, , , ,

One night this week I had friends to dinner, and it was a lot of fun to plan the menu, which in this case included a soup course. I always intend to make cream of asparagus soup at least once in springtime, but don’t usually get to it, even though I harvest several pounds of that vegetable from my front yard plot for a few weeks running. Having someone to share it with gave me the added push.

So I used my own asparagus, and an equal amount of leeks from the store — just over a pound each, chopped. I sautéed them together in butter with fresh tarragon leaves, also from my garden. Just before everything started to brown, I removed the flower tips of the asparagus to a little bowl, and stirred in a couple of tablespoons of flour. I added a quart of chicken stock and cooked all of that together for 10-15 minutes, then used an immersion blender to make it smooth. Added salt and pepper to taste. After I’d ladled it into bowls I dropped a few of the reserved asparagus tips on top of each serving. We were all deep in conversation at that point so the thought of taking a picture of the lovely green soup never came into my head. (I also forgot that I’d planned to drizzle on a little cream.) But earlier I had noticed the beauty of the panful of chopped vegetables and leaves…

You will have to imagine the look of the creamy green soup.
We stopped talking and slurped it up joyfully.

Stained glass sea vegetable.

food and cooking, , ,

This morning I further prepared and ate my several leaves of kelp gathered yesterday. I had left them in water in the fridge overnight. First I drained the water into the cooking pot, and then cut up the leaves into bite-sized pieces.

As I drew each long blade out of the tangle,
many configurations, colors and textures were revealed.

The “slimy” stuff that comes off or out of the seaweed is part of itself and its goodness. It gives the broth substance. I ate some of the fresh kelp to make sure it wasn’t already very salty; it wasn’t salty and the flavor was fairly bland, compared to other seaweed I have eaten. So I went ahead and cooked all the pieces in water with a little salt. I could have made a raw salad with some or all of it, but because I rarely eat cold salads in the winter, that didn’t occur to me until I was already in the process of cooking the vegetable.

I fried firm tofu with sesame oil and tamari,
and combined half of that with about half of the kelp
to make a yummy breakfast bowl.

Tomorrow I’ll eat the rest of the kelp in its broth, and call this a successful experiment. I’m planning to take a knife with me to the beach in the future, in addition to the plastic bag I had handy this time, so I’ll be equipped for whatever foraging opportunities.

Thank you, Bella!

 

What a springtime it is!

birds, food and cooking, my garden, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Warm days and blooming flowers are pulling me outdoors, to pick more peas or to sit and read. I should be planting something in my vegetable planter, but I can’t figure out what. It’s raining today, so I can put off those decisions a little longer.

At the same time I seem to be cooking more this month. Ginger broth has been a favorite drink for a while now; I like it hot with a little cream and honey, or mixed with pineapple juice over ice. Just this morning I discovered that after I boil pieces of fresh ginger root for three hours and strain off the strong “tea,” the leftover pieces still have a surprising amount of flavor. I made my own crystallized ginger with them!

An experience I haven’t had for ages: While I stirred the ginger in the syrup with one hand, I read this book from the other hand. I guess it is just the right size, weight and genre to fit the situation.

Likely it was one of you bloggers on whose site I read about The Daughter of Time, and I bought a used copy years ago; it went to my shelves where a hundred other books wait to be opened. And last week, suddenly, I was in the mood for Tey and the mystery of Richard III.

Reading the first couple of chapters, I began to wonder if being in the mood was enough —  maybe I should have brushed up on my Kings and Queens of England first. But I pushed on, and with the help of family tree diagrams in the front of the book I began to get my historic bearings. I love this story because the main character Detective Grant likes to read letters and other primary sources, and to look at pictures of faces, all the while using his common sense and imagination to “write” what is probably a more accurate history in his mind. It is so much fun to think along with him.

Some other things I’ve made recently are two types of grain-free cookies. One of the recipes starts with a can of garbanzo beans. It has chocolate chips, and was yummy. Today I made up a recipe that included carob powder, walnuts and cinnamon, also good. I still haven’t found the perfect cookie in this category.

Asparagus season coincides with Lent, so it wasn’t until the very end of my harvest that I could make cream of asparagus soup to eat immediately. It was quite lovely. I think I squirreled some of that away in the freezer.

So, I have let the asparagus go to fronding and photosynthesis. You can see the tall twiggy foliage (it will become more ferny) in the picture below, behind the hedge of teucrium that is getting ready to burst into its glory of purple and accompanying bees. Stay tuned for that.

Many of the images from the front garden are pretty scruffy; the California poppies that grow out there go mad for a couple of months and begin to get leggy and messy. I pulled out dozens of plants and cut the rest down to the ground. They will keep coming up and blooming for the rest of the summer. The lamb’s ears are sending up their flower stalks.

I don’t mind tearing out the poppies, even though they were still blooming their hearts out, because now the yellow helianthemum can take center stage for a while.

At the moment I can’t remember what these purple perennials above are called. [Shoreacres in the comments helped me find it: Verbena bonariensis] They are very tricky to photograph because of the airy, widely spaced arrangement of their blooms, the profile of which is seen against my car farther above. I got two of them last year to replace the two wallflowers that died an early death.

The  next two flowers are both new, but in different ways. The irises are in their fourth season, but this is the first time they have bloomed, so I’m very happy, and pleased to see “who” they are after all this time since I chose them. And the friendly yellow flower is on a yarrow [Nope! The reason it doesn’t look like a yarrow flower is that it is actually a type of marguerite, a cousin of yarrow, both of them in the tribe Anthemideae, in the Aster family. This one might be Anthemis tinctoria, or Dyer’s Chamomile. Thanks to my friend May for helping me get straight.] plant that I only planted last fall; it has grown big plant over the winter and is now brightening the walkway. Thinking it was a yarrow, I was startled at its round and sunny face.

On a warm day last week — one of them was 90 degrees! — I sat just baking a bit and noticing things happening… The tiny white flower buds on the olive tree next to my new icon stand, and below them, delicate lavender stems with swelling evidence of blooms in the making. Mostly bumblebees are in the back garden; I wonder if the honeybees are out front waiting for that teuchrium.

One evening I was having a FaceTime visit with two-year-old Raj who is in D.C., high in an apartment building where he can’t have his former daily routine of playing in the park a few blocks away. More frequently of late we have had these virtual visits that are keeping us connected in an odd way. He likes to look (on his mom’s phone) at my collection of toy trucks, and my fountain and playhouse.

On that particular day we were just about to say good-bye, because it was his bedtime, when I had the idea to look in my birdhouse while he was watching. I knew that some bird or other had been making a nest a while back, and I didn’t think it was so long ago that the fledglings would have left the nest. I stood on the bench and leaned over, and stuck my phone in as far as I could…. and we saw this:

So it was bluebirds making a home in my garden this year! What a springtime it is.