Painted lady butterfly on lantana flower, back garden at noon

In This Month’s Blog:

The Always Garden

Our Kitchen: Firehouse Chili (and) Gumbo plus Mediterranean Treats

September Garden Update

The September 2021 Gallery

Floral garlic, front garden

Fountain grass, front garden

Creeping juniper, day lilies, roses, front garden

The Always Garden

Chris:

This blog usually features the seasonal fruits and veggies that we turn into tasty meals. These tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, chilis, cukes, eggplants, beets, radishes, onions, chard, broccoli, etc., grow fast within their seasons and give us their gifts. Then I pull out their exhausted bodies and bury them for compost. New versions go into ground at their appointed times in the coming year. They are dramatic and delicious.

They are also fragile and often unpredictable, requiring frequent (often daily) watering, fertilizing every few weeks, and daily attention as the gardener watches to see if and when and how prolifically they produce. They are the stars of the garden, and it is not only their flavor, but also their uneven tempers that keep me focused on their fleeting seasons.

Yet they are not the heart and muscle and bones of the garden. Those are the trees, which hold the soil in place with their deep roots, draw water from deep underground, provide the ever-more-needed cooling shade in our sunnier, hotter, drier climate, and give of themselves so much of our annual produce–besides providing homes for the birds. Some of them are evergreens–the orange, the meyer lemon, the fan palm, the ceonothus. But some drop their leaves in our short autumns–the spreading sycamore, the cherry plum, the apricot, the peach, the liquidambars–and these leaves nourish the soil to benefit all the plants.

I call the trees the always garden. It is too easy to ignore them, to take them for granted, to fail to appreciate them for all the miracles that they quietly provide.

But beyond the trees, the always garden includes the many other perennials that give our garden its beauty and sustainability. (Note, for example, the four photos that lead this month’s blog, above, and the three pics just below.) Though I rarely talk about the perennials in our entries, the monthly photo gallery features them in their daily glory. Browse this month’s gallery and look back through those of other months to get some sense of who these contributors are and the joy they bring.

Hibiscus flowers with pink and yellow lantana

Honeybee in white rose cluster

Magenta and yellow lantana

Our Kitchen: Firehouse Chili  (and) Gumbo, plus Mediterranean Treats

Jean:

Chili is one of our favorite foods, and I have a favorite story about chili.  A few years ago, we went to a small party at some friends’ house to watch the Superbowl.  One of our friends, a man, made chili.  To me, it had little chili flavor, just a beef and tomato soup.  The friend asked the other men there, “Don’t you hate spicy chili?” and there was a chorus of “yeah”s.  Chris and I didn’t say anything. But I couldn’t believe my ears.  We were at one of the “manliest” events of the year, and these guys didn’t like spice in their chili?  Why call it chili then?

No matter which way you lean in this debate, you can make this dish to your own taste and probably love it.  This recipe for a combined chili and gumbo, which I found in the New York Times, was proclaimed “America’s Best Firehouse Chili” in 2017.  I was fascinated by the merger of chili and gumbo, but I made them separately so they could be eaten that way or combined as desired by the consumer (in this house, Chris).

Firehouse Chili

Our version of Firehouse chili, with beans and beef brisket

The NYT says their Firehouse is not a Texas chili, but it seems very similar to me because it is heavy on the beef, and contains no beans and only a little tomato.  I, of course, made my own changes, and you can, too, depending on what ingredients you have and what you like.  (We always like beans in chili, so I added those in the final cook.)

Start by browning 2-3 pounds of beef, either coarsely ground, thinly sliced, or in ¾ inch cubes, in a little neutral oil.  (I used a sliced bbq beef brisket, which added a chipotle spark.) Pour off any excess fat, remove the beef from the pan, and add salt, pepper, 2 T. chili powder, and a teaspoon each of turmeric, dried oregano and ground cumin.  (The Epicurious website has you rehydrate a mild dry chili and put it in the food grinder with the dry seasonings and spices to make a paste.)

Epicurious also calls for tomato paste, which it is best to cook for a few minutes in the skillet with the spices.  You could also do this for the NYT chili, in lieu of the canned tomatoes the recipe actually calls for.

Regardless of which method you use for the chili and other seasonings, now loosen the pasty mixture in the pan with a couple of tablespoons of steak sauce and/or Worcestershire sauce.  Add the beef back in, as well as either a 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes or 2 cups of beef stock and some water, depending on how beefy or tomato-y and how thick you want the sauce.  (Epicurious adds other small embellishments, including a couple of tablespoons of masa harina (to thicken) and a little dark brown sugar and distilled white vinegar.)

Firehouse Gumbo

Firehouse gumbo with tomatoes, andouille sausage, and shrimp

The gumbo is a little more time- and labor-intensive, and I offer apologies to all gumbo afficionados who may feel this is not a true gumbo.  I will review some of the differences.

To make the gumbo, place a large pot with a heavy bottom over medium heat, and put 2 T. butter and 1 T. oil into it. When the butter is melted and foaming, sprinkle 2T. flour into the pan, and whisk to combine. Continue whisking until the mixture is golden brown, approximately 15 to 20 minutes.  This is a medium roux, whereas a traditional New Orleans gumbo would be cooked for twice that long to make it darker and more flavorful.  (The firemen probably don’t have that much time.)

When satisfied with the color of the roux, add vegetables, some salt and pepper, and cook to soften.  The vegetables should consist of roughly equal amounts of green bell pepper, chopped onion and/or shallots, and celery. You can also add parsley and/or okra if you have them.

After this is where the firehouse gumbo really goes off the rails, because it contains no meat but lots of tomato, whereas the traditional gumbo is just the opposite, lots of protein and no tomato.  Of course, if you combine the gumbo with the chili, you will have plenty of meat, but not the kind that is usually added to gumbo.

The firehouse gumbo, by contrast, includes a 6-oz can of tomato paste, an 8-oz can of tomato sauce, 1-2 cups of tomato juice and 1 cup of ketchup.  It is very tomato-y, so it’s lucky Chris loves tomatoes.  You could cut out some of the tomato in favor of broth or water.  I happened to have a lot of V-8 juice, so I used that, and it was very tasty.  Finish off the gumbo with 1 T. apple cider vinegar and 2 T. hot sauce, or do the spiciness to taste.

Would you prefer a traditional gumbo? If so, while cooking down the vegetables, you should brown some sausage (maybe chicken sausage) and smallish chunks of chicken in another hot skillet, maybe adding some garlic in the last couple of minutes.  The meats will get added to the vegetables with at least a couple of cups of chicken broth (or bullion and water). Cook until the flavors meld and everything is cooked through.

Now, what I did was to brown and add in some andouille sausage chunks, and then tossed in some medium-sized peeled shrimp in the final minute of cooking, to make it more like a traditional gumbo–but the tomato still really stood out.  The shrimp and sausage I blended with the tomato even gave my gumbo a kind of cioppino zest.

Finally, decide whether you want to combine the chili and the gumbo (to cut all that tomato in the gumbo) or just have two great dishes to make easy lunches and dinners for the rest of the week. We did both!

Two more September treats:

Mediterranean garden sautee: zucchini, green pepper, fresno chilis, onion, and garlic, sauteed in olive oil

Mediterranean pita medley: eggplant caponata, white bean dip, hummus, stuffed green olives

September Garden Update

Back garden, late September. L-R: Pomegranate, eggplant, meyer lemon, lemon verbena, red-pink vinca, coreopsis, flowering chives, dry fountain, and lupine

Chris:

Having produced heroically from May through August, almost all the spring-summer veggies have now been taken out from the back garden.

Most of the summer veggies–tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplants, arugula–are now gone from the garden.

Only one of the Black Beauty eggplants remains in ground, and that will go later this week, when its two remaining fruit are picked.

Our one remaining Black Beauty eggplant, with Italian basil

But the pepper plants–as usual in late summer–continue to thrive and put forth new fruit. These plants include the one purple variety, one mild green pepper, one yellow pepper, and one Fresno chili pepper, which teems with hot, bright red fruit. All these will keep going into October.

Pepper melange: mild green, mild yellow, hot Fresno

Fresno chilis, late September

Orange-yellow peppers, late September

And, as always in the fall, the green navel oranges and meyer lemons grow bigger toward ripeness in December…

Navel oranges grow toward late December harvest

Meyer lemons ripen

…while the three potted strawberry plants still give occasional tangy-sweet berries.

Late September strawberries

To plant or not to plant? The question remains: will I plant the usual winter veggies in this drought-stricken year? Right now, I’m leaning toward no. Not only am I just not keen to use scarce water, but we still have in our freezer some of the produce from winter 2020-21. I will continue to water the always garden, though on a further reduced schedule that I hope will be reflected in our water use statistics.

The September 2021 Gallery

3 day lily blooms with visiting bee

Darning needle on meyer lemon leaf

blackberry flowers and new fruit

3 bees in wet soil in vinca pot

Bee visiting last zucchini bloom of season

Blooms on all-my-loving rose bush

Petunias in bloom, back garden

Provence lavender, side garden

Chive blossoms, Fresno chilis, honeybee

Honeybee atop chive blossom

Salmon rose

Bee hovers over purple basil

Mexican bush sage

New Zealand flax

Stalwarts of the always garden

Sycamore, California fan palm, cherry plum

On to October, with thanks for the always garden…

Back garden on a blue sky afternoon

Early August kitchen display

In This Month’s Blog:

Parallel Worlds: Changing with the Wind

August Garden Update

Our August Kitchen–The Heart of the Matter

The August Gallery

Chris: When the wind blows from the West or Southwest, which is most of the time where we live, it’s easy to pretend these days that our garden and our quiet home are our world. It’s a pleasant delusion. But when the wind blows from the North or East, our sky is grey, the sun is a dim orange ball, and the hazy air is made of acrid molecules of what used to be trees. We live 70 miles west of the Caldor Fire, which rages in the forested mountains toward Lake Tahoe. We live 130 miles southwest of the gigantic Dixie Fire, which has been spreading for six weeks in the rugged lands toward Lassen Volcanic National Park. About this blaze, now almost 750,000 acres–the largest in California history–authorities with the state fire service have this to say:

“Fuel conditions are much worse than previous years and along with wind is causing much greater fire spread. Firefighters are experiencing conditions never seen before, such as increased spread rates, spotting and active nighttime burning.”

Our sun and sky when the wind blows from the East

Caldor Fire explodes

Caldor Fire–Grizzly Flats

So a capricious change in the wind changes our image of the world. Some days our sky is blue, the air fragrant from the herbs and flowers in the garden. But other days we cower inside and don’t even dare look through our windows. The prevailing westerlies mostly sustain our illusion, as long as no big fires start up to our west, as they did last August. For the many thousands of humans now uprooted by the flames and crowding into evacuation centers surrounding the fire scenes, there is little illusion to cling to. Most of those forced to evacuate will eventually go home to find that they still have a home, at least this year. But many face combing through burned wreckage to salvage, they hope, some little bits of their past: a child’s toy, a beloved tool, a photograph. Big decisions are upon them.

All of us across the West, not only in this iconic California that always seems to capture the attention of Easterners, still cling to a hope that the drought will end later this year… or might it be early next year, or when? With climate change now hard upon us, all bets are off.

There are places in the U.S. and in lands around the warming, fragile globe where the drastic effects of the climate disaster have still barely hit. In those places, some of the people still scoff at climate change, but those places grow fewer each year as the disaster spreads. What’s really dangerous for most of us around the globe is that some of those most desperately clinging to the melting iceberg of climate disbelief wield a lot of wealth, control a lot of politicians, spew lots of pollution, and so have the power to make the climate disaster so much worse more quickly for the rest of us.

August Garden Update

One August day’s strawberry harvest

Except on the smoky days, I’m out in the garden this month watering, trimming, studying plant health, or picking what’s ripe. I like sharing thoughts with the birds, butterflies, bees, and other insects. Or taking pictures of them and the plants. I wish I could say that I was reducing my water use beyond the 50% less I was able to achieve during the last drought (2011-16). However, though I’ve been culling plants more ruthlessly than I have in the previous five years, my water reduction is barely measurable.

But it is late August, so the time for the summer veggies and fruit is about run out. I promise to be utterly ruthless in September. As for the fall and winter produce? We’ll see. It depends on if we get rain.

Lemons. I’ve never written about ripe lemons in August before. June was our previous record. Only this year has our crop lasted into the 8th month since December’s ripeness. Eight months of hundreds of juicy, fat meyer lemons on the single spreading bush. And the last one just as fresh as the first. Lasting on the bush through dry 100-degree days. Imagine! A blooming miracle (as all plants are).

Green meyer lemons toward December 2021 harvest

Eggplants. Every summer the eggplants are late fruiters. Patience, patience. Now, in August, the two Black Beauty plants are fruiting. Just this morning the sixth fruit appeared, and two more buds look promising. The first few dark purple gifts should be fully grown by next week. Jean is ready with recipes.

Tomatoes. Four of the 7 plants have finished producing and I have pulled them out for composting. One more is about done and will be pulled in the coming 2 weeks to save more water. That leaves the two steadfast red cherries, which are still putting forth new fruit that redden in the 90-100-degree heat.

Peppers and Chilis. The real August stars in our little garden are the 3 mild pepper plants and the lone Fresno chili. This is their best month after a June and July of slow production, but they’ll still be going into September. The Fresno, which I didn’t plant until late May, is bursting with hot green gems, some of which are turning dark red, as befits their potency.

Fresno chili–what to do with all that green fire?

Mild green pepper surging with fruit

Late producing purple pepper, coming into its own

Strawberries and Zucchini. Three strawberry plants in pots are still giving fruit and putting out more buds. And Old Faithful Zucchini, which I thought was done, just showed me two beginning fruit beneath its broad leaves.

Strawberry clusters on one of 3 remaining plants

Another super-size zucchini

Our August Kitchen–the Heart of the Matter

Peppers, onions, tomato, garlic stir fry, with shrimp

Chris: Jean won’t be writing for the blog this month, as she is recuperating from open heart surgery, which she had early in August (hence the title of this part of the blog). We are so thankful that her recovery is going better than well, and just this week she began some cooking and baking again, with me as her sous chef, shopper, and all-around kitchen help. So the dishes we picture and describe here are a combined effort. The dish pictured above is a simple stir fry, using green peppers and cherry tomatoes from the garden, plus carmelized white onions and garlic, all fried on low heat in butter and olive oil. The pre-cooked shrimp are added just a minute before serving.

Sfougato, with finely chopped zucchini, peppers, shallots, chard, and feta and goat cheeses

A theme in this month’s blog is Mediterranean cooking. The sfougato pictured above is a Greek baked egg dish that is sort of a blend of a frittata with a souffle.  The cheeses give it a salty, lemony tang, and the veggies from the garden–finely chopped zucchini, green peppers, shallots, and chard–give it an earthy, crunchy, spicy freshness.

Zucchini two ways: (1) Zucchini pickles in a bbq pork sandwich with sauerkraut and mustard (top), and (2) chunked zucchini stew, with homemade tomato sauce

Another theme this month is zucchini, as this is the month of greatest bounty of these large, incredibly versatile veggies. Version 1: It is so easy to slice thinly part or all of one of these fruit, and then plop the slices into whatever pickling brine you already have on hand from pickles you may have bought or made: sweet, dill, or any other type. The slices begin marinating almost immediately in the fridge, and in a day or so you’ll have crunchy, crispy, fresh-flavored pickles just as good as any you can make with cucumbers, and with many fewer seeds. Version 2: In either a homemade tomato sauce or store-bought pasta sauce, these half-inch thick chunks of zucchini soften nicely in the oven in a baking dish (45 min. at 350 degrees). We used the chunky homemade sauce we wrote about in July. This dish is great, too, with a few sprinkles of grated parmesan or another cheese of your choice.

What we chose to do with our leftovers was to blend the zucchini stew with the barbecued pork–an amazing combination!

Peach blackberry cobbler–really more a cake than a cobbler

While she was in the hospital, I baked as a homecoming surprise for Jean this “cobbler,” more like a cake really, using our many leftover July peaches and some of her red wine spiced peach jam that we described in the July blog. The batter is a typical mix of butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, and milk. I poured this mixture over the fruit mixture of sliced peaches, berries, and sugar in a glass baking dish, and baked for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. What’s cool is how the flour mixture rises to the top and hides the fruity goodness underneath. A surprise indeed!

Greek yogurt olive oil cake, with lemon glaze and rose water frosting, garnished with pistachios

Another Mediterranean treat! Jean’s first cake since she came back home in mid-August, she baked it today, using the recipe from the Complete Mediterranean Cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen (2016). The batter includes flour, sugar, and baking powder, along with 4 eggs, a cup of Greek yogurt, and 1 1/4 cups of EV olive oil. Bake it at 350 for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Jean made this cake with a lemon glaze, beneath rose water frosting she had from a previous project. The pistachio garnish was an added inspiration. I’m so glad she’s home, getting healthy, and back doing what she loves. And I get to help.

The August Gallery

New blooming fuchsia, side garden

Pair of peace roses, back garden

Red and purple petunias, veranda

Final picked peach of the season, early August

Hot and sweet still life

Chives in bloom, before lupine

Baked chicken and peaches, early August

Olive tomato sauce on pasta with parm

Labeled jar of homemade tomato veggie sauce

Late blooming wisteria, side garden

Potted succulent, veranda

Peace rose before baby oranges

Bumble bee on lupine, back garden

Honeybee on arugula flower, back,

Zucchini bloom, noon

On to September in our parallel worlds…

Peaches sun-ripening on our glass table, veranda, mid July

In this month’s blog:

• Adapting a Mini Garden to a Changed Climate

• Peaches and Other Highlights

• The July Kitchen: Compotes, PieCakens, and Jam

• The July 2021 Gallery

Chris:

As farmers throughout the West are fallowing thousands of acres that they don’t have the water to feed, how do micro-gardeners like me respond? When I decided to cut my water usage by more than 50% in the last drought (2011-16) by taking out our lawn and the wasteful sprinklers, I replaced them with mulch, stones, drought-tolerant plants, and reduced-water drip irrigation (see W Is for Water). But I didn’t shrink the fruit-tree and seasonal-veggie garden, which has increased slightly in number of plants since 2015, and which is now our household’s prime water user in the increasing number of dry months each year.  

Photo above from LA Times article, “Klamath farmers grow fish to quell a water war,” July 23, 2021.

I guess I could claim that I’m still contributing to saving water by virtue of what I did way back in 2015, but that feels false. This current California drought, which began in 2020, is already more intense because

•  the population of the state has increased, meaning more water users,
•  the number of acres planted in the state grew by hundreds of thousands during the three rainy years (2016-19), so the water is used up faster, and
•  climate change has raised the annual temperature, thus intensifying water usage and evaporation, and reducing the amount of snow in the Sierra to feed rivers, reservoirs, and the underground aquifer. 

Intensely depleted Folsom Lake Reservoir of the American River, July 24

So we’re in a new normal, meaning we can’t regard what we did in the past as giving us a good guide for the present and future.

One way I can reduce water usage from our already reduced level, while still maintaining a productive garden, is to pull out plants that appear to be struggling and maintain those that are clearly productive. This reduction tactic seems like a no-brainer, but I’ve always wanted to keep plants going as long as they seem somewhat productive, and I’ve always experimentally wanted to give newer plants a chance, even when they seem to have little punch.  But this year I’m not so forgiving, because every unproductive food plant I keep watering is a wasteful indulgence, I feel.

So my veggies are now down over 25% after a productive May through July, including culling 2 of my 6 pepper plants, 2 of 7 tomato plants, 1 of 2 remaining chards, and 2 of 5 strawberries. Meanwhile, my 3 Burpless cucumbers are living on borrowed time, because the excessive heat and lack of humidity have taken a toll on their health. Also, I may decide that the always prolific zucchini has done enough for the season and pull it out earlier than usual.

All in all, it’s been a good summer garden-wise, despite the heat and water woes, but I may decide that the season will end earlier this year, at least for the plants that I can’t justify continuing to water.

Some of our early summer bounty, shown on July 15.

 The larger issue, though, is weighing the value of even having a small garden like mine versus the value of saving water. From the perspective of dollars and cents, what I spend on watering the garden per month is much less than what I save at the grocery store by not buying fruits and veggies such as those in the photo above. But another perspective–among many–would say that my having easy access to produce stores and money to spend there means that I don’t need  to have a fruit and veggie garden, so I don’t need to use that water.

In contrast, in many U.S. cities, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, access to plentiful produce at a reasonable price is limited. In these “food deserts,” a home gardener can be not only a powerful good to a family, but a model and incentive for a community, especially if media publicize these resources. See, for example, the photo and caption below from the Sacramento Bee this week.

from Sacramento Bee article, “‘It’s our heritage’: How Sacramento residents fight food insecurity through urban farming,” July 22, 2021 https://www.sacbee.com/news/equity-lab/article252822003.html

Peaches and Other Highlights

July is typically peach month in our region. As I’ve noted before, 2020 gave us a grand total of one peach, as a result of strong March winds that knocked off the buds. But 2021 more than made up for that lean season. Green fruit covered the tree in late spring, and we have been handling the avalanche of several hundred ripe, sweet, and juicy peaches this month.

Unlike oranges and lemons, all the peaches ripen and need to be picked over a two-week period or they’ll just fall from the tree and rot; so it’s a challenge to use the abundance right off the tree or save it through preserving it in the form of jams or baked goods that can be refrigerated or even frozen (see the Kitchen section, below, for ideas).

But, as I’ve written elsewhere in this blog, every fruit that falls is food for the birds, other small critters, and the plants that they nourish. So nothing is lost. Indeed, since many of the peaches that fall may wind up in our compost bin, those fruit will go on to nourish the soil for coming years.

Lemons: I just have to marvel once again at the persistence of our meyer lemon crop this season. It’s almost the end of July and I’m still making lemonade! That’s a good three months beyond what we’ve ever had. Meanwhile, the small green orbs for next season are getting bigger by the week. This is one plant that absolutely is thriving in our hotter, drier climate! Eggplant: The two Black Beauty eggplants are a dilemma for me in this garden. As always, they are late fruiters, usually not forming fruit until July and sometimes not being fully grown until late August or September, even though the seedlings went into the ground in April. If it weren’t for the fact that these two keep showing gorgeous lavender and yellow flowers and broad light green leaves, I’d consider pulling them out in this season of scarce water. But I have hope for these beauties.

Flowers on the Black beauty eggplant. Will they form fruit?

Peppers: While 2 of the mild green and yellow peppers keep putting out small but perfect fruit in the full sun blast 13 hours a day, a third plant wore out early and another, in more shade, has failed to grow as large as its cousins. But the most pleasant surprise among the peppers has been the Fresno chili plant that I put in a large pot in full sun in early June after the pot’s former tenant, an Anaheim, shriveled in late May. Despite its late start, the Fresno in the past two weeks is swarming with white buds and in the past week has thrust forth at least 10 small peppers. I last grew Fresnos about 8 years ago, and I’m happy to rediscover this so-far prolific variety.

Mild green peppers ripening in ground

Late-planted Fresno chili peppers growing

The July Kitchen: Compotes, PieCakens, and Jam

Cherry Tomato Compote on pasta with olives and parmesan

Tomato sauces and compotes

Using our abundant July produce is always a pleasant, fragrant challenge. Around 200 of the grape and cherry tomatoes annually become sauces for topping pastas or veggies such as sliced, baked zucchini. These sauces have traditional bases that include the tomatoes plus maybe a cup of water, as well as sauteed onion, garlic, and perhaps mild peppers, enhanced with 1/4 cup red wine, olive oil, one or two hot chilis, herbs from the garden (such as basil and oregano), and salt and ground pepper to taste.  Upping the spiciness makes it an arrabiata sauce; with green olives tossed into the mix, it becomes puttanesca.

Tomato sauce cooking down in stainless steel saucepan. What an aroma!

A large saucepan is home to the mixture, which cooks on low for an hour or two until all the tomatoes have been broken down into a chunky puree. Usually the most tedious part of the process is separating the tough skins from the “meat” of the tomatoes. From the bubbly mass, each skin is pulled out with tongs and then the pile of skins is discarded.

However, this month we tried a different, more simple process. We made a cherry tomato compote–pictured above. So easy! It’s all done in the slow cooker:

First, for an hour let the garlic, chopped onions, and chopped green pepper sautee in olive oil in the slow cooker.

Second, dump in all the other ingredients and let the cooker work. The process is so easy because the tomato skins stay on and the goal is for the small tomatoes to get soft and the skins wrinkly.  Think of it as a kind of tomato stew, with the spirit of an Italian sauce. The slow cooking–we took about four hours–lets the ingredients meld and the flavors of the spices, herbs, and veggies become infused.

The compote…

The sauce…

Fourth of July PieCaken

Jean:

I saw a link online for a “Fourth of July piecaken” (invention of the chef Zac Young) that consisted of Wild Maine Blueberry Pie, New York Cheesecake, and a Southern Red Velvet Cake layered together with a light lemon frosting.  I thought it was brilliant not only because of the colors but also the flavors from different parts of the country.  

In the meantime, I decided to try to make my own version of the Fourth of July piecaken.  I decided to make a red velvet cheesecake because the red velvet cake seemed too fragile to subject to this piling up.  (Zac put the blueberry pie on top, which I could not really understand in terms of stability.)  My red velvet cheesecake had a chocolate cookie crust and appeared firm enough to go on the bottom of the stack.  Then I came up with a regular white cheesecake and made fresh blueberry and raspberry syrups to drag through the cheesecake in sort of a fireworks pattern before baking.

Top Layer: red. white, and blue “fireworks” cheesecake

In between the layers I put a blueberry pie, but it could have gone on the bottom.   I decided later that I could have done without the pie crust entirely and just used one of those cans of blueberry pie filling in between the two layers of cheesecake.  Chris liked the textural element that the pie crust added, though.

PieCaken inside: white cheesecake, blueberry pie, red velvet cheesecake, with a Rice Krispies treat as a garnish!

Spiced Wine Peach Jam

Along with peach cobblers and lots of fresh sliced peaches in syrup over ice cream, I decided to make my version of a spiced wine peach jam, to preserve some of our many peaches over the coming months. Based on a recipe in Topp and Howard’s Small-Batch Preserving (2007), my version uses golden raisins, red wine, sugar, lemon juice, and spices such as cinnamon and allspice, to go along with as many finely-chopped peaches as I might want to use. The texture of your jam will be determined by the amount of fruit pectin you use for thickening. Feel free to experiment with spices, too. They’ll make a definite difference in the flavor and level of spiciness you achieve.

Peaches, sugar, and spices cooking for jam, while jars for jarring boil.

I made enough for 7 8-10 ounce jars. Mine turned out maybe a bit less firm than some would like, because of the level of pectin I used. So rather than a thick jam for spreading on toast, mine has been great as a syrupy topping for ice cream and peach cobbler, while also good for spooning on to muffins or buttered breads.

Labeled jars of still warm spiced red wine peach jam!

 The July 2021 Gallery

Mocha cake with peaches in syrup, whipped cream

Key lime pie with mint chocolate chips

Purple petunias in noon sun

Hibiscus blooms in morning sun

Pomegranate flowers, sunset

Local turkey family, morning stroll in our garden

Pigeon commanding our front gable

Jay on our back fountain above vinca

Baked chicken za’atar with garden medley

Two tiny sunrise bumble bee tomatoes

Two loaves, zucchini bread

Anna’s hummingbird, red cherry tomatoes, fennel, coreopsis

Anna’s against fence grain

Anna’s, so still and iridescent

Turkey family crossing our street–can you count them?

The neighborhood turkey family strolls through our front garden, while the Monday morning refuse truck stops and drives on. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/oR8pj3rxbY4

And so must we all adapt. On to August!

June flowers and produce, veranda

In This Month’s Blog:

Making Lemonade

Treats from the June Kitchen

Garden Update

The June Gallery

Cutting and squeezing meyer lemons

Making Lemonade

Chris:

How to make the best of a bad situation?  The latest drought, now two years old, is hitting us really hard. Temps were over 100 4 days last week, with a high of 110 in our part of the Valley. More 100+ days are forecast for the coming week.  It has been particularly painful to hold back from giving extra water to the veggies–which are suffering, and look it.

Heat- and water-stressed cucumber plants

Heat-and water-stressed Early Girl tomato

I’ve tried to hold to my regular pattern of every-other-day hand watering of the veggies, but when the temp gets to 95 or above, I water some of them every day, especially those tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, zucchini, and cucumbers (17 plants total) that get full sun up to 14 hours a day. Meanwhile, the rest of the garden, much of which is on drip irrigation, continues to be watered twice a week, unless I see the need for a more ambitious program.

No mandatory water restrictions on homeowners have been issued as yet, but that’s probably just a matter of time.  The state and local governments are in the ironic position of just having fully reopened from COVID on the 15th–and don’t want to impose restrictions of another kind, even if they are justified.

On the other hand, those who use by far the most water (80+%) in the state, the large farmers, have already had their annual portions of river water cut back. This limitation, however, means even further stress on the sinking underground aquifer, because drilling ever-deeper wells has never been regulated by the state. Why not is a great question, and is part of the tumultuous, utterly complex history of water in California. (Mark Arax’s The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California is the latest excellent book on this subject. I recommend it.) 

Then, of course, the other annual weather crisis, fire danger, is looming, and everyone in California and across the West has that in mind. That climate change is making fires worse every year, as we reported in 2020 (see entries for August and September), just adds to the anxiety.

So how do those of us who love plants and growing them keep from going bonkers in this annual stress? Well, this one gardener makes lemonade! 

Yes, literally. We have been so fortunate in our meyer lemon crop this season. Our ever-expanding bush has given us close to 300 large, juicy bright yellow lemons from December through June (and maybe even into July)–about 2-3 months longer than usual. And the bush is teeming with little green lemons ripening toward this coming December’s harvest. So in a dry land we have this wonderful gift that helps to nourish us and keep us looking on the bright side.

Five baby green meyer lemons–with a yellow ripe lemon lurking in the bush (at top of photo)

Treats from the June Kitchen

Jean:

Also helping to keep our spirits bright are the treats that come from the oven and stovetop. Here are a few from this month:

My lemon squares, decorated with mint and lemon verbena from the garden. Lemon curd is a favorite, versatile way that we use some of our beautiful meyer lemons.

Chris picks them, pits them, and cooks them down on the stove, with water added as needed, plus sugar and stevia to moderate the tang of these sour/sweet stone fruit, and with fruit pectin for thickening. Read about our process.

June Garden Update

Back garden, looking to northwest, 7 AM, June 25

Chris:

While the drought and the lemons are the lead stories this month, a few other items are worth reporting.

Tomatoes: The harvest of ripe cherry tomatoes, Stupice cherry tomatoes, and Early Girl mid-size tomatoes has begun, with a handful being picked every few days. Most intriguing is the Sunrise Bumble Bee plant, which went in at the end of April: it is finally fruiting, though none of the fruit is red as yet.

First cluster of ripe red cherry tomatoes, mid June

First reddening cluster of Early Girl tomatoes

Peppers: Our four mild pepper plants have been taking their time to fruit this season in the challenging conditions. All have produced several small fruit, and all have numerous white buds. The strangest plant was the Anaheim hot pepper that I was trying out in this garden. It produced two beautiful, tasty fruit in early May, but expired in the heat of mid June and is no more. I’ve now replaced it with a healthy Fresno. We’ll see how it does the rest of the summer.

Four fruit ripen on yellow mild pepper plant, late June.

Cucumbers: The most disappointing veggy in this troubled season is the Burpless cucumber. The three plants started off beautifully in April and produced a mass of yellow flowers in May. They produced two large fruit in June–but both were uncharacteristically very bitter, really inedible. These plants, which I grow as usual in full sun, have been devastated by the heat this season. I’ll nurture them along, and hope the results improve.

Zucchini: Even this summer, our zucchini plant is a marvel, though it, too, has been stressed by the heat. It has already produced three prodigious, delicious fruit, with another on the way, and more yellow flowers.

Three zucchini blooms in early June

Largest zucchini yet

Sliced zucchini, baked in romesco sauce

Peaches: Our tree is bending down with many green fruit, though not so much that I fear breakage of limbs at this point. Harvest time is usually late July. What I worry more about this season is the fruit drying out before harvest. Drying out has not occurred in prior years. So far, so good.

Peaches ripening toward July harvest in a very dry summer

Strawberries: The four new plants, all in pots, keep steadily producing ripening berries, a few at a time. The pots allow me to move them around in the garden to avoid the most intense heat, and the pots also retain the acid treatments the plants need each week.

New strawberry plant in shady front garden pot

New strawberry plant in semi-shade back garden pot

The June Gallery

Floral garlic, front garden

Orange dragonfly on its favorite tomato cage perch, back garden

Hibiscus flowers, back garden

Bumble bee on Mexican sage, front garden

Last pansies of spring and first vinca of summer, front garden

Rare checkered white butterfly on periwinkle, back garden, June 9

Lantana flowers and baby green orange, back garden

Bumble bee on lupine cluster, back garden

All My Loving roses in sun and shade, side garden

Cabbage leaf butterfly on arugula blossom, June 12, back garden

Red rose, back garden, mid June

Clusters of Stupice tomatoes green to ripe, June 15

And on to July, with more lemonade…

Bee on gaillardia early morning

In This Month’s Blog:

Garden Surprises in a New Normal

May 2021 Garden Update

May Kitchen: Asparagus Tart and Apricot Cherry Clafoutis

The May 2021 Gallery

Front garden: Fountain grass, red penstemon, orange gaillardia, purple alyssum, aloe, orange kalanchoe, heavenly bamboo, red and white geraniums

Garden Surprises in a New Normal

Chris:

With 60% of U.S. adults now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, new cases and deaths have plummeted (fewer than 20,000 new cases a day on average, and “only” about 500 deaths). So hospitals are no longer overrun, and most of the U.S. is even back to large crowds at outdoor and many indoor events. Most restaurants are reopened for indoor dining. Travel is picking up. Kids in most places are back to in-person school, and children over 12 are being vaccinated in large numbers. California, which has been more cautious in re-opening than many states, has the country’s lowest positive test rate (under 1%), and will be fully re-opening June 15.

It’s amazing how different the national mood now is than it was four months ago, not so much because the absolute numbers are way smaller–500 deaths every day is in no way acceptable–but because the trending is so different than it was in January. We can see the end of the threat if we can keep up the commitment. The vaccines work and more and more people are getting the shots, even many of the skeptical. Though the die-hard naysayers won’t admit it, most people are both calmed and energized when the messaging from the federal government and the states is largely consistent, and both, as I hopefully wrote in the blog last May, base their decisions on respect for the best medical research and for the people who devote their lives to it.

Still, the worldwide prognosis is not so rosy. Yes, the vaccines work, but we rich nations must distribute them to all parts of the world. Part of the new normal is recognizing that viruses will keep mutating and strengthening as long as there are hosts. That fact means that today’s victory in the most prosperous parts of the world can be turned to disaster everywhere if we don’t keep up the good work for all the world’s peoples. 

So what does a little garden have to do with these worldwide phenomena?

Basically, “my” garden is just a microscopic bit of the world, a bit that I can exercise a little experimental control of, but that is basically at the mercy of factors that I can’t influence. “My” garden does not belong to me. It depends totally on the kindness of the flora, the fauna, the winds and weathers, other humans, and the chemical/physical forces of that far greater world.

Bee in the Heavenly Bamboo, front garden

Bee in the Escallonia Pink Princess, front garden

Even more, the immense pleasure I get from “my” garden comes from all those moments when my tiny bit resembles what I find beautiful and nourishing in the great world: when “my” oranges grow big and juicy, when “my” irises return every April in their splendor, when a pomegranate seeds itself and so becomes “my” pomegranate, or a hummingbird zips on to “my” fuchsia flower. Sure, I can plant a meyer lemon seedling and then marvel at how year after year bees come to sip at the April flowers, but if neonicotinoids and bulldozers kill off the bees in the great world, then “my” meyer lemon dies, too. 

So in those ways this gardener is part of the whole world, and is largely powerless.

But…while I can’t myself stop the herbicidists and forest killers, the powerful polluters and climate-destroying hypocrites, I can pay attention. I can contribute to organizations that oppose them, to research that is finding better ways,  and to candidates with the courage to take on the climate-changing business as usual.

I can apply ways to garden organically, to water sparingly and efficiently, to plant with the goal of attracting pollinators, and to write and photograph to celebrate the bees’, birds’, dragonflies’, and butterflies’ essential work.

Dragonfly on iris stalk, back garden

Jay on birdbath, side garden

I can also write to celebrate small, happy surprises in the garden that bring me joy and could perhaps inspire other small gardeners. Surprises like

• my finally learning how to plant and nurture native California poppies so they actually thrive and blossom (the key is not overwatering–they are drought-tolerant)
  

  California poppy full sun

  

  California poppy part shade

• discovering that the apricot tree that we thought was giving no fruit this year actually was nurturing several dozen (see the clafoutis recipe later in this post)

Ripe apricots hiding in the tree

• and having so many Meyer lemons this year that we can make lemonade into June!

A bumper crop unlike any other in our garden’s history

Yes, we are in a new normal, when conditions such as climate change, the pandemic, and the movement for social justice are teaching us to be smarter, more compassionate, and more inventive than we perhaps thought we needed to be. And when even a home garden can offer surprises that help an old fellow like me keep going with confidence.

May 2021 Garden Update

Back garden toward south: 4-6 weeks after Spring planting

The Spring veggies went in after April 10 and all are doing well. No further rain, of course, but the high temps have varied between the high seventies and low 90s, so little need for extra watering beyond the every other day regimen of 10-15 seconds hand-watering per plant.

Tomatoes. 2 Red cherry plants with 45 green fruit; 2 Stupice mid-size with about 25 green fruit; 2 Early Girl mid-size with about 20 green fruit; 1 Sunrise Bumble Bee cherry, planted late April, with 3 green fruit.

Early Girl mid-size tomato fruit, mid-May

Peppers. 2 mild green plants, with white flowers but no fruit as yet; 1 yellow mild, with 1 green fruit; 1 purple mild, with 1 purple fruit; 1 Anaheim chili, with 2 green fruit; all leafing out and growing taller.

Anaheim chili pepper, with 2 fruit, May 23

Cucumbers. 3 Burpless full-size, all leafing out, spreading, and all with numerous yellow blooms.

1 of 3 Burpless cucumbers, May 23

Black Beauty Eggplants. 2 plants farther along than usual for May, both with purple flowers and in full sun.

Black Beauty eggplant flowering, May 23

Zucchini. 1 explosive plant, with multiple yellow flowers and 2-3 fruit already growing. The most rapidly growing zucchini of this prolific species I’ve had thus far.

First zucchini fruit of the season, mid-May

Multiple zucchini flowers, May 23

Strawberries. 5 new plants in 4 deep pots, 1 of them in the front garden; all in part sun; some white flowers and all with small green fruit.

3 new strawberries in 2 pots, back garden, part shade, May 23

Blackberries. Planted last August in a wine barrel, front garden; plentiful fruit, some ripe and picked.

Thornless blackberry in wine barrel, May 20; vine spreading way beyond barrel

Peaches. After last year’s peachless season, it appears we’ll have many in 2021. Green fruit heading toward late June, early July harvest.

Ripening peaches

Ripening peaches beside tiny green oranges

May Kitchen: Asparagus Tart and Apricot Cherry Clafoutis

Garden bouquet for Mother’s Day

Jean:

Savory Asparagus Tart

One of the best springtime vegetables is asparagus.  Here is an easy, no-recipe recipe for a very French-like savory asparagus tart.  I happened to see some white asparagus and decided I had to try it, in addition to green asparagus.  There was also purple asparagus in the store, and I wish I had gotten some of that as well, to make the dish more visually interesting.  The purple asparagus and white asparagus were thicker than the green spears I had previously bought, and I am generally afraid of thicker spears.  However, you never know.  We went to the annual asparagus festival in Stockton, California, a few years ago, where they served very thick asparagus prepared a number of ways, and it was all tender and delicious.  To help ensure your spears are tender, you may want to blanche and taste them before assembling the tart.

Bake at 425 degrees for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and puffy.  Let cool before slicing.

 

Jean’s asparagus tart

Apricot Cherry Clafoutis

This recipe for a cherry and/or apricot bread pudding is called a bettelmann, a traditional Alsatian dish, when made with day-old brioche.  The bread and whipped egg whites make this less dense and eggy than a French clafoutis, which can also be made with berries as well as stone fruit.

 

INGREDIENTS

• 4 ounces stale white or whole-wheat bread, crusts removed (weigh after removing crusts)
• 1 cup milk (2 percent is fine)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•  Softened butter for the baking dish
• 3 eggs, separated
• 50 grams (1/2 cup) almond flour
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons mild honey, like clover
• ¼ cup sugar
• ¾ pound cherries, pitted and/or  (I used both!)
• 1 pound apricots, pitted and halved if small, quartered if large or some combination of fruits
• 2 tablespoons sliced almonds, slightly toasted

OPTIONAL

• 1 teaspoon kirsch or cherry brandy (optional)

STEPS

1. Cut the bread into 3/4-inch squares. Combine the milk and vanilla and toss with the bread in a medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or longer.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9-inch ceramic tart pan or 2-quart baking dish. Arrange the pitted cherries and/or sliced, pitted apricots in the dish.
3. Remove the soaked bread from the refrigerator and beat with a whisk or an immersion blender until it becomes a mush. Beat in the egg yolks, almond flour, cinnamon, kirsch or brandy if using, and honey.
4. In a clean, dry bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment, begin beating the egg whites on low speed. Gradually add the sugar, turn up the speed to high and whip until the egg whites form a soft meringue, about 1 minute. Be careful not to overbeat, as you do not want the mixture to dry out. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the bread mixture. Scrape into the baking dish. Sprinkle the sliced almonds on top.
5. Bake 40 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Serve warm.

Jean’s Apricot Cherry Clafoutis with ice cream and garden blackberries for even more flavor

The May 2021 Gallery

Salmon roses, back garden

Cherry plums, side garden, ripening toward June harvest

Lavender, front garden, first blooms

First hibiscus bloom of the year, back garden, with avian visitor

Pansies under pergola

Peace rose, back garden, early morning sun

Purple alyssum, front garden

Herbs, back garden: Russian sage, Spicy oregano, Culinary sage, Genovese basil, purple basil, with Anaheim peppers

Still life: lemons, apricots, pansies, pomegranate blooms, back garden

Two bees in zucchini blossom

Lunar eclipse from back garden, May 26, 4:25 AM

…and on to June and more surprises…

Chris:

The guilty verdicts in the George Floyd murder case came in from Minneapolis on April 20. There is now a ray of hope for a new day in American justice. Just as with the great increase in the numbers of the vaccinated against COVID–more than 54% of the U.S. adult population now has received at least one shot– these signs fit the beginning of a glorious spring. Nurturing the garden of these hopes will take all our collective effort.

In this month’s blog:

A Bountiful Spring in the Garden: Irises, New Plantings, and More

The April Kitchen: Storing the Garden, Plus Two New Dishes

The April 2021 Gallery

Back panorama to North: “line” of new veggie plantings from bottom to top in the center of the photo.

A Bountiful Spring in the Garden: Irises, New Plantings, and More

The “line” of new veggie plants in the photo above went in beginning April 10, about a week later than usual. The November plantings of beets, broccoli, Swiss chard, leaf lettuce, and green bunching onions had done so well through March that I didn’t want to take them out too early. I still have five chard plants and one Bulls Blood beet thriving, but just last weekend (April 25) I harvested the last of the green onion bunches, which were by far the most prolific onions I’ve ever had in the garden. (See the Kitchen section for more on the onions.)

New Plantings

Tomatoes. Seven (7) plants have gone in, in four varieties: two (2) Red Cherry plants, 2 Stupice mid-size, 2 Early Girl mid-size, and 1 Red-Orange Swirl cherry. All except the Red-Orange Swirl (April 25) went in April 10-11. The base for all is a mix of organic compost and organic garden soil. As of April 27, all the April 10 tomato plantings have doubled or tripled in height and breadth, and all 6 have a few yellow flowers.

Peppers. Five (5) plants have gone in between April 10 and 17: two (2) sweet green peppers, 1 sweet yellow (in pot), 1 sweet purple, and 1 Anaheim chili (in pot). I grew no spicy peppers last year, as we still have several hundred very hot Thai chilis in the freezer for cooking. The Anaheim I just planted is the first of that variety I’ve tried. The base for all 5 is organic compost and organic garden soil.

Eggplants. Two (2) Black Beauty eggplants went in April 10 and these have already tripled in size. Last year’s Rosa Biancas produced only a few fruit and perhaps did not get enough sun. Black Beauties have done very well in this garden and are in very full sun.

Cucumbers. Three (3) Burpless full-size planted April 10-17. As of April 27, these have at least doubled in size. Last year’s lemon cucumbers were plentiful, but seedy and not great for pickling. Burpless have done well in the past in this garden. Base a mixture of organic compost and organic garden soil.

Zucchini. One (1) planted April 10. Already quadrupled in size. Base a mix of organic compost and organic garden soil.

Basil. Two (2) planted in pots April 10: one (1) Genovese green basil and 1 purple basil. Already at least doubled in size by April 27.

Thyme. One (1) sweet English thyme planted April 11 in pot on veranda (part shade). Now doubled in size.

Strawberries. Six (6) planted by April 11, all in pots: four (4) in three large pots at edge of veranda (less than full sun). Base a mix of organic compost and organic garden soil, plus weekly acidic watering. Already doubled in size. This base mix and weekly acidic watering succeeded with one large strawberry plant last year.

Irises. As every year, this is their month. But this year, for some reason, our deep purple irises have not yet bloomed. Still, the orange and purple-yellows have been gorgeous.

Purple yellow iris explosion, mid April

Oranges and Meyer Lemons. April is their month to move from the last ripe fruits of the season to the new buds, then to the blooming flowers luring bees with their wonderful fragrance, and finally to tiny green fruit.

Bees in the orange blossoms, early April

Peaches. In 2019, we had a large crop of peaches (more than 60). But in 2020, strong March winds knocked down the blossoms and we had only one peach the whole season. Thankfully, this  March, the blossoms held and turned gradually into tiny fruit covering the tree. We have promise of a bountiful harvest.

Tiny peaches in late April  

Blackberries. I planted our first blackberry vine in a wine barrel last August, and it has flourished and now bloomed and produced small green blackberries in April.

Our first blackberry vines, side garden

Cherry Plums. Although this year’s winds in early February knocked down the new blossoms on the apricot tree, so that we won’t have our usual crop of little orange gems, the blossoms on the cherry plum this year were full and plentiful. In late April, the little plums are growing apace toward June harvest.

Tiny cherry plums growing toward June harvest

The April Kitchen: Storing the Garden, Plus Two New Dishes

Beet and veggie borscht with green onions and parsley from the garden, and sour cream

Jean:

Frozen Storage. When our garden produce exceeds our ability either to consume it ourselves or give it away, we are challenged to store it or merely to toss the excess into the compost bin. We have found that freezing the excess is a great way to keep some of our veggies from degrading–and we can use the frozen goodies over several years. A good example is the super hot Thai chili peppers that have grown so prolifically, but that we can’t possibly use more than a fraction of in any given year. Indeed, we’ve not grown these peppers for the past two years, because our frozen store is way more than sufficient to fire up various dishes.

This year, our bumper crop of winter veggies: Bulls Blood beets, Swiss chard, Green Magic broccoli, and bunching green onions, has made frozen storage a particularly good option. As we have with the chilis, we’ve

• washed the veggies and cut them into small sizes perfect for cooking and eating
• placed them into plastic produce bags
• labelled the bags with date and type, and
• placed them into the freezer.

Now we can pull out the bags and use portions of the cut produce as needed. Depending on how much we use over the spring, summer, and fall months, we can decide how much we’ll need to grow next year.

Freezer bags of 2021 cut green onions, broccoli, chard, and beet leaves

The bunching green onions were particularly prolific, and letting them mature over 4-5 months (November-April) made them more and more succulent and spicy. When you dice the mature onions into roughly half-inch pieces, you can use the entire onion, if you wish, from the intense white end at ground level to the green and slightly spicy stalk.

Mature flowering green onion bunch

Green onion bunch for dicing and freezing

We also let the Bulls Blood beets mature from November to early April, and the resulting beet root in the largest of these was more than 6 inches in diameter. Though the thick root appeared woody when taken from the ground, trimming the outside revealed a colorful core that was easy to slice into bite-size pieces. Cooking the slices in boiling water for a half hour gave us tender, mildly sweet pieces perfect for stews, soups, or a colorful side dish.

The deep dark red borscht shown above came mainly from these tender slices pureed in the blender with our beet leaves, chard, and onions, with a bit of beef broth.

Massive Bulls Blood beet root

Bulls Blood beet root sliced for cooking

Springtime Dessert: Rhubarb Cobbler

One of our daughters loves strawberry-rhubarb pie, as did my mother, so I have made it for years. But rhubarb is so seldom available that I have to remember to look for it in the spring.  I went out of my way to find some last week but wasn’t sure how much to buy, so I only got a couple of stalks.  I should have gotten more, but it turned out to be the right amount for a dish for two people.

This is so simple that it’s really a no-recipe recipe.  The truth is I took some ideas from recipes online and added my own ingredients and techniques, as usual. 

First, chop up the rhubarb and see how much you have.  The recipe I started with called for 7 cups, but I found the two stalks made only about 2 cups chopped, so that is what I worked with.  The first step is to macerate the chopped rhubarb with sugar.  I used about ¼ cup, part white sugar and part Truvia.  Then I thought, hey, macerating is also done with liqueur, and I had some cherry brandy and some triple sec, so I threw in about a tablespoon or two of each, plus a little orange zest (since Chris was squeezing the last of our oranges from the garden). 

I wanted to add a fruit but didn’t have any strawberries except some frozen ones.  I threw in a few of those and also some raspberry jam and some spiced cherry compote left over from topping for the Easter ham.  Without that, I would have added my own ginger, cinnamon and cardamom, which are nice flavor features of the cherry compote I bought from the American Spoon company.  That made the filling flavorful without being overly sweet.

After macerating for at least half an hour, bake the filling in a pie pan at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes to cook down and thicken.  I debated using a little tapioca to thicken it, but it really wasn’t necessary.

While waiting for the fruit to macerate and bake, you need to make a sweet biscuit for the topping.  Again, I cut down the recipe I was using and made changes to it.  Truthfully, I have been changed forever by Joanna Gaines’ biscuit recipe, which is lighter and fluffier than any others I have made.  Thus, I used self-rising flour plus extra leavening, a good amount of butter, and some pasteurized egg along with the cream.  Here were the proportions for four small biscuits to top the fruit:

1/2 cup self-rising flour

1 T. sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

Pinch of Kosher salt

2 T. butter

2 T. cream and 1 T. pasteurized egg OR 3 T. cream

You know how to make biscuits, right?  Whisk the dry ingredients together, cut in the cold butter and add the liquid last, stirring just until you can make a ball.  Cover that well and chill for an hour or so. 

Of course, cobblers are generally made by putting the raw dough on the fruit and cooking them together, but I don’t like the inevitable gooey interface, so I baked the biscuits on a separate sheet, rewarming the fruit in its own pan at the same time.  (First I brushed the biscuits with a little cream and pasteurized egg and dusted them with large-grain sugar for good color and crunch.) Keeping the biscuit on top of the filling brings out the buttery crunch.

Plop the warm biscuit on a scoop of the warm fruit and top with a little ice cream or whipped cream.  Heaven!

Rhubarb filling and biscuit

Rhubarb dessert with topping and ice cream

The April 2021 Garden Gallery

Season’s first display of red roses on back fence

Tradescantia blooming in the front garden

Front garden: breath of heaven, blackberry vines, yellow rose explosion, red-orange roses, creeping juniper

Ladybeetle on yellow rose, front garden

Through gate and trellis, to alstroemeria, birdbath, fuchsia, and white roses, side garden

Multi-color rose thicket, back garden

Blooming aloe flower stalk, back garden

Neighborly scrub jay on back fence above white roses

Pansies in pots on veranda

Back garden display from pansies to back fence

Side garden: red-yellow roses, alstroemeria, wisteria and ceanothus petals

The bees that came to the ceanothus and wisteria early in April were followed by swarms on the orange blossoms and the meyer lemon blossoms in the middle of the month–then on to the several rose varieties later in April.

And on to May!

In this month’s blog:

Post-Vaccination Driving Trip

“Traditional” (?) Irish Dishes for St. Patrick’s Day

The Garden in March 2021

March 2021 Garden Gallery

Chris:

Having received our two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, we decided to hit the road in a major way and try to travel safely. The CDC gave commonsense advice about masking, social distancing, and sanitizing, and we were happy to find that all of the hotels, AirBnBs, places we planned to visit, and restaurants we might choose gave stern, detailed info about their safety rules and practices.  Traveling long distances by car is not something we had done much of in recent years, but we figured that if we split the driving and limited our contacts with other humans in reasonable ways, we could see and do everything we wanted to during a week away. If we succeeded, we figured, we would be energized to do more long distance trips in the future.

Our agenda included three states: California, Arizona, and Nevada, about 2000 miles round trip, with a mix of cities and open country. I was actually more concerned about the weather than about health dangers, because it would be early to mid March and a big chunk of the driving would be in the mountains, with good chances of running into ice and snow. I was a dogged student of weather.gov both before and during the trip, and we put together a much less interesting Plan B if we had to avoid the mountains in Nevada in order to get back home.

A big goal of our trip was to take part in baseball spring training in the Phoenix area, which we had done a few years earlier and wanted to do again, seeing different teams at their new stadiums. We were especially curious to learn how the return this year of crowds in the parks–albeit masked and socially-distanced–would affect the fan experience–and if the spectators would actually adhere to the health rules.

Nevada high desert near Tonopah

 The results?  Great! Even the 500+ miles of driving on the first day to Palm Springs, our first destination, were not too taxing on us old folks, and gave us assurance that the rest of the days on the road would be manageable. We did encounter two days of rough weather, but nothing that our car and we could not handle. The bonus was spectacular high desert scenery in Arizona from Phoenix to Kingman, then from Kingman to Hoover Dam, and on to Tonopah, Nevada, at 6000 feet. We saw hundreds of miles we’d never traversed before, including Joshua trees, massive sand dunes, range upon range of snow-covered peaks, and driving through rain that we’d seen coming toward us from 100 miles away.

Big Dune Park, Arizona, with storm clouds coming

Spring Training was just as invigorating as we’d hoped. Major League Baseball has done an amazing job of making the stadiums hospitable to fans while conscientiously helping us adhere to the rules for masking and social distancing. We managed to get tickets to three games, all our schedule allowed, but such is fan interest that we had to grab the tickets online on the first day they went on sale, because attendance was limited to 20% of capacity. Oh yes, and the beer was cold and the hot dogs hot.

A few more highlights:

Historic downtown Palm Springs

Palm Desert view

Cacti garden, Desert Botanical Park, Phoenix

Gila woodpecker on saguaro, Desert Botanical Park, Phoenix

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead on the Colorado River, Arizona-Nevada border; 30 feet below normal, March 2021

Rabbit munching prickly pear in Botanical Park

Hotels and AirBnBs. In every place we stayed in all three states, the health rules were remarkably consistent and the service exceptional despite restrictions. Masking was always used by personnel–and by most of the other guests, who always socially distanced–and sanitation was evident in rooms and public spaces. For food, we mostly relied on drive-thru fast food places, where masking and gloves were the rule. But we also had a few restaurant meals, including a special dinner in Tempe, AZ, where the fine dining restaurant had heated outdoor seating and staff were masked. 

All in all, our traveling experience gave us many happy memories and, as we’d hoped, inspired us to take to the road soon again.

St. Patrick’s Day: “Traditional” (?) Irish Dishes

Corned beef hash with eggs

Filling for shepherd’s pie

Shepherd’s pie ready to bake

Lemon cake and lemon blueberry popsicle

Irish bangers and mash, with garden greens

Shamrock cookies

Irish potato cabbage soup

Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, brussels sprouts and Reuben sandwich

Jean:

We went big on St Patrick’s Day foods this year, cooking almost every “traditional” dish I could think of during the week after we returned from our driving trip. I also during that week reread my favorite book about the Irish famine by Liam O’Flaherty.  This got me thinking that these meat-heavy dishes I was re-creating seem more British than Irish.    Maybe this is how the landlords ate, but it was not how the peasant farmers ate. 

The peasants’ over-dependence on the potato crop led to the famine when the crop failed, because the rest of the produce and livestock grown in Ireland were largely exported to England by the mostly British landlords.  The food insecurity in Ireland had gone on for a long time, as shown by Jonathan Swift’s publication of “A Modest Proposal” in 1729, more than a century earlier than when famine reached its peak around 1848-50. The region hardest hit was southwestern Ireland, which included County Clare, where my mother’s paternal grandparents lived. While at least a million Irish died during the decade of the 1840s, my great-grandparents were among the 1-2 million who emigrated from Ireland in those years. They came to the United States when they were young, eventually meeting and marrying in “Bleeding Kansas” (with its own terrible story). 

My mother transmitted something of their Irish culture to me, but her favorite foods were pretty basic:  potatoes, bread, and oatmeal, which her ancestors were grateful to have–when they had them. 

The Garden in March 2021

Back garden toward west, with oranges and aloe in foreground

Back garden toward south

Chris:

About an inch of rain during our week away kept the garden fresh and growing. We now have had about 6.5 inches this rain season–only 1/3 of normal–so we’re expecting water restrictions this summer for the first time since 2016. But because California’s mostly persistent drought battles beginning in 2011 provoked us then to cut back water use by more than 50%–and keep it cut back–we’re already using considerably less water than what the state is likely to mandate this year.

(See W Is for Water (Dec. 2017) for our fullest post on the topic.)

I was anticipating that I’d be uprooting our winter veggies this month, perhaps as soon as we got back from the trip, but most are still doing so well that I may delay spring planting until, say, mid April. The temps have been slightly below normal in March (until this last week of the month), so two of the broccolis are still producing heads, not flowering, while the green onions, leaf lettuce, Swiss chard, and beets are prettier and fuller than ever.

But I’ll need to make room soon for the spring/summer tomatoes, zucchini, cukes, squash, herbs, and eggplants!

Tertiary heads green magic broccoli

mature green onions

Green onions and Bulls Blood beets

Buttercrunch leaf lettuce

Mature Swiss chard

Oranges, Meyer Lemons, Peaches, and Apricots

Our final season tally for oranges is now over 300, with a dozen or more still to be picked. We are a long way from using or giving away all our lemons, as you’ll see below. Both trees are now in full bud for next season, too.

Meanwhile, our peach tree is in bloom, so we have hope for a good crop of peaches this year. But our apricot tree had just begun to bloom when strong winds knocked off the buds, so we may have our first fruitless year since we planted the tree nine years ago.

Orange tree teeming with buds

Meyer lemons and new buds

Peach blossoms

March 2021 Garden Gallery

Lenten rose, back garden

First white-pink rose, side garden

Red rose buds, back fence

Cherry plum blossoms against photinia spring colors

Callalily flowers and vinca

Mockingbird in sycamore

African daisy explosion, back garden

First Blackberry blossoms

Cape daisy explosion, front

White-crowned sparrow in wisteria vines

First wisteria blooms

Bee on new Ceonothus blooms

And so on to April…

Celebrating Valentines Day in the Garden

In this month’s blog:

Traveling in the Garden

VacciNation Valentine

February in the Kitchen: Virtual Victual Valentines

Garden Update for February 2021

February 2021 Gallery: Fauna on/in/with Flora

Chris:

One of the happiest features of gardening in a pandemic is that the garden keeps changing. So if you have been hunkered at home, as we have, for most of the past year, every day in the garden takes you to a different place. Traveling while almost standing still. Now I don’t just mean using your imagination to think that you are elsewhere. I mean actually confronting a slightly changed world every morning you step outside.

Some of the change is aesthetic–in what I see, hear, feel, or smell–like the very first blossoms on the apricot tree last week, or the three-note coo that I heard from the first Eurasian Collared Dove returning to the neighborhood, or the brilliantly blooming snapdragon in the front garden.

Tiny blooms of the snapdragon, front garden

Very first bloom of the season on the apricot tree, front garden

Our first Eurasian Collared Dove of the season, on the roof

But many of the changes in the garden carry with them questions about responsibilities for decision and action, no matter how small.

Here are a tiny few of the many that arose in the past two weeks:

1. Does the slight change in the greenness of a broccoli head (below) mean that it must be picked now?

Well, I did pick it (Feb. 10), and we steamed the fresh florets to go with Jean’s East Asian veggie curry and rice.

Broccoli head just beginning to turn yellow…

Back garden toward south on a sunny warm February early afternoon, before the next day’s rain

2. Should I use some of our precious water today (Feb. 10) to moisten our dry veggies and herbs, even though the forecast–notoriously unreliable in this drought–is for showers tomorrow?

In fact, the rains did come the next day (Feb. 11), giving us 1/3 of an inch, with maybe more in a couple of days.

3. Is it time (Feb. 12) to uncover the Bulls Blood beets that have now been maturing below ground for 3 months?

One of our six Bulls Blood beet plants, planted in November

I figured that this beet’s time had come, and I discovered that “it” was really 3 plants, 2 of which had mature beet roots, which Jean cooked as part of our Valentine’s dinner–along with the succulent beet leaves, tender and flavorful in their own right. I replanted the smallest of the 3 plants (Feb. 15), and am waiting to see if it takes hold.

4. Should I clear away the leaves and brush beside the lupine tree in the back garden?

This turned out to be an easy question–which a golden-crowned sparrow answered for me (Feb. 11):

No, a garden never stays put; it can never be just a pretty place to look at. We’re thankful that it’s both photogenic and an ongoing challenge, usually in manageable ways, so that our time trying to stay safe at home during the pandemic has been most often pleasantly busy. Indeed, the other focus of this blog, our kitchen, reinforces our expectation of something always to experiment with, be challenged by, and prepare.

Besides the garden and the kitchen, both of us work part time from home, read and write, watch and listen to entertainment media, walk our neighborhood, and go out to stores. Not to mention that we stay frequently in touch through FaceTime, Zoom, and the phone with friends, our children, and our grandchildren. So our days are full!

VacciNation Valentine

Although the pandemic has just reached its one-year anniversary, we have a special reason to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year. It has now been close to a month since the daily case rates have been dramatically falling across the US. So we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. One major factor has been the steadily improving rates of vaccination with the approved vaccines (Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna) all across the nation, as the US finally has a coordinated strategy, sparked by leadership at the federal level. So when couples across the US celebrate their Valentines love with roses, balloons, and their foods and beverages of choice, we can celebrate with a renewed feeling of hope for the future.

More Valentines celebration: Jean’s orange chiffon mini pies

February in the Kitchen: Virtual Victual Valentines

Jean’s pear cheese tart

Jean:

“Virtual Victual Valentines”? What can I say? I love V words, and these just rolled off the tongue. These “vittles” are virtual because that’s how I can tell you about them, but they were fun to make and eat.

Pear Cheese Tart

This is one of my sloppier recipes because I don’t know where I saw the original recipe (except I know the inspiration was from Mary Berry on the BBC), I didn’t follow that recipe very closely anyway, and I don’t exactly remember what I did. So the measurements are rough at best, but it doesn’t matter. This is an invitation to wing it.

I was interested in this idea when I saw the recipe, because I know it started with puff pastry, not blind baked. I get tired of dealing with regular pie crust dough, blind baked or not, so I bought some frozen puff pastry and thawed one sheet. I then cut it into portions that would roughly fit the bottom and sides of this heart-shaped pan. I wanted to prevent the crust from getting too soggy from the pears, so I sprinkled some ground almonds or almond flour I had over the bottom of the crust, letting it fill in any gaps between the pieces of pastry. Then I poured in the filling, which was more savory than sweet: I whisked 2 eggs with about a cup of half and half, 1/2 c. mascarpone or cream cheese, and 1/2 c. blue cheese crumbles. These were all items I had on hand, and I figured they’d go together well.  They did!

On the creamy filling, arrange pear halves and half walnuts or pecans in an attractive pattern. Sprinkle or spread coarse sugar, honey, or thinned jam on top to make a glaze. Done in no time!

Bake at 400 degrees F. for 30 minutes.

Green grape avocado smoothie with egg cheese guacamole toast

Blackberry avocado smoothie with soy chorizo omelet

Avocado Smoothies

You know how it’s just easier to buy some things in bulk these days because you’re trying to meet a minimum dollar amount to get free shipping or pickup? Well, I ended up with more avocados than I would usually buy, and I remembered that I had picked up at a used bookstore a cookbook that focuses on avocado recipes. In browsing through it for ideas, I discovered a lot of recipes for avocado smoothies. Who doesn’t love a green smoothie? (Don’t answer that if you think you don’t; you would be surprised how good they can be.) The avocado in these seems to take the place of banana and you don’t really taste the avocado.

If you are the sort who likes to throw spinach or other greens into a smoothie, you can certainly do that. I used a recipe that called for fresh orange slices, which of course we have plenty of, and some frozen blackberries (I cup blackberries to 1 whole orange), plus a tablespoon of blackberry honey that we had just ordered off the Internet and one avocado. This is the reddish one you see in the picture; I added a few of our red chard leaves.

Other surprising ideas in the book, however, include green grapes with kiwi and avocado, or pears and avocado with lime and fresh mint. (I had a few canned pears left from my tart experiment, plus I added key lime yogurt.) If any of these look too thick to you after blending, add more orange juice, juice from the canned pears, or apple juice. Just have fun with it. (I also threw in a litte protein powder that I bought while trying to diet, but more about my diet another time, maybe.)

Jean’s orange chiffon pie

Orange Chiffon Pie

Jean’s Sunkist Cook Book, published 1968

Garden Update for February 2021

Back garden toward north, Feb. 14, midday

Chris:

Oranges and Meyer Lemons. In December, I greatly underestimated the number of oranges we’d have this season. I estimated 150, but we’ve already used or given away almost 200, with a good 100 still on the tree. A few fall off each day, with most firm and healthy. The compost bin gets the few mushy ones, along with the peels of the many we use for juice or snacking. Though we use our meyer lemons for juicing or gifts to neighbors, we’re still barely into the bounty on the bush, so I estimate we’ll be picking lemons for at least the next three months–after the buds and blooms for next season have sprung!

Watching the meyer lemon bush from inside the orange tree

Lettuce and Swiss Chard.  The 3 leaf lettuce plants in their mesh cages are still thriving, while the 6 Swiss chard plants are also doing well, growing larger as the temps slowly climb, with highs in the low 60s. This week, I transplanted into the ground the two chards that had been in small pots close to the house on the veranda, as these had become root bound. Let’s see how they do, and if the birds love them or leave them alone.

The largest so far of the 6 chard plants, back garden.

Green Onions and Bulls Blood Beets. All plants doing well, with the green onions being picked as we want them for salads, sandwiches, and mild spice for main dishes. See the story (above) about the only one of the 5 beets we’ve picked so far.  We’ll be  using the rest over the next few weeks.

The plentiful green onions and thriving Bulls Blood beets in the large raised bed

Broccoli. Three of the 6 Green Magic broccoli plants produced full heads this month. These heads have been harvested, and on all of these 3 plants secondary florets are growing. Since I planted the broccoli this season in November, a month later than last season because of the persistent high heat in October 2020, I’ll be interested to see how the current plants do as spring heat arrives.

Secondary heads growing on harvested Green Magic broccoli, back garden

February 2021 Gallery: Fauna on/in/with Flora

Honeybees on the blooming erysimum

Geranium in front of bee magnet Erysimum

Two honeybees on rosemary

Ruby-crowned kinglet with persimmon tree

Golden-crowned sparrow, peeking

White-crowned sparrow in peach tree

Northern mockingbird in sycamore

Anna’s hummingbird in cherry plum tree

Viewing the back garden from inside the orange tree

Aftermath of the Jan. 26-27 storm: the back garden

Chris:

Rain finally came to our region at the end of January. Too bad it came with 50 mph winds, which uprooted trees throughout the Valley, including Sacramento. But when all of 2020 had given us only about 2 inches of rain–16 inches below normal!–we were still thankful for the almost 3 inches we’ve received over that past three days. Meanwhile, the storm produced blizzard conditions in the Sierra, with an accumulation so far of more than 5 feet of snow–and more in the forecast for the next week.

In our microscopic smidge of the Valley, the storm tore off small branches from the sycamore and brought down about a third of our remaining oranges (see below). But though all of the trees, bushes, and plantings were whipped around, and some wound up off kilter, all stayed in the ground or in their pots sheltered near the house. Best of all, the new fencing I’d had put up after the 2017 storms held firm and helped buffer the back garden.

So I’m basking in the psychological sunshine of this temporary reprieve from the drought–and we may even get some more rain soon.

Here’s how the winter fruits and veggies are doing:

Lettuce and Chard. This year’s crop of leaf lettuce has been our best, with three of the plants in chicken wire cages to keep back the birds. A fourth plant is in a small pot near the house. Swiss chard has done well in the cool temps (below 60 F.), but is primed to take off once temps rise in February. Four healthy plants are in pots on the veranda, and two more are doing well in ground.

Leaf lettuce in chicken-wire cage in back garden

Swiss chard in ground, back gerden

Green onions and Bulls Blood beets. I missed not having these around for the past couple of seasons, and I’m glad I’ve brought them back. Six plants of each are in the large raised bed (see above, top) or in pots. All were planted in early November–a month later than my typical fall planting because of the persistence of hot weather through October. But all are on pace for harvest in February, with my having clipped off some of the onion sprouts for our salads already.

Green onions in red pot, back garden

Bulls blood beet plant in raised bed

Broccoli. All six of the plants, which were started in November, have sprouted heads, though these are much less mature in January than those in previous seasons, which were planted in October. Most notable about this year’s crop, which are all planted in the ground, are that all six have stayed alive despite some having been damaged by the birds and by the cabbage leaf butterflies. I’m interested to see what happens now that we’ve gotten more rain and when the temps start to rise back to the 60s.

The largest (18 in. in diameter) of the six Green Magic broccoli plants.

Oranges and Meyer Lemons. We’ve used about 60 of the oranges so far for juice, some of them gleaned from the ground after having fallen.  Then, when the storm hit on January 26-27, 50 more oranges fell, all of them firm and healthy! Because the overall orange crop is smaller this year, the size of each fruit is greater, with some as large as grapefruit. The skins are not overly thick and all the fruit are very juicy. About 150 more remain on the tree–and I hope they stay put for a while. The longer they stay on the tree, the sweeter they become.

Two of the many clusters of navel oranges before the late January storm

Oranges and meyer lemons being made into orange-and-lemonadee

As noted in last month’s blog, the meyer lemon crop is our largest ever (about 150), as the bush has enlarged over the summer by 25% and the lemons are thickly clustered. And, because the fruit are small, very few fell off in the wind.

Meyer lemon clusters, our best crop, in January

As a result of the strength of both types of fruit, we’ll have juice for a few months to come. We’ll probably also be freezing some juice for the summer. We’ve already begun giving away some of the oranges and lemons to neighbors and to the local food bank–especially some of the 50 large, firm oranges that fell in the storm.

Some of the oranges that fell in the storm

The January 2021 Gallery

Two members of our neighborhood flock of “wild” turkeys

Honeybee on the coreopsis, back garden

Dianthus and snapdragon, front garden

Ladybeetle on the Tradescantia, front garden

Wallflower (Erysimum) about to bloom

Fiery agapanthus, front garden

Anna’s hummingbird in the peach tree on a foggy morning

Honeybee in the heart of a white rose, back garden

Visiting Oregon junco on the deck, back garden

Honeybee on the rosemary, back garden

Aloe mom and pups, veranda, with oranges in background

White-crowned sparrow hides in the lupine, back garden

Scrub jay at home on the back fence, with red rosebud

All the birds, bees, and plants are loving the rain, and can’t wait for more.

If you haven’t read Part 1 of this January blog, try it out.

Happy Birthday, 2021! Now on to February!

Chris:

In our extended family, January is a month of birthdays: on New Year’s Eve ( yes, that counts!), Jan. 5, 15, 18, 27, and 30. Pretty fitting, wouldn’t you say, for the birth month of the new year?

This January, especially, we’re hoping to celebrate a rebirth of hope, as we try to move forward from a monumentally challenging 2020. Sadly, early this month, on the 6th, we suffered in our Nation’s Capital a terrifying example of what the moving-backward culture is still capable of. But, amazingly, the hopes for the new year prevailed that night and into the early hours of the morning, as a brave Congress showed the power of the American spirit of democracy. And then, on the 20th, only 2 weeks later, the new year really began for the nation by affirming one of our best features: a peaceful transfer to a new administration, as elected by a record number of voters.

In this month’s blog, which we’ll publish in two parts, we celebrate the birth, and birthdays, of this hopeful new year, first in our kitchen (Part 1) and then in our garden (Part 2). Celebrate with us!

Our Kitchen: Birthday Cakes and More

Jean’s whipped cream Black Forest cake

Jean:

January is my birthday month, and also my older sister’s.  She passed away last month, about five weeks before her birthday.  My sister and I were great friends, although she and I were very different.  She did not have children or enjoy domestic pursuits.  She was a very quiet type and had more of a scientific mind than mine, earning master’s degrees in medical technology and pharmacy.  She spent two years in the Peace Corps in Kenya working with tropical diseases, a number of years working in hospitals, and finally in the state diagnostic laboratory.  The most painful disease I was aware of her catching as a result of her profession was salmonella.  By the time COVID came around, she was too far gone with Parkinson’s and other ailments to have much of a conversation with me about what it all meant.  Ironically, she might have caught it in the nursing home where she lived the last few years of her life, but she remained COVID free, finally dying of a cancer we didn’t even know she had.

German Chocolate Cake

My sister’s favorite cake, and the last thing I cooked for her, was German chocolate cake.  I made one of those this month to celebrate her birthday.  (I must confess I used a mix this time.  I figured she wouldn’t mind.)

Jean’s German chocolate cake, in honor of her sister’s birthday

Chocolate and Orange Spice Cake

I followed that cake with a chocolate and orange spice.  I wanted to start using our garden oranges in a new way.  I had also been streaming old episodes of the Great British Baking Show and ran across Mary Berry’s “Whole Orange Spice Cake” and thought I’d try it.

Forgive the British terminology and metrics if you are not familiar with them.  I’ve gradually been learning.  This is a type of British sponge cake, but it is somewhat unusual in using whole eggs with no separate beating.  It makes a rather heavy cake but it stays quite moist, and we enjoyed every slice.

The following recipe is mostly Mary Berry’s, but also includes my changes, which are noted.

Ingredients for the Cake

Get all the ingredients below ready because this is one of Mary’s “all in one” recipes, where she dumps almost everything in at once, rather than starting by beating the butter and sugar first.

Start with 1 small thin-skinned orange

• 275g (10 oz) self-raising flour
• 3 level teaspoons baking powder
• 275g (10 oz) caster (fine) sugar
• 225g (8 oz) butter, softened
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon mixed spice

For the Filling

• 50g (2 oz) butter, softened
• 175g (6 oz) icing sugar, sifted, plus a little extra for dusting
• 2 level tablespoons orange pulp, reserved from the cake

For the Ganache

• 150g dark chocolate (2/3 c.)
• 150ml double cream (heavy cream) (2/3 c.)
• 3 tbsp apricot jam

Instructions for the Cake

Preheat the oven to 180oC/Fan 160oC/Gas 4 (325-350 Fahrenheit), depending on whether you use convection, which takes the lower temp. Grease two 20cm (8 in) tins with greased greaseproof paper.

Place the whole orange in a small saucepan, cover with boiling water and simmer until soft, about 20 minutes. Set aside to cool.

When the orange is ready, cut in half and remove any pips/seeds. (I also cut out excess pith.)  Process the whole orange, including the skin, until medium chunky. Reserve 2 level tablespoons of the orange pulp for the icing and put the rest back in the processor.

Add the remaining cake ingredients and blend until smooth. Avoid overmixing.

Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins.
Bake in the preheated oven for 25–30 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tins for a few moments, then turn out, peel off the paper and finish cooling on a wire rack.

For the Filling

To make the orange filling, cream the soft butter, then add the sifted icing sugar and reserved orange pulp.  (I also stirred in some orange marmalade I had, plus some orange liqueur to intensify the orange flavor.)

Sandwich the cakes together with the icing, and sift icing sugar over the top of the cake.

For the Ganache

That’s not what I did with this cake, however, because I had a chocolate and orange Lindt bar, so I was determined to make ganache, the easiest frosting there is.  I’ve listed Mary’s ingredients, but I used marmalade instead of apricot.

Candied Orange Peel Topping

You could also decorate the top with candied orange peel. This is Mary’s recipe, but I either forgot, was too lazy, or got distracted by all the scrumptious chocolate, so these are not shown in the photo of the cake below.  You can just imagine how nice they would look.  And someone would surely find them fun to eat. After I made this cake, one of our sons, a very good cook himself, made some of these candied citrus peels for my birthday. See below.

Candied citrus peels: A gift made by one of our sons

Instructions: Pour 300ml/10fl oz water into a small pan, then add about 10 oz granulated or fine sugar and heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.

Cut strips of orange peel, avoiding the pith.  Add the peel to the hot syrup and simmer uncovered for 30-45 minutes, until the peel is soft and translucent.  Let dry and cool spread out on a baking sheet and sprinkle with dry granulated or fine sugar.

Jean’s chocolate and orange spice cake

Black Forest Cake

Jean’s whipped cream Black Forest cake with dark cherry filling

Then I made a Black Forest Cake to celebrate Chris’s German father, who passed away when Chris was young and whose January 18th birthday he and his sister still celebrate every year. 

I used a recipe for whipped cream cake from my old Betty Crocker cookbook, the one with the cover falling off.  Just by coincidence, one of my daughters sent me a replacement.  (It has the same traditional recipes but in the new notebook format.  I can maybe retire the old one now, although it has notes I entered from experience with the recipes.)

The new (left) and old, well-worn Betty Crocker cookbooks

Anyway, I had never made a cake where the moisture was provided mostly by whipped cream.  It seemed strange trying to fold in the flour, but it made a very yummy cake.  (I decided to forego Mary Berry’s chocolate sponge version because Chris had had enough chocolate for a while.) We’re now sold on this version.

Coffee and Cream Coffee Cake

Jean’s chocolate cream cheese coffee cake

And as if we weren’t eating enough cake this month, I wanted to make a coffee cake to bring still more cake to our breakfasts.

I saw this coffee cake on the New York Times Cooking site, and I made it as pictured because it looked like a big cup of cappuccino, which I love.  I belatedly read the comments, which should be taken into account.  I am integrating the comments with the original recipe here to give you alternatives and reasons at each step of the way.  To give you a sense, one commenter said, “This cake was delicious and very large. It will feed an army. Making it for a party of two during quarantine was a blessing and a curse.”  I would also say that this coffee cake is a challenge because you have so many gluey bowls and mixing implements going.  I felt I needed more hands as well (Chris’s), particularly when trying to assemble the final cake.

Ingredients

For the Cream Cheese Filling

•   12 ounces/340 grams cream cheese, at room temperature
• ½ cup/100 grams granulated sugar
• 1 large egg

For the Streusel

• 1 ½ cups/190 grams all-purpose flour
•  ½ cup/50 grams old-fashioned oats
• ⅓ cup/75 grams light or dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon espresso powder (or instant espresso)
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
• 10 tablespoons/140 grams cold unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks)

For the Cake Batter

•   2 ½ cups/320 grams all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons espresso powder (or instant espresso)
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
• ¾ cup/170 grams unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), at room temperature
• ¾ cup/165 grams light or dark brown sugar
• ¾ cup/150 grams granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ¾ cup/180 milliliters coffee, cooled
• ½ cup/120 milliliters sour cream

Instructions and Alternatives

Set the oven at 350 F. (or 325 convection)

Prepare the pan, either springform, Angel food, or bundt.  Commenters found it overflowed the recommended 9-inch springform, necessitating the catch pan under it; my scaled down recipe just fit a 7-inch springform pan to the hilt.

Lightly grease a 9-inch springform pan with nonstick spray. Line the edge of the pan with 2 strips of parchment paper cut to the height and diameter of the ring, then spray the ring again. Place it on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Making the Streusel:  (Original recipe) In a medium bowl, stir the flour, oats, brown sugar, espresso powder, baking powder and salt to combine. Cut the butter into tablespoon portions and drop it into the bowl. Mix with your hands or a pastry cutter until the mixture is thoroughly combined and comes together to form large clumps; set aside.

(My changes) Commenters said there was too much streusel, and I found that to be true even though I tried to cut these ingredients down by about a third.  In other words, I used one cup flour to one cup butter and cut the white sugar to 1/3 cup.  It was still a lot.  You could probably do with ¾ cup flour to ¾ c. butter and ½ c. sugars altogether.  The oatmeal is nice; I wouldn’t cut that down much, and I also added chopped nuts and a little cinnamon.

Making the Cream Cheese Filling:

 (Original recipe) In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the cream cheese and granulated sugar on medium speed until well combined, about 2 minutes. Scrape the bowl well, then add the egg and mix until fully incorporated. Transfer filling to a medium bowl and clean out the mixing bowl. (My comments) You can instead beat this in a small bowl with a hand mixer so you don’t have to transfer it.

(My changes) I used one 8-oz package cream cheese with 1/3 c. sugar and half an egg, and it was still a lot.  However, it made a dramatic, cheesecake surprise in the center of the cake and did get cooked properly.  If you follow the suggestion below about splitting this into two layers, you can use the 12 ounces at least.  Some commenters said they would double it.  Up to you. 

Making the Cake Batter:

(Original Recipe) In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt to combine.

(My changes) I used 1 ½ cups of flour and cut the other ingredients down commensurately.  (You do the math, or just guess at it; not that important.)

(Original) In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in yet another a medium bowl using a hand mixer), cream the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, and mix, scraping the bowl well after each is incorporated. Add the vanilla and mix to combine.

(My changes) I cut this down to half a cup each of butter, brown and white sugar, and two eggs.  That’s easy math if you’re trying to cut it by a third.  And you can surely use less sugar plus some gluten-free flour to suit yourself.

(Original) Add about one-third of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix on low speed to combine. With the mixer running, gradually pour the coffee into the mixture in a slow, steady stream, mixing until fully incorporated.

(My changes) ½ cup should do it, if cutting down by 1/3.

(Original) Add half of the remaining flour mixture and mix on low speed to combine. Add the sour cream and mix to combine, then add the remaining flour mixture and mix until fully incorporated. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl well to ensure the mixture is homogenous.

(My changes) 1/3 c. if cutting back; I used part coffee yogurt I happened to have.

Baking the Cake: (Original) Finally, pour half of the batter into the prepared pan, then sprinkle half of the streusel over the surface of the batter. Dollop the cream cheese mixture by the heaping tablespoons all over the surface of the batter, keeping it about an inch away from the sides. Spoon it over as evenly as you can, but don’t try to spread it once it’s on top of the batter. You might add chocolate chips on top. Pour the remaining batter over the cream cheese and gently spread into an even layer. Sprinkle the remaining streusel on top.

(My changes) Commenters said: Use a 10″ angel food tube pan and place on a sheet pan. Zero problems with timing or overflow. Cake should be done at 1 hour, 20 min., rotating the pan midway. 

(Original) Transfer to the oven and bake until the cake springs back slightly in the center when touched and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs, checking it at about 1 hour and 20 minutes, then baking another 10 minutes if necessary. If your streusel is becoming too dark before the cake is done, loosely cover it with foil.

Run a thin knife around the outside edge of the parchment paper ring to loosen it from the edge of the pan. Cool the cake for 20 to 30 minutes inside the pan, then remove the outer ring of the pan and the parchment paper and let cool completely. If desired, gently loosen the cake from the base and transfer to a platter, or simply leave it on the base to serve.

Garnish with confectioners’ sugar just before serving.

My chocolate cream cheese coffee cake, ready for serving—-great with steaming cups of coffee!

If you want to read about the triumphs and travails of our garden this month, go on to Part 2…