Went for a drive – Iowa countryside

 

The boxelder is actually turning a nice shade of yellow this year. Last year the green leaves just fell off before they turned.

The weather this afternoon was perfect. So I took a drive and snapped a few photos.


Down the street the maples look spectacular. I wonder if it will improve or if this is as vibrant as they'll get?


You can click to make the photo bigger.
I love the architecture of Iowa barns. These 3 are great examples of the evolution of dairy barns.

The mottled colors in this valley caught my eye.


A couple more cool barns.

A local county park. It's so busy in the summer, felt really weird that I was all alone there today.


The corn turned awhile ago. But I guess the farmers have been waiting for things to dry out before they harvested their crop.

Speaking of crops...I'm about ready to bring some of mine in. There was a teeny film of frost on the ground this morning, but not up on the balcony. Still, I can't procrastinate. It's time to prep for winter!

It's fall

Love the color of the red maples, green grass, blue/purple sky and golden corn.
you can click on any of the images to enlarge

I'm totally envious of my neighbors. All I get to see out my window is a lousy yellowy boxelder tree and it's bugs that are trying to squeeze under the door.


Cardinal and gold on the ISU campus.

I love this tree. Sometimes I take a longer route to work just to check up on it.

Here Comes the Rain Again

My favorite posts from September

5 Fall Vegetables every Container Gardener Should Try from Life on the Balcony


Even a Small-Space Garden can Produce an Edible Bounty from CityDiggity


Shades of Red and Purple from Greens and Berries


Ken Burns' National Parks from The Dirt


Herbs and Vegetables for Shadier Balconies from Life on the Balcony


13 Famous Vegetarians from Treehugger


3 Ways to Preserve Basil from Life on the Balcony


Two-Corn Polenta from Fresh365 (I made this!)


Roasted Eggplant Panini from Fresh365 (on my list of things to make)
















Blooming this Week from Balcony Gardener

Green Garlic

OMG. Words cannot express how much I love green garlic. But I'll try.

It's the best part of my garden. If I could grow nothing else, or only had room for one pot. That is what I would grow. Why?

1. It's easy — Buy a bulb from the grocery store. Separate the cloves. Stick them in the ground. Water and wait.
2. You don't need a lot of room. Got a couple square inches of bare soil? It grows tall and skinny, so there's no worries about overcrowding.
3. It's delicious — It had a really wonderful garlic flavor, but it's not as intense. So it's also really nice for raw food that calls for garlic. Plus, if you do cook it, it gets sweeter!
4. It's a great garnish — Since it's such a bright, intense green color it looks just as cool as chives.
5. You can't find it in grocery stores. (Maybe specialty stores, but I've never seen it, and who wants to pay specialty store prices anyway?)

When September Ends

now




3 months ago

it took forever for the sweet-potato vine to grow. then it didn't stop
those are 'daughter' strawberry plants. i'll have more next year! muahahaha!

annuals are starting to look ratty



 
the stevia is about 5' tall

peppers are ripening

the marigolds have never looked better

nasturtiums are still blooming. they liked climbing on the strings that were for the spring peas

Purple Pesto (on a diet)

This recipe is made with the flowering bits of cinnamon basil, which are a lovely dark purple.
Do you see the pretty light-purple blooms toward the top/middle of the photo? Yeah...I didn't quite get them picked as soon as I should. But, oh well, it's still totally edible. They'd probably make a sweet garnish, too.

Ingredients:
equal parts finely chopped basil leaves*
and walnuts
2-3T olive oil
1/2 cup low-fat Parmesan cheese
3 stalks of green garlic*
milk

Items with a * came from the garden.

*

I decided to not use a food processor this time. I heard that hand chopping the ingredients for pesto is much more authentic and brings out better flavor.

Pictured above is equal parts finely chopped basil leaves/blooms and walnuts. Yes, walnuts. Why not pine nuts? I didn't have any and didn't feel like running to the store. Don't try to tell me that walnuts aren't used in pesto, because I already know pine nuts are traditional, but I don't think purple cinnamon-basil pesto is exactly traditional to begin with, and I'm going to deviate from tradition even more. Hold onto your pants. ;)

I mixed them up with just a couple tablespoons of really light, delicate olive oil and about 1/2 a cup of low fat Parmesan cheese. ("Real" pesto uses a whole hell of a lot more oil and real cheese, not the stuff I get out of a plastic tub. But I'm poor and on a diet.)

To that I added minced green garlic. What's green garlic? In a word: delicious. Another word: subtle. And another: delicate. It's like food poetry it's so good. Actually it's just grocery store dry garlic cloves I stuck in a pot, they sprout, and those green spears usually get snipped off for my lust for green garlic long before the plant would start reproducing. I'll do a post just on green garlic soon. Promise.

Here's the finished pesto! I added a little milk to smooth it out. It already had dairy from the parmesan cheese, so I figured it'd work out fine. It did. Very creamy :)

Oh, and it was delicious. I used it as a dip for crackers and a spread on a pita. Maybe next time I'll put it on pasta.

Potato, Pepper + Basil Stovetop Casserole

I dunno...Can you call a stovetop recipe a casserole? But it turned out looking and tasting like a casserole!

My dinner prep started with these funky peppers. They came off a plant I got from Burpee, but I don't think I was supposed to get a purple pepper! So either they weren't quite ripe, or they were a fluke.

I also had a bag of small potatoes I got on sale at the grocery store. Despite a majority of my ancestors being Irish, I don't eat a lot of potatoes, although I do love them. ;) These had been sitting around for awhile and had just started to get wrinkly — definitely time to use them up!

I found a recipe online that I sort of followed...but not really. I'd love to link to it, but I haven't been able to replicate the search :(

Ingred:
1 bag of B (small) potatoes, quartered.
1 large onion, sliced
2 sweet peppers, sliced *
1 Anaheim pepper, sliced *
1 T veg oil
water
1/2 cup of cream
1/4 cup of low-fat Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup fresh chopped basil *

(ingredients marked with a * came from my garden.)


Add oil to large pan on medium heat. Add potatoes. Cook until they start to soften a bit. Add water if they start to stick to the pan. Then add onions. Cook a bit, then add peppers. Cook till everything is soft. I think I ended up adding 1/4-1/2 cup of water a bit at at time to keep things lubed so they didn't stick and burn.

When those look nice and cooked, keep the heat on and let them dry out a bit and get a bit of a crust on the potatoes, but keep a close eye so they don't burn! Then turn off the heat, add cream, cheese and basil.


Let it sit a couple minutes, then serve!

I really liked it. My husband thought it was OK. He's pretty damn picky, so that's pretty good coming from him. I think next time I'll add breadcrumbs, though. Or maybe crushed potato chips. It needed a bit of a crunch. And a bit hotter of a pepper, or a dash of cayenne powder. The Anaheim didn't do much.

Garlic Eggplant + Grits — Update

So here's what it looked like cooked! I sliced them lengthwise this time, and they held together a little better.

(I've been super busy lately working a full-time job + martial arts training/teaching 15 hours/week and crazy weekend activities! And my garden has suffered a bit, but I'll finally have some free time this weekend to get everything back in order!)

What I made for dinner last night — garlicky eggplant and cheese grits.

The 'fairy tale' eggplants have been producing fairly consistently. I pick them when they're just longer than the width of my palm (3-4 inches). They don't stay that nice purple color, though. Maybe the sun bleaches them out?

The combo of eggplant with grits was a happy accident. I needed to cook those babies and my husband was jonesing for some grits.

So, the "recipe" which is not really a recipe, but what I remember of what I threw in the pan.

EGGPLANT:
Washed the egplant. Cut off the green ends. Sliced into 1/4" wide medalions. Heated 2T oil (I used coconut) in a big saute pan on medium heat. Added the eggplant (maybe 4 cups worth?) Added a pinch of salt. Covered the pan. Tossed it around occasionally. Finished cooking in 10-15 minutes. Added shredded green garlic stems. (Could have also used diced garlic.)

GRITS:
2 cups milk + 2 cups water + 1 teaspoon salt brought to a boil in a big pot. (I use a dutch oven.) When it boils, slowly whisk in the grits. Whisk until all the lumps are gone. Cook covered, over a medium-low heat for 20 minutes. Whisk well every 3 minutes, make sure to get all the corners and the stuff stuck to the bottom. When it's done, remove from the heat, add 2-4 tablespoons butter and 4 oz sharp cheddar cheese. Mix in well.

We served it with a big sloppy pile of grits on the plate, topped with the eggplant, and a little garnish of chives. The eggplant or grits on their own aren't nearly as good as they are together!

No pics, sorry. It smelled too good and I was so hungry ate it before I thought to take a photo!