Busy-ness, Seeds and Eats

Another busy week has been competed, with a lot accomplished. First off, almost all my houseplants have been moved outside. The hoya vine and the mother spiderplant don’t go out. I’m loathe to disturb them and possibly lose them. Don’t tell my other plants, but they’re rather expendable. My aloe veras (two huge pots) have been busy multiplying and need to be split, as does my snake plant. Those are on the agenda. There are a couple of cacti from Arizona I should split. One of those is an agave, but I won’t ever attempt to make tequila with it. The houseplants are all acclimated now, so will get moved from the back deck to their summer places.

The garden proper now has another packet of radish seeds in the ground. The green bunching onion seeds are interspersed with the onion sets that are coming along nicely. I have a package of yellow onion seeds to go. I’ll also throw in more squash seeds. I’ve planted pro-cut hybrid mix sunflowers, which should give me 4” blooms in orange, gold, plum, red, and bi-colors, if the catalog can be believed. We’ll see. Also in the ground is a packet of peppermint stick zinnias (they’re speckled), and one of cosmos that should be white with pink-red around the yellow centers. The sorry-looking glad bulbs and dahlia tubers are also planted. I hope I get some flowers from those. The dahlias were spectacular last summer.

I see some corn sticking through the ground already. The un-weeded ground between the pea rows is fuzzy with volunteer dill. I’m finding and weeding around volunteer moonflowers and ground cherries. I’m sure there are other volunteer flowers in the shady corner under the tree where they always flourish (and veggies don’t).

The asparagus is still producing nicely, and so I’m eating lots of that as well as sharing cuttings with our reporter daughter. I’ve found a few volunteer asparagus, which I’m digging up and putting into starter pots for a friend to share with another of her friends. I’m sure I’ll find more as time goes on. They’re pretty small at first. So here’s another tested and liked asparagus recipe:

Asparagus Oriental

1 1/2 pound fresh asparagus

1 Tbl vegetable oil

1 1/2 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp water

1 garlic clove, minced

1/4 tsp ginger

Sesame seeds

Steam asparagus until crisp/tender, 8-10 minutes. In a small jar, combine all the rest except the seeds. Cover and shake. Pour over asparagus. Marinate in the fridge for an hour (or longer). Serve cold or heat in microwave. Just before serving, sprinkle with seeds.

I chopped the asparagus into bite-sized pieces, stir-frying it in olive oil, then added the rest, except the seeds, to the pan, and cooked until tender. Then I added the seeds.

I also have garlic that was planted last fall. I’m using the scapes (the green, leafy tops) while cooking, for a milder garlic taste. There’s fresh chives, parsley, creeping thyme, rosemary, and a bit of oregano coming along. The basil should go outside soon, now that the nights aren’t so cold. They really don’t like cooler weather. I made this rice to go with roasted lemon/rosemary chicken. The drumsticks, skin-on, were marinated in olive oil, rosemary, lemon zest and juice, chopped garlic scapes, salt & pepper, then roasted an hour in a 375° oven atop the rice as it cooked.

Lemon-Garlic Herb Rice

2 Tbl EVOO

1 small onion, chopped fine

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 branch fresh rosemary

1/4 C fresh parsley

1/4 C chopped fresh Italian herbs*

* Any mix of basil, rosemary, thyme, or oregano

1 C long-grain rice

2 C chicken broth

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt & pepper

Heat oil in skillet. Add onion and garlic, cook 5 minutes. Add rosemary, cook 2 minutes. Add rice, stir to coat. Add rest, salt & pepper to taste. Pour into 9x13” glass pan. (Top with marinated chicken drumsticks and/or thighs.) Bake 375° for an hour, or until done.

I used a couple of chicken boullion cubes with boiling water for the broth. It was too salty for our taste, so I’ll skip adding salt next time. Or I might use ready-made broth.

I didn’t get around to making a sugar-free, wheat flour-free rhubarb pie, although I have a couple recipes copied to try. I did make a WLC-compliant rhubarb crisp. It is really tasty for a no-sugar dessert. But I’m out of room, so will share that next week. (How’s that for as cliff hanger ending?)