TheQueen

Saturday, March 8 - Flowers and Vegetables

We went wildflower hunting in the Rademacher Hills yesterday, and found little more than phacelias and some small yellow flowers. It's early yet, but indications are that this will be an OK year, not great. In Death Valley the yellow flowers are blooming in some places, but the sometimes-luxurious bloom in the southern reaches of the valley are barren.

I've decided to keep my blogging-hand in by writing about what I cook. One thing about being retired -- I have time to try new recipes to my heart's content. We are trying to eat more vegetables and fruits and less meat, so I've been having fun with Moosewood cookbooks and Vegetable Love and my old faithful Vegetarian Planet. We shop at the small Friday Farmers Market and plan our menus around the fresh produce.

In the last couple of weeks, we've had some notable dishes, including Navajo Stew, Polenta-Stuffed Peppers, Pan-Asian Slaw, and Indian Potatoes from Moosewood's Simple Suppers. We also roasted some brussels sprouts (following the Vegetable Love recipe after failing miserably with directions from Mark Bittman), and made some lovely lemon curd from Vegetarian Planet to go on our strawberries. And of course I made yogurt to use in Wednesday night's whole-spice keema with cucumber raita from Indian Home Cooking -- along with parathas, a whole lot of rolling and rolling.

The Moosewood recipes truly are pretty simple. The only failing I find with this cookbook is its sometimes less-than-satisfactory measurements. How much would two medium sweet potatoes weigh? Your guess is as good as mine. The Navajo Stew, served with pitas and topped with yogurt, is nice and spicy. The polenta-stuffed peppers are prepared in the oven -- easy, easy. We used parmesan cheese rather than cheddar, and topped the dish with some of our homemade heirloom tomato sauce from the freezer. The Pan-Asian Slaw with its hot dressing is another keeper, and the Indian Potatoes are perhaps not quite spicy enough.

On the bill for this next week, in the vegetarian department: Potato, Greens & Goat Cheese Quesadillas, a Vegetarian Cassoulet, and a Rustic Cabbage Soup culled from the epicurious.com site, along with pasta with sun-dried tomatoes; an Asian Slaw recipe from an old Bon Appetit, a familiar favorite; Green Beans Au Gratin from the Silver Spoon.

Friday, March 14 - Flowers and Vegetables

Earlier this week we found a surprise near Onyx. Here, in a canyon off of Kelso Creek Road, the hills re painted with orange and blue and yellow. The air quality was terrible, but the colors were bright enough to shine through. We hiked across a field dotted with goatheads and many small flowers to the hillside resplendent with poppies.

The hillside was steep, but wading through the orange dotted-green and finding the occasional lupine or choreopsis provided plenty of opportuntities to rest while supposedly framing a shot.  We finally reached the top of the first ridge, only to discover that B had left our turkey-chutney loaf sandwiches in the truck. What a disappointment!  We made do with a Balance Bar.

After our walk, we drove up the Kern River, where the hillsides are also orange with poppies. And some hillsides here are blue, thick with these small flowers, or carpeted in white . And in the middle of all that white, we found this lovely, magenta owl's clover.

> And the vegetable scorecard:

 

Potato, Greens & Goat Cheese Quesadillas ok but not a keeper; a Vegetarian Cassoulet excellent and a definite keeper, although the carnivores in the household added some grilled mild Italian sausage to theirs; a Rustic Cabbage Soup, along with pasta with sun-dried tomatoes have been put off into this week; an Asian Slaw recipe from an old Bon Appetit became Pan-Asian Slaw from Moosewood Simple Suppers - a really good recipe; Green Beans Au Gratin from the Silver Spoon was OK but I think I prefer my green beans just plain.

As for this next week, I began today by making Tomato Herb Dressing from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, and putting together a french curry (ha!) From Julia Child's Kitchen to use up the leftover leg of lamb we have on hand. I also have on the menu a Tunisian Fish Stew from New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant. I vow to make the Cabbage Soup -- I'm hungry for it. I'm planning to make a Cashew Chicken from Indian Home Cooking, and an old favorite, Chicken Barbera, for Wednesday night. The pasta with sun-dried tomatoes is for tonight, and we plan to do Assyrian Rack of Lamb from Monday Night at Narsi's on Sunday.

And with our dinners we have eggplant, salad, spinch, broccoli, fennel (going to try braising it to go with the rack of lamb), and green beans.  We eat well.

 

Saturday, March 29 - Acres of Poppies and a Shopping Trip

Today on our way down south to shop, we decided to stop at the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve. The preserve's website says this is just about peak season. We arrived at 9 a.m. - sunny, very windy, and cold - and the poppies were still furled shut, protecting themselves from the wind.

And I discovered, as we exited the car, that I had forgotten my camera.  Horrors!  Luckily friend Ja had her camera, so you can thank her for these wonderful pictures. It proved too cold to do much walking around, so after lingering a while in the new visitor's center, we continued on our way to our shopping destinations.

 

We stopped by the Preserve again on our way home, in the early afternoon. It was still windy, but the poppies had loosened up and flooded the hillsides with patches of bright orange. It's a good year, although not a great one. But the preserve, with acres and acres and hillsides of poppies and coreopsis, never disappoints. We walked in the blustery afternoon to several viewpoints.  The air quality was pretty poor, but the flowers were wonderful. We called it quits when the wind strengthened and began to blow sand at us.

We drove home via state route 138, where the hills and fields are liberally decorated with yellow and orange and pastures are carpeted with goldfield. Along the way we passed a huge flock of sheep ... eating poppies!

Home once again, we unloaded the copious goodies (mostly food and wine) netted from the day's shopping.  We felt like successful hunter gatherers, stowing away the bounty of our bold forays into Trader Joe's and Costco.

Once everything was put away (my new freezer is full of lamb leg and lamb chops and lamb racks and pork loin), we turned to dinner.  Lentil soup from Vegetable Love and Sweet Potato Quesadillas from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home.  The soup is so-so, but the quesadillas are tremendous.  I made them with Ancho chile powder and pepper jack cheese, and skipped the cayenne.  Still spicy, and absolutely yummy with salsa and sour cream.

Sunday, March 30 - Hunting for Charlotte's ...

Today we rise with the sun (well, sort of), and Ja makes Orange French Toast - cinnamon-raisin bread bathed in a mixture of orange juice and milk and toasted on the comal. Well-breakfasted, we climb into the Wrangler and, literally, head for the hills to look at wildflowers. We begin in Sand Canyon, where, a local paper tells us, a rare Charlotte's Phaecelia has been sighted. We drive up into the canyon and take the aqueduct road up, up to where the flowers paint the south-facing hillsides - yellow, a hint of blue here, a wash of white there. We park at the high point on the road, and enjoy the vista.

There are fine specimens of many flowers here, like the primrose in the picture, and the lupine is a startlingly dark blue, but we find no Charlotte's. There are sand verbena, coreopsis, more common phaecelias, lots of chia, desert dandelions, brittle bush, purple mat ... and many many flowers that we cannot name.

Having looked our fill, we drive back down the aqueduct road and continue south on that road, winding around the steep hillsides into the next canyon. Here we see marvelous bush lupine, and very happy cholla. We drive up the Grapevine Canyon road -- we've heard that it's equally as good a Short Canyon. But, the gates are closed on the private ranches deep in the canyon. We continue along the aqueduct road, occasionally having to dodge a pole or barrier that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has erected.

Finally the road leads us to Short Canyon. It is very windy here, and quite cold even in the sunshine, so Ja and I wait at the car while B takes the camera up the hill to check the Charlotte's Phaecelias usual haunt. And he finds them! They are such a beautiful blue, a true blue.

Now we are at home.  The wind is still rushing by, sometimes, it seems, in several directions at once. Multi-grain bread made with my own starter rises in the oven.  Our dinner tonight will be some luscious ahi tuna scored yesterday at Costco, grilled and served with garlic mayonnaise, as suggested by Alice Waters in The Art of Simple Food. With it we'll have rice with pine nuts and grapes and some braised spinach, and some of our home-made bread.  We do like to eat!

OBTW, I just finished reading Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee, and really enjoyed it. Then I read The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman.  Very interesting -- perhaps we will someday have "American cuisine".

Friday, April 4 - Flowers and Flowers

We are having a good wildflower year, and in the last couple of days, we have explored some beautiful spots, starting with a colorful variety of blooms glimpsed on the side of the Kernville road. Indian Wells Canyon is also beautiful. I think I'll just let the photographs speak for themselves.

First you see the luxurious phaecelia, then owl's clover in abundance (more than I've ever seen in one place at one time) - both from our Kernville trip. Then a mixture of poppies and coreopsis from Indian Wells Canyon, followed by the uphill view (dominated by the coreopsis) and the downhill view (dominated by the orange of poppies) from the old mind road that scars the face of the hill. It's beautiful up there, and the perfume of the wildflowers, rarely experienced, is strong on a warm, still day. I should say that warm, still days are rare on that hillside!

We a lso took a trip to Sheep Springs -- no mariposa lilies yet.