Summer Time And The Living Is Easy

I have had a love affair with this exotic canna lily for years. I don't take them out of the pots for the winter and every so often they freeze to mush. I just buy more. I adore their red & ruby striped leaves and then about now, they pop into huge orange blossoms.

This is our back patio with the pergola above and the hanging baskets. We sit out here in the shade (clematis (montana) above), sip our gin & tonics, eat dinners out here.
When we built the house many moons ago, we wanted something beyond the concrete slab. I checked out all the gardening structure books from the library and we had Bill & Ted (our excellent builders!) put up this 'open to the sky' pergola. When the clematis covers it, you don't even get drips on misty rainy days.
There is room for the BBQ, patio table, swing, and, at the time, also room for the kids to ride their bikes past without banging into us.
A great place for entertaining.

This is a hydrangea that jumped into my cart a few years back that is conical in shape. It used to be more ruby red but in my soil, its more white with pink. I need to add something like epsom salts - or whatever(?), to see if I can get the ruby red color back.

Another new flower (dang - forgot name) that is stunning in a patio pot. I have a pink candy striped geranium, ruby diascia, and a coral coleus in there too. Beautiful pot.

Looking towards runway on left, covered blueberry (still producing).
We had some terrific freezes last winter and as a result, no aphids on my stunning fuscia ( pot on bench by the first post).

It's behaving.
I don't know about you, but if I forget to water a fuscia one lousy day, its covered in aphids the next and it's all downhill from there.



This is trio of pots leading up to patio door on left. The sidewalk angles in here.
Need more Cannas!


Probably my favorite hanging basket this year. The peach Million Bells next to the deep purple verbena. Mmmm.

I gave myself permission NOT to have a garden this year. Keeping up with my acre, and my always increasing workload, I decided it was okay that my tomatoes are 'thriving' in their 4" pots.

Left hand side of the patio door.

I like my baskets to last well into the fall, so I make them myself. When you buy an already blooming hanging basket in May, it's already root-bound. This means you have to water it twice a day and its pretty much gone by mid-July. I bought these rubbermaid hanging basket pots over 20 years ago. They have a water reservoir at the bottom - if you forget to water, there's still some by the roots.
On our hot July & August days in the Willamette Valley (very little rain), these pots allow me to water once a day or even, every other day.
Most other plastic pots get brittle under the sun's UV rays.
I change out the soil every year and I use Osmocote or other time-release fertilizer in them.

I'm not one of those people who matchy-match everything. My happy dance revolves around happy accidents. Look at this peppermint impatient and the ruby diascia. There's a deep red coleus in there too but the impatients are keeping him checked.
I buy plants that I like and then put them together but without an overall theme.
I might buy fabric that way too.

A trip of pots containing a Japanese green maple, hanging Ivy geranium basket that never got hung, and the new flowers on the right which I already forgot the name of but have been blooming their heads off since May. and show no signs of stopping.


GEORGE GERSHWIN
– SUMMERTIME LYRICS

Summertime, And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'  And the cotton is high
Oh, Your daddy's rich, And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby, now Don't you cry.

One of these mornings, You're going to rise up singing,
Then you'll spread your wings, And you'll take to the sky.
But until that morning, There's a'nothing can harm you,
With your daddy and mammy,  standing by.

Happy Memorial Day

We had BBQ baby back ribs and watermelon out on the patio today.
Happy Memorial Day

 

This is one of the recipes I can do in my sleep. (Yes, I took a nap today)
Slow cook your baby back ribs in a foil cocoon at 300'f for a few hours until the meat starts falling off the bone. I usually cut up my baby back ribs into three rib sections.
I might throw a dry rub on, or not.

Fire up the BBQ. Turn heat down to medium. Place ribs on the rack and start slathering on BBQ sauce. I look for a sauce without corn syrup or wheat in it. I could make my own but that takes too much time for a holiday. Turn every 5 or 10 minutes and slather some more BBQ sauce on. Keep slathering as sides 'dry'. I try to get three complete turns of BBQ sauce to cook on before serving but that doesn't always happen.

We don't have kids home so we have leftovers. mmmm....mmmmm.

 

Next up, my second attempt to re-create Fifty Licks Lemon Sorbet.

My daughter found this 'ice cream' for me. It has coconut milk, sugar, lemon juice, star anise & saffron.
Fifty-Licks was distributing through Whole Foods but then drew back to their Portland Food Cart on Clinton. To my dismay.


I'm not a huge ice cream lover but to someone with multiple & devastating food sensitivities, this discontinuation of my lemon sorbet was sad. Sad.

So I tried to make some last summer.
 I did a great job re-creating the flavor but I didn't have an ice cream freezer. I dutifully stuck my concoction into the freezer and whipped it good every 15 minutes.

Yummy but it had Ice Crystals.

I found this ice cream freezer at a garage sale two weeks ago and tried out my 'recipe' again. Less ice crystals but creamier.

Need to test  more batches.

LEMON SORBET
Recipe - so far....

2 cans Coconut milk
3/4 cup Sugar
6 Meyer Lemons (The smaller, juicier lemons), skins grated and then cut up and juiced.
2 -3 Star Anise (pulverised in herb grinder)

1 - 2 sacks of ice - depending on the size of your ice cream freezer.
Rock salt (and no, regular salt does not help)

Throw your metal container part of the ice cream freezer into the freezer to get cold

Grate the skin of your lemons with your smallest grater.
Then juice those lemons.
{I saw one recipe where they just quartered the lemons and threw everything into a food chopper/blender.}

You can get Star Anise at my Thriftway or some place with a good bulk foods spice area.

If you can find Saffron there, good - buy the tiniest amount. I can't find it and you will only use it for this recipe so it became 'not necessary'.

Open your cans of coconut milk and pour/scrape everything into a pan.
Add your 1/2 - 3/4 cup Sugar
Your star anise
Your lemon zest and juice.

At this point you can throw this mixture into the fridge to get nice and cold or just go with it.
Pour into your cold metal can.

Attach your churn thingy and the lid. Pour your ice around the perimeter, layering rock salt occasionally.
Turn it on.

Check after 15 minutes, scrape down sides.

Mine took 30 minutes.

A good finish to the day.

Baby Back Ribs

This is what we are dining on tonight.
Baby Back Ribs.

My recipe:
Buy the Baby Back Ribs (pork loin) in the thick plastic. It will be a whole rack which I cut into three or four ribs each. These are not spare ribs or beef ribs which are fattier. These are the leaner, meatier good ribs. And more expensive.

First we are going to BBQ these rib sections to seal in the juices. Then we will slow-cook them, encased in foil in the oven. Afterwards, when the meat is starting to fall off the bone, we will finish them off on the BBQ.
Process takes about 3 - 4 hours. But only about 1/2 hour of actual 'minding'. 15 minutes at the beginning and 15 minutes at the end.

Ingredients:
Baby Back Ribs cut into 3/4 rib sections.
BBQ sauce.
Extra wide thick foil.

I salt/pepper/season my rib sections.
Sometimes I add a BBQ sauce coating.

Heat up your BBQ and place rib sections inside to 'braise' them. Turning once or twice. Once outside looks 'dry', they are sealed.
Get your big cookie sheet out and lay out a big piece of extra wide foil. Maybe 36"?
I lay a 12" wide normal foil layer on top of this for re-enforcement.

As your ribs come off the bbq, layer onto the foil. You are going to fold up your foil to make a package. Crimp edges. I start with bringing the short edges together and fold over two/three times.
Then I match edges on the sides and fold over two/three times.

Toss cookie sheet with foil package into a 300'f oven.
For about 2 -3 hours. If you need to go into town and watch the parade, maybe turn the oven down to 275'. This time depends on your ribs. Some ribs have more meat, thicker, skinnier, etc.

Note on BBQ sauce. I don't make my own but I do look for one that doesn't contain soy or wheat.

Finish on the BBQ. Heat up the BBQ, check on those ribs. {forgot to add here: Watch out when opening packet: steam is hot}  Meat should be starting to fall off the bone. It's normal for liquid to accumulate in your 'package'

Brush BBQ sauce on meat. Lay on BBQ. Low - Medium heat. As side-down 'dries', turn. My goal is three  layers of BBQ sauce. As each layer cooks on, add more. They are done when people hover.

Serve with fresh corn on the cob, watermelon and plenty of napkins.

One rack feeds 2 -3 people. Two racks feeds 4-5 people.