Potato Cauliflower Soup

It's been rainy and cold all day ... a perfect day to make a pot of soup for dinner.  I felt fairly adventurous as I searched through the freezer and cupboards for soup makings.  The fun thing about making soup is that even the most unlikely combination of ingredients can be wonderful together.

 

 

 

Here is what I came up with:

Potato Cauliflower Soup

4-5 slices of bacon
1 medium yellow onion
3 stalks of celery
3 large Russet potatoes
1 bag of frozen cauliflower
48 oz. chicken broth

Cut the bacon into small pieces, and cook it in the soup pot.  Finely chop the onion and celery, and add it to the bacon.  Saute till tender.  Peel and dice potatoes.  Add potatoes and cauliflower to the pot.  Cover with chicken broth.  Simmer until potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally.  Use a hand blender (or regular blender) to puree soup.  Salt to taste.  Top each bowl with a sprinkle of grated cheese.  (I'll bet sour cream would be good, too.)

 

 

This soup turned out really, REALLY good!  (There are plenty of leftovers in the fridge for later in the week.)

 

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I haven't forgotten that I promised to share pictures from the greyhound gathering in California over the weekend.  There are a lot of them, and I am still working to get them formatted.

 

Greetings from California.

Two dear friends and I left Virginia at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning, to spend a long weekend at the annual West Coast Greyhound Gathering in Solvang, California.  It has been a very long day of traveling, and I am totally beat. 

Photo of the palm trees at the exit of the Santa Barbara Airport.

The weather for the weekend in Solvang is supposed to be wonderful, and this little town will have hundreds of greyhounds and their owners all over the place!  This is gonna be so much fun!!

My in-room wifi connection is slow, slow, SLOW ... so no more posts till I get home.  
 
Have a great weekend, Everybody!  (I intend to do the same.)

After Yesterday, I Thoroughly Understand 'Wind Chill'

Yesterday was a lovely sunny day, with a high temperature of 32 degrees (0 for our Celsius friends) and a steady strong wind.  Wind chill temperature was down well into the 'teens.  Where was I?  Not snuggled in the warmth of my house ... no, not I.  I was in northern Virginia with a group of about a dozen garden club members, digging up the garden of a fellow member who is moving.  (This wonderful effort was organized by Jim, the fellow in the bright blue jacket.  He is our fearless leader and someone that I am infinitely thankful to call my friend.)

This garden was a wonderful 19-year collection of plants, artfully chosen and skillfully shoe-horned into a narrow city lot.  The object of our day was to leave as little behind as possible, since a garden like this can only exist in the presence of its gardener.  The owner was keeping a bare minimum of sentimental plants.  Everything else was up for grabs.

 

 

We met at noon, and quickly got to work.  Many of us brought along as many spare, large pots as we could, to pot up the plants as they were dug.  One member had filled his truck with compost to use as potting mix ... Carol and I volunteered to be the potting crew.  She and I used the tailgate of the truck as our potting bench, and we worked quickly to pot and tag each plant as it was brought to us by the digging crew, as they proceeded systematically through the yard.

 

 

 

Within a few hours, the sidewalk and part of the street in front of Mark's house was packed with pots of plants of all sizes ... small trees, shrubs, perennials, bulbs, and roses.  Those of us on the crew were welcome to take what we wanted, and the remainder was moved to a member's house to be stored for the club's plant sale in the spring. 

 

 

 

My goal was to support the club effort, lend my labor to the project, and bring home as little as possible. You won't be surprised to hear that my 4-door Jeep was packed completely full of plants on the drive home (to the point where I couldn't see out of my rear view mirror). I blame the cold for my lack of restraint ... plus there was the encouragement of fellow gardeners who said things like, "You HAVE to have this", or "No, you go ahead and take it."

 

 

 

 

I made a list of my plants as I unloaded them into the sunny protected spot beside our house.  I am thankful for the labels we wrote for each plant, so I know exactly what is what ... and I should have no trouble siting each of them where they will grow and perform best. 

 

Thank you, Mark, for sharing your garden with us.  I will think of you throughout the year as these plants grow and become a part of my own garden.  Thank you, also, to the Four Seasons Garden Club for being so generous with your knowledge and experience ... you are helping to encourage this rosarian to become a much more well-rounded plants person.

 

My Plant List:

Rose 'Rook' (Gallica hybrid)

Camellia 'Londontowne Blush'

Camellia 'Autumn Moon'

Camellia 'Autumn Carnival'

Camellia 'Korean Fire'

Camellia, unknown sasanqua

Arum italicum

Acoris 'Ogon'

Helebore foetidus

Lycoris radiata

Daylily 'Penny's Worth'

Iris 'Low Ho Silver'

2 pots of crocus

a lovely Serviceberry tree

3 unknown Clematis

Daffodil 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation'

2 pots of Colchicum (autumn crocus)

2 large 'Nikko Blue' hydrangeas

and a spectacular Viburnum carlesii compactum!

 

If you are looking for me today, check outside because I have a lot of holes to dig.

 

 

Sunday Snapshot ... Fleeting Beauty

I looked out the dining room window early in the morning.  The sun was barely over the trees and everything was sparkling with a dusting of frost.  The pattern on the top of my pick-up truck was beautiful.

 

 

It only took a few minutes for this fleeting beauty to disappear.  As the sun rose a little higher in the sky, the frost melted and the lacy pattern was gone.

 

 

I hope your weekend is a good one.  While you are in the midst of doing whatever you're doing, take a minute to look around ... beautiful things are everywhere ... you just have to look for them. 

What am I doing today?  As soon as I am finished here, I have to bundle up in warm clothes, gather my garden tools, and hit the road toward northern Virginia.  My garden club is helping to dismantle the garden of a member who is moving.  Spending the afternoon in the company of other plant lovers, digging in dirt (and, perhaps, bringing home a new plant or two) ... what a great way to spend the day.

Happy Sunday, Everyone!

Busy, Busy Kitty

When I went downstairs first thing in the morning, I saw that one of the cats had been very, very busy.  It was probably Alice ... she loves yarn balls.  I guess I didn't stash this one well enough underneath the cowl that I'm crocheting.

(Yes, I'm working on two things at once.  The yarn ball in question is the one for the striped cowl on the upper right.)

 

 

She kicked it off the table beside the sofa in the family room ...

 

 

 

... along the front of the leather chairs ...

 

 

... across the floor into the hall ...

 

 

... batted it around for a while in the hall ...

 

 

... kicked it around the corner into the dining room ...

 

 

... batted it back and forth in the dining room ...

 

 

 

... and abandoned the remains in front of the kitchen door ... 

 

 

 

... since there wasn't enough of it left to roll around and be fun anymore ...

 

 

 

... and it looks like she had a LOT of fun.

 

Out for a Walk

Earlier this week, we had one lovely, sunny day.  I was feeling a bit pent up, so I loaded Ruby into the car and she and I went in search of somewhere to waste time.  The 'Hogue Tract Trail' along the Rappanannock River in Fauquier County was exactly what we needed.

 

 

This trail runs through the woods along the top of the ridge above the river. 

 

 

 

 

 

Ruby was excited and alert ... listening and watching and sniffing ... wagging her tail and obviously enjoying herself immensely.

 

 

 

 

 

On two occasions, she stopped and cocked her head and listened ... her attention riveted on something I could not see or hear.  After a few moments, she pounced into the leaves just off the trail.  I'm assuming she was after a vole, or something like that.

 

 

 

We were only gone for a little over an hour.  Walking the trail, just my dog and me, soaking up sunshine and enjoying each other's company ... it was just what we both needed.

 

Sowing Seeds

You may (or may not) remember that I was in Sacramento, California, in October for a rose conference.  While I was there, I made a side trip to visit the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden.  It was late in the season, and many of the roses were showing off their fabulous fall flush of flowers.  Some of these also had a nice crop of fat, ripe hips ... some of which found their way into my pockets. 

'White Wings' ... this flower is over four inches across!

 

 

I also took hips from 'Frances Ashton' and 'Thomas A. Edison'.

 

I wrapped the hips from each rose in a piece of paper from my notebook, to try to keep an accurate record of which rose the hips came from.  When I got home from my trip, I tossed the paper packets into the refrigerator, and I promptly forgot they were there.  (Rose seeds require winter chill in order to germinate ... we can simulate this by putting them in the refrigerator for two or three months.)

I found the hips in there the other day.  Today, I decided to open the packets and see how the hips had fared during their time in the fridge ... October, November, December, January, February ... that's a bit more chill than they needed ... I wonder if they're still any good.

 

 

The hips were pretty wrinkly, but seeds inside of them were in perfect condition.

 

 

 

It didn't take long for me to slice open all of the hips and remove the seeds.

 

 

 

I will soak the seeds in water overnight, to soften the hard outer coating a bit.  Tomorrow, I can plant them in containers, and wait for them to grow.  (Rose seeds take between six and eight weeks to sprout ... sometimes longer.)  Every seed contains a combination of the genes from its parents, so each rose plant from these seeds can be unique. 

 

Growing roses from seed is fun and really interesting.  (If you want to see my best seedling so far, click HERE to go to a post from last year.)