Winterberry Holly and Isabella Tiger Moth caterpillar–which we call “Fuzzy Bears” here. I guess this means Fall is around the corner–summer passes really quickly here, though it’s still in the 80s (which is unusual for this time of year).
I have been trying to get close enough to these holly bushes to identify them since last year–they really brighten up a curve of road near our house, and I haven’t found a good place to park and use the Seek App till now. I was surprised to find that these are native.
Thanks.
Migration time for hummingbirds headed across the gulf from my daughter’s house near Corpus Christi,Texas. Crazy number of hummers, pretty much emptied the feeder in a couple of hours.
I really liked being able to catch her colors well along with the sunlight lighting up the silk showing off its golden color.
Another aspect of creation. Food. This is way better, and more similar than most realize.
It’s peeling and freezing several very ripe bananas for several hours. Then placing them in a blender and adding a cap of vanilla extract and tablespoon of cacao powder. Blending it all together. The texture is smooth, cold and creamy. You can add extra vanilla extract for vanilla or add more powder for chocolate ice cream. I sometimes make it with just vanilla extract and cinnamon, or with pumpkin spice. The bananas are easily overpowered by any addition. Or add diced berries and nuts to it after it’s been blended.
You have a lot of insight. It’s not vegan, but if you like cookbooks which use mostly basic, cheap ingredients, the Mennonite cook book “More With Less” has a lot of good recipes that we use. Our kids like “Honey Milk Balls,” for example. We also like the “Easy French Bread” and potato bread recipes.
Though i probably won’t ever do a cookbook or blog in a few years i will probably be posting a lot more food related content once i have the kitchen I want. I have been trying to focus more on Whole Foods plant based stuff last few months and get away from lazy vegan junk food from the frozen section at stores. Instead of impossible foods almost everyday I’ve been making way more beet burgers and so on. Moving my breakfast away from veggie sausage and mock eggs by just egg to more oatmeal loaded with fresh fruits and nuts and making my own muffins and biscuits. Next Saturday, unless I’m working, I’m going to try to make black bean and onion biscuits and slice up some larger portobello mushrooms and cook them with liquid smoke, smoked paprika and pepper and a bit of maple syrup for a sort of mushroom-bacon biscuit. Maybe some baked green tomato slices dipped in flaxseed. There is a vegetarian/vegan book group that meets at the local library that I go to. It’s finally Halloween season so we picked two vegan driven horror novels. “Tender is the Flesh” by Agustina Bazterrica and “Under the Skin” by Michel Faber. There in this vegan woman there from Russia. She’s been in America about two years now I think. She made a mint pudding while back that was delicious. She used a processor to mash up soaked cashews into a nut butter and mixed it with some rice that was boiled with vanilla extract. Blended it all together really well. Then blended mint into it. Topped it with chopped up dates. She’s going to make some ice cream sometime soon she said with blended up coconut and frozen bananas and add lavender to it.
I have been looking into cookbooks recently. Been looking at vegan soup and dessert books. Potato bread does sound good. Many honey based desserts I can remake with maple syrup and things like hibiscus mash with magnolia petals. It’s honey tasting. Has a strong floral taste that is kind of like honey but not as sweet but a bit of maple syrup adds plenty of sweetness. Speaking of she told me that where she’s from one drink they make is tapping maple trees and getting the slightly seeet maple water. Then boiling it down a bit but no where near to syrup. Still very much a fluid. Then boiling birch bark and anise seeds in it. Makes a healthy sweet slightly root beer taste drink. I’ve done something similar but just with boiling vanilla beans and anise in water. Then chilling it and mixing it 50/50 with soy milk.
Think then next cookbook though will be Chef AJ “Sweet Indulgence” which is plant based and whole foods as well.
There are also sweet mushrooms, dessert mushrooms, like Lactarius rubidus and clavariadelphus truncatus that I want to use.
Super!
The library group sounds great.
I love the exploration of new flavors and uses for delicious foods. I think it’s ok just to abandon foods you don’t eat, like honey, and not concern yourself with “substituting” but with exploring and expanding the culinary world you eat in. Some things like eggs might need substitution, because of their important chemical properties, but you are also building a different culinary model that will have different textures and properties, which is ok.
Guten Appetit!
Probably be the last meal one for a while. This one is sweet potatoes, jalapeños, turnips, onions, red beets and impossible beef seasoned with chilies, smoked paprika, garlic powder and cayenne peppers. Added 5 ounces of spinach and I used a mixture of balsamic vinegar, dill and soy yogurt instead of sour cream.
There is also several alternatives that provide a similar texture to eggs. I’ve even made some that tastes and feels almost the same with grounded flax, soy milk, black salt, turmeric powder and mung beans.
I’ve only seen about 5 large trees down; the wind is occasionally gusting to tropical storm strength in very exposed areas, but it’s generally no worse than a larger thunderstorm, minus the thunder and lasting for a day and a half.
The rain has mostly let up by now, but it’s still windy and overcast here. All campus activities for the day got cancelled (notice of that was about an hour ago). The power is still out (except for emergency lights and the three buildings with generators). We are about 400 miles from where the storm made landfall; but right now is about when the eye is closest (150 miles west).
A small snake sunning itself as my kids and I tramped the woods today; jack-in-the-pulpit berries; and copious “gumming” (sap pouring out) from a wild cherry… I had to look up the term, and I am not sure why it is doing that. Apparently, it usually stems from stress of some kind, but aside from having had some of its neighboring trees cut down by an electric crew recently, I can’t find a cause.
The local rivers all hit all-time record highs; the only one I know an exact number for is the Broad River at 24 feet above normal (in the stretch nearest us) yesterday morning. At least 3 or 4 towns in the nearer side of the mountains essentially no longer exist. Asheville is still only accessible by air. All roads west of I-77 are officially closed to non-local non-emergency traffic. And yet, not that much damage to natural areas has happened (beyond trails disappearing).
I love how flimsy a trussed arch can look yet be exceptionally strong. However shallow the arch may be, it provides immensely more strength than a flat beam.
This is a beautiful example!
This reminds me of a woodland path I hiked once, in Illinois I think. When boards started to deteriorate badly they just put new planks on top. At the time I walked it most of the path was on the sixth or seventh layer yet only moderately raised because the lower layers had decomposed and united with the forest floor, taking up far less depth than originally.
Geologically, raised ditches are awesome: since they sit above the local water level, so long as they have water you know the water table is up where the smallest plants are benefitted! And of course since they are perched they serve to feed water into the ground.
One fall while deer hunting these little guys were all over; I stepped over dozens and passed by dozens more. It was fascinating how the ones still in the shade (early morning hunt) were motionless while those with sunshine on them were starting to slowly move. It made me wonder if at night they just stop where they are.
My mom had that very same feeder! It hung right outside the big kitchen picture window. Watching them was interrupted by the pillar down the middle of the window, so when that window had to be replaced I forked out an extra hundred bucks to get a window not interrupted by a pillar so we had a clear uninterrupted view.
Only rarely did we have more than three or four hummers there at once. I recall one afternoon when there were five; for some reason they were only using two of the “blossom” feeder spots, and the others weren’t darting around but hovered like they were waiting in line! Then there was the day we only saw two hummingbirds and when one left another zoomed in from somewhere to take its place. We found out where they were coming from when a Stellar’s jay swooped in to claim the birdfeeder: before he’d even quite reached it, a cluster of a dozen and more hummers swarmed out of the tulip magnolia and mobbed that jay! I’d kept that tree trimmed so small birds could fly in and out, and the hummers had taken it as a refuge – but not just them; one we knew to look, there were chickadees and nuthatches and goldfinches and other small birds, maybe even a song sparrow (sparrows can be hard to tell apart when they’re in shade and not fully visible).
