Some bright spots in a gloomy day

Yes, it is definitely autumn in El Paso, Texas. Rain is predicted for today. The promise of precipitation has great significance in the desert southwest, where average rainfall is only about nine inches a year. Although the normally brilliant blue sky is now a monotonous gray cloud cover, the hint of moisture in the atmosphere calls a person outside.  And walking in the yard in the early morning about an hour after sunrise,  here are some bright spots I discovered.

Pomegranate tree

The pomegranate tree (or rather bush!) has put on its light gold fall colors.  Pomegranate trees grow well in our area.  We have the one pictured in a sheltered courtyard and another volunteer plant in the back yard.  They were actual trees until a severe frost damaged them several winters ago.

Pyrancantha bush

The pyracantha bush has put on a brilliant display of Christmas red berries just in time for the season. The plant was a tiny close-out purchase from a local nursery years ago for under five dollars. The bush does take some pruning from time to time, but when the cooler weather arrives, it is one of my favorite plants. 

Green cassia

The cassia has grown into a monster!  In early spring, it will have fragrant yellow blossoms.  My husband and I keep telling each other we need to prune the cassia back, but no one has volunteered to tackle that task yet.

The sage bush, where the outdoor cat Cry Baby has a hiding spot, puts on colorful purple blooms when the atmospheric conditions (details of which are still a bit of a mystery to me) are just right.  I'm going to check for color in a couple of days because of our rain chances this week.

Sometimes we try so hard to make a beautiful yard, when all it takes is accepting what nature has to offer. This desert plant volunteered to grow in a sheltered spot, and I find it quite attractive.

I have a special place in my heart for the hardy, undemanding plants in our yard. No pampering required here!   These plants certainly lifted my spirits while I was waiting for the sun to return to the desert southwest.

Old cookbooks help celebrate the autumn season

Autumn is making its presence known in subtle ways in the Desert Southwest. It's almost November. after all.  I still haven't seen trees in town with leaves changing colors, but the air has a hint of chill in early mornings and late afternoons.  And now just two weeks before Daylight Savings Time ends, our household beats the sun up and awakes in the dark.  My thoughts turn to comfort food.

One morning this week, my husband Wayne greeted me with a large mug of coffee and a basket of warm bran muffins.  And these were not your grandmother's bran muffins.  My husband the chef had taken a recipe from an old, paperback Favorite Brand Name Recipe Cookbook and made the humble bran muffin into a gourmet treat.

This is his description of the muffin making.  Mix together 1 1/4 all-purpose flour,  1 T baking powder, 1/2 t salt and 1 cup Splenda.  In another bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups All Bran cereal with 1 1/4 cups milk and let mixture stand a few minutes until softened.  Then add 1 egg and 1/3 cup vegetable oil to the cereal mixture.  Finally add the flour mixture. Next came the special
additions - 3/4 cup raisins and 3/4 cup chopped pecans.  Bake in muffin pans at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.  Here was the tasty result:

Speaking as someone who didn't have to do the baking, the muffins were truly a treat on a chilly morning.

All-Bran Muffins brought to mind another recipe we used to make often,  Six-Week Muffins. At first the name may be a bit off-putting (the batter is supposed to keep for six weeks in the refrigerator!).  I can't personally vouch for the longevity of the batter because we always used it up long before the six weeks period was over.  But I can say that it was great to have something pre-mixed and ready to cook on busy mornings.

When I looked for the Six-Week Muffin recipe in another old cookbook, this one published locally in 1982 by Sue Turner, I discovered that we had used the recipe so often and spilled so much batter on it that it was no longer legible.  I found a similar recipe on p. 210 of  Lone Star Legacy I. Here is how it goes:

Add 5 t baking soda to 2 cups of boiling water and let cool.  Cream 1 cup shortening with 2 cups sugar (or Splenda), add 4 eggs and the soda mixture.  Then add 1 quart buttermilk, 4 cups flour, 1 t salt, 4 cups All Bran, 2 cups 40% Bran, and 2 cups of dates, raisins or both.  Mix well and store covered in refrigerator.  When ready to use, bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. 

I hope you will enjoy a breakfast muffin some cool autumn morning.  I had a little help writing this blog from our cat, Bitsy!

Enjoying Autumn -Southwest Style

The British prefer the word 'autumn' to 'fall' to name the season we are now in, and I must admit 'autumn' has a ring to it.  Maybe it's because 'fall' has many other meanings, not all of them pleasant (fall down, fall flat, fall foul, fall from grace). My Merriam Webster dictionary defines 'autumn' as "the season between summer and winter." But autumn means much more to me than merely a transitional season. It is my favorite time of year in the Desert Southwest.

It's time to take advantage of the glorious weather.  Those 90 and 100 degree summer daytime temperatures are now thankfully behind us.  Somewhere in the 80's in the daytime and the high 60's at night are more typical temperatures.  One of the first things I do every morning is open up all the doors in the house and let the cool air in.

Front doors flung wide open

Looking out into the courtyard in the morning

I can enjoy a second cup of coffee because I don't have to hurry to take a walk around the neighborhood before the sun starts beating down.

As I take a leisurely stroll in the garden, I can see that I am not the only one happy about the cooler weather.  The plants are putting on luxuriant growth and blooms.  This is a plant I confiscated from a vacant lot many years ago.  It has burst into bloom this autumn.

Snake Weed

A tacoma stans,(yellow bells) in the hot front yard is finally showing some life and greeting the autumn season with blooms.

Looks like a trumpet vine, but with yellow blooms

I have been waiting all year for the rain lily to do something spectacular, and with the autumn rains, it has obliged me.

Rain Lily

They say autumn is the time for planting, so I just installed several lantana plants along the sidewalk leading to the front door.  The yellow lantanas that one sees all around the Southwest are attractive, but I find the colors of this red lantana more eye-catching.

Lantana

Finally, I swing around to the backyard, say hello to the outside cats, and check the wildflowers bed, which is like opening a surprise package.  I'm not sure of the name of this flower, but it is spectacular.

Wildflower

I know that in many parts of the world,  the leaves will soon be turning those wonderful autumn colors. dark reds, yellows, and oranges in many shades.  But in my part of the world, we still have six more wonderful weeks of green trees, plants and grass, a real treat in the Desert Southwest.

Overwhelmed by Autumn Pears

Pears in our back garden

The pears are everywhere.  We had been keeping watch all summer for the moment when the pear tree in the back garden would provide us with luscious, ripe ready-to-eat pears. 

When the birds started pecking at the fruit, we knew it wouldn't be long until the crop would be harvest ready. Mama birds must not teach baby birds to clean their plates, because birds never eat the whole fruit (which I wouldn't begrudge them), but they take random bites out of many pieces of fruit.  It is always a race- who will get to the fruit first, the birds or the humans?

Wayne tries to convince me to pick the fruit when it is not quite ripe.  He prefers crunchy pears; I don't.  So I leave them on the tree until they are soft and wonderfully sweet.  Unfortunately, this is also the point at which the pear tree decides to start dropping its fruit.

I wandered out to the back garden recently and found the ground littered with pears, none of which were edible because they were already rotting or had telltale signs of bird bites.  I rushed into the house for a bowl to pick and save as many pears as possible, the purpose for which I hadn't a clue.

As I stood on tiptoe to search the tree for edible pears, a large pear came loose and bonked me right on top of the head.  Should have worn a helmet for this dangerous work, I suppose.  In a few minutes, my bowl was full of more pears than we could ever eat in one season.

Surely old reliable Joy of Cooking would have pear recipes.  They have recipes for everything under the sun. I didn't want a labor intensive recipe, just something to get those pears off of the kitchen counter.  There were recipes for pear turnovers, but I would have to make dough; several recipes had verbs like freezing, canning, and pickling, which was not what I had in mind for an afternoon's activity; and one was for Pear Pandowdy, which suggested that I should read about Slumps and Grunts on p. 693 before I made it (Does that sound good to you?).

Stuffed pears in baking dish

In desperation, I checked out a recipe called "Stuffed Pears," which looked doable.  And the result was an elegant looking dessert.  Here is the original Joy of Cooking recipe with my adjustments. 

Take four pears, peeled, cored and halved, mix together 1/2 cup honey and 2 tablespoons lemon juice, place the pear halves in a baking dish, and coat them with the honey mixture.  I had red chile honey bought in New Mexico this summer, so I used that to give the dish a southwestern taste.  

Next step is to mix together 1/4 cup golden raisins, 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts, 2 tablespoons Splenda, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.  I filled the cavities of the pear halves with the mixture and dusted them with more Splenda and cinnamon.  I covered the dish with foil and baked it for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, then uncovered it and cooked about 15 minutes longer.  The pears were supposed to be basted once or twice with the cooking juice, but who wants to open a hot oven when the outside temperature is still in the 80s?

Stuffed pears can be served at any temperature or refrigerated and reheated.  I thought the dish had an autumn taste.  Next time, I may find an excuse to top the pears with Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream.  

Have you tried Anasazi Beans?

I find ‘autumn’ to be a more appealing word than ‘fall.’ Maybe it’s because ‘fall’ has other meanings, and autumn can only mean one thing – the season between summer and winter. 

That being said, when I visited my son in New Zealand several years ago,  I had to revise my mental associations with autumn.  In the Southern Hemisphere autumn ushers in the warm season.  There it will soon be time for picnics and sports on the beach.  I remember a Christmas Day on a beach near Auckland NZ, slathering on sunscreen because of the strength of the sun’s rays.

But in much of the Northern Hemisphere, the word autumn brings to mind colorful falling leaves, frost on pumpkins, and plans for Thanksgiving celebrations, the traditional images.  In the Desert Southwest, we put our own special interpretation on autumn.

It is now mid-September, and trees and grass are greener than ever and will remain so until mid or late November. Flowering plants and bushes show their appreciation of the new season by putting on new growth and actually blooming. The 100 degree days, and even 90 degree days, belong to summer.  The mercury still hits 80-something in the daytime, but occasionally I catch just the hint of a cool breeze, the first sign that autumn has arrived.  Mornings and evenings are perfect for outdoor walks or dining.

I would name autumn as my favorite season and also the most melancholy of seasons.  Where did the promise of summer go?  Why am I now applauding summer's demise and welcoming the cooler weather with open arms?  Will autumn slip away like summer and send me searching in back of the closet for a warm sweater?  Surely not, I console myself.

Autumn recipes reflect the harvest bounty.  I can bear to heat up the oven again to cook apple crisp, green chile quiche, and pear coffee cake .  I’m happy to simmer lintel soup or friijoles de olla (pinto beans in a pot) all day on the stove top.  Here is one of my recent cooking successes (we won't mention the failures). Let me know how you like it!

Anasazi Beans

I am embarrassed to admit that I paid double for my first bag of Anasazi beans.  The cute little bag made of burlap in a grocery store in Ruidoso, New Mexico was designed to attract the uninformed tourist. I took the the bait.  Several weeks later, I found a package of Anasazi beans in the produce section of a local grocery store for a much more reasonable price.

Here's how I cooked the Anasazi beans.

Take 2 cups of dry beans, rinse them, cover with water, bring to boil on stove, and let boil for about 15 minutes.  Careful!  I recently let the water boil away and ended up with burned beans.  And if you have never smelled burned beans....

Then I set the beans aside for an hour.  When it's time to cook the beans, I add more water, about a fourth of a roughly chopped onion, and a large chopped garlic clove.  I bring the beans to a boil again, then turn them down to simmer and cook for several hours.

At some point in the cooking process, I walk by the stove and add a heaping teaspoon of New Mexico red chile powder and a dash of ground black pepper.  The salt I leave until the end.  It is as usual - salt to taste.

You may be able to tell from the casual directions in this recipe that beans are one of the few dishes I can cook without a detailed recipe.  I hope that you will add your own touches to this easy recipe.