Seasons and Seasonings of the Southwest

Am I the only person who looks forward to the changing of the seasons?  Surely not.  As each season makes its appearance year after year, I can't help feeling a surge of energy, an anticipation of newness-the temperature rises or falls, plants bloom or go into hibernation, seasonal dishes appear in the kitchen, and even the colors of clothing offered for sale in stores become paler or darker.

So I  decided to put together a book about enjoying life in each of the four seasons in my area of the United States. I entitled the book Seasons and Seasonings of the Southwest. Some may claim that the Southwest doesn't have four true seasons, but my belief is that we do, although the transitions between seasons may be less dramatic than in other parts of the country. 

The book includes commentary, short essays, and recipes for each of the four season.  A few sample entries are included below.

S P R I N G T I M E

In my home town of El Paso, Texas springtime is practically non-existent.  The spring I am daydreaming about is one with gentle breezes and yellow daffodils putting on a show.  But in El Paso, one day it is winter, and the next day suddenly it is summer.  Recently I forgot that fact and ordered some big, wooly clothes on the Internet. Our weather had been in the 50’s in the daytime and the 30’s at night for what seemed like an eternity.  I was fed up with winter and being cold.

About the time the UPS man delivered my new sweatshirt and long fleece lounger, the mesquite trees in the front yard started to show signs of life.  When the mesquites leaf out, winter is over in this part of the country, no matter what the calendar says.  In what seemed like a very few days, my husband Wayne was talking about having the home air conditioners serviced.  First we had days with highs in the 70’s, and very soon they would be climbing into the 80’s. 

What spring does bring to El Paso are the winds.  And oh my, how they do blow, often bringing swirling dust and pollen. We watch the nightly TV weather cast religiously, not to find out the temperature highs and lows, but to prepare for the wind speed.  I myself am not satisfied with anything over 10 mph.   I make plans to be in a dark mood when the winds kick up. So, into the kitchen I go to create a little of the springtime I dream about. 

S U M M E R  

Mango Guacamole  I found the recipe below recently on the children’s page of the local newspaper.  Just my speed, I thought!  I made some alterations and came up with a pretty good lunch dish for a hot summer day.  Mangoes are plentiful this time of year, and they have such a lovely aroma and taste when ripe.

Mash three medium avocados.  Add one-fourth cup diced red onion, one diced mango, one tablespoon fresh lime juice, one-half tablespoon salt, and one minced clove garlic.  I didn’t have the three tablespoons of fresh chopped cilantro that the recipe calls for, so I added three tablespoons of cilantro paste that I found in the refrigerator.  Chill for one hour and serve.

The recipe calls for serving the dish with tortilla chips, but since my husband and I are on a health kick, I heated some corn tortillas in a tortilla warmer for two minutes in the microwave instead.  My husband pronounced the dish as tasty, but a little lacking in flavor, so we added red chile powder until the dish had a slight kick.

 

I was glad that I had recently bought a new bag of red chile powder in New Mexico. The flavor was far superior to the one that had been in the freezer for more years than I care to count.

I'm hoping for suggestions and comments from readers of this blog as to whether the type of book I am in the process of compiling may have some appeal. What would you do differently and what other types of information would you include?  Responses will be appreciated! 

A great veggie and fruit treat for summer

With Southwest Desert temperatures hitting high marks on the mercury in these dog days of summer, the very thought of heating up the kitchen to prepare a meal gives me a good excuse to eat yet another bologna fold-over sandwich for supper.

But a nagging voice keeps invading my thoughts, reminding me of the virtues of eating lots of vegetables and fruits.  Recently, my husband Wayne, master griller, offered to cook supper outside. Yes!

To counterbalance whatever carnivore delicacy I knew he would be grilling, I emptied the vegetable bin onto the kitchen counter.  Red onions, zucchini, jalapeño peppers, tomatoes, and red, yellow, and orange bell peppers.  After a little trimming and chopping, these vegetables went into a special grilling pan, an inexpensive purchase we made several years ago.

While digging around in the refrigerator for vegetables, I came across a bag of peaches we had been ignoring because of their bland taste.  I was about to throw the peaches in the trash when some vague memory of hearing about the joys of grilling fruit came to me.  I peeled and cut up the peaches and added them on top of the vegetable mix.

Here is Wayne liberally seasoning the mixture with olive oil spray and Jerry Baird's All-Purpose Seasoning.

The vegetable/fruit dish was ready for the grill!

Wayne cooked the mixture over a mesquite wood fire, spraying it several more times with olive oil. When the vegetable were crusty, he declared the dish done.  It looks like he sneaked a piece of his favorite sausage in on the side.

We had grilled vegetables many times in the past, eating them virtuously because they were a healthy choice. But the peaches were the unexpected added touch to give this dish a truly gourmet quality.

There were no leftovers.

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.

New thoughts about Southwest Cacti

Autumn in El Paso, Texas.  Days getting shorter.  Nights getting longer.  Dusk arrives around 4:30 in the afternoon and by 5:30 it is pitch black.  I feel a frantic need to garden as much as possible before winter sets in.  This  melancholy thought inspired me to attend a recent Saturday workshop presented by the El Paso Cactus and Rock Club.  I was looking for inspiration for the southwest life style that my husband Wayne and I enjoy, and I found it.

Jim Hastings, "The Gringo Gourmet," had set up a table for his presentation, "Not Your Mama's Nopalitos."   

Jim Hasting's display table

Nopalitos are the diced pads of prickly pear cacti.   I have often seen packaged nopalitos in the produce departments of local markets and have even bought a package or two through the years.

Packaged nopalitos

But I could never get past their sticky texture to create a tempting dish. Jim convinced me to give the nutritious nopalitos another try.

He demonstrated how nopalitos sauteed in a frying pan with a little water added from time to time for steam could get rid of the mocos (if you don't know this word in Spanish, we won't gross you out by translating it).  Then you add the cooked nopalitos to a variety of dishes, limited only by your sense of adventure.  There are tempting recipes available on the Internet for nopalitos with scrambled eggs, nopalito tacos, and nopalito salsa, to mention only a few.  Jim combined nopalitos with squash and corn, cooking up an attractive vegetable side dish that he passed out in small tasting cups to the audience.  I found myself wanting more than just a taste. 

I'm intrigued by the idea of joining the national movement to use more local produce and am looking forward to visiting Jim's web site, http://www.thegringogourmet.com for inspiration .  If I have any nopalito cooking success, I'll share the recipe on a future blog post.

After this feast for my taste buds, I found a feast for my eyes in a Bishop's Cap cactus for sale. It was love at first sight. 

Bishop's Cap Cactus

Isn't it a beauty?   This is the Astrophytum myriostigma.   It is called the "star cactus" when it is young.   And this specimen was just about to flower.  Bishop's Caps usually only flower when they are five or six years old, so I knew I had a mature specimen.   I had to buy the Bishop's Cap to live in our new outdoor area we are calling the "Tucson Yard." 

Now I'm looking forward to fall projects of cooking and planting, thanks to the El Paso Cactus and Rock Club.  If  the sun would only peek out today, I would be completely at peace with living in the Desert Southwest.