Flower Profiles

We’ve been blessed with weather this weekend – it’s been sunny and warm (lets forget the short interval of rain early in the morning). Even knowing that there’s so much to do in the garden, I was fooled into thinking that all of these jobs can wait. I must have thought that the summer was back. I know it’s not, but still keep my fingers crossed that the weather stays warm right to the Indian summer in the beginning of October. Meanwhile everything’s fine – we haven’t had the first frosts and the flowers are holding on.

Here are the most stunning ones:

This was the first summer I grew zinnias. I was very lucky to see them in bloom as there was a time, when my mum wanted to get rid of them thinking they were weeds. I’m glad I managed to convince her that we should wait a bit longer… Now I’m sure I will be growing them again as their colours are so bright!

Zinnia is a genus of 20 species of annual and perennial plants of family Asteraceae, originally from scrub and dry grassland in an area stretching from the American Southwest to South America, but primarily Mexico, and notable for their solitary long-stemmed flowers that come in a variety of bright colors.

Their flowers have a range of appearances, from a single row of petals, to a dome shape, with the colors white, chartreuse, yellow, orange, red, purple, and lilac. They seem to be especially favored by butterflies.

Zinnias are popular garden flowers, usually grown from seed, and preferably in fertile, humus-rich, and well-drained soil, in an area with full sun. They will reseed themselves each year. Over 100 cultivars have been produced since selective breeding started in the 19th century.

Dahlias can be very pretty indeed, but the main downfall with them is that they need to be removed from the soil before winter. This can be annoying, but there’s also the storage problem – ours are kept in boxes in the cellar, we cover them in peat. And here’s the next bad thing – such boxes attract naughty cats…

Dahlia is a genus of bushy, tuberous, perennia plants native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. There are at least 36 species of dahlia. Dahlia hybrids are commonly grown as garden plants. The Aztecs gathered and cultivated the dahlia for food, ceremonies, as well as decorative purposes, and the long woody stem of one variety was used for small pipes.

I’m really impressed with begonias, they’ve been blooming on my window for nearly three months! And although, like dahlias, they have to be removed from the soil and kept warm and dry in winter, I think it’s worth the hassle.

With over 1,500 species, Begonia is one of the ten largest angiosperm genera. The species are terrestrial herbs or undershrubs and occur in subtropical and tropical moist climates, in South and Central America, Africa and southern Asia. Terrestrial species in the wild are commonly upright-stemmed, rhizomatous, or tuberous.

Because of their sometimes showy flowers of white, pink, scarlet or yellow color and often attractively marked leaves, many species and innumerable hybrids and cultivars are cultivated. The genus is unusual in that species throughout the genus, even those coming from different continents, can frequently be hybridized with each other, and this has led to an enormous number of cultivars.

Most begonias are easily propagated by division or from stem cuttings. In addition, many can be propagated from leaf cuttings or even sections of leaves, particularly the members of the rhizomatous and rex groups.

Autumn out of Focus

Sometimes it’s enough to change your point of view and you’ll get a completely different picture. You might create an illusion, but if it makes you feel better, why not? Wouldn’t you want just for a moment to become a magician who can bend the reality? I certainly need this ability, if just to survive the cold period that is slowly creeping up.

Oh, if I could perform miracles… I’d try to do it with an even bigger precision and patience than a spider, who can easily divide space using perfect lines of the web.

At the moment I feel like a photographer, who can’t get a clear image as everything is out of focus. I’m trying hard to avoid autumn, but it will come anyway, won’t it? I still believe that we will get hot days and a chance to go swimming, but it gets colder and it gets darker, so my hopes are shattered every time I step barefoot into the morning dew.

I guess I’ll have to give up fighting the inevitable – first I’ll need to get the warm boots out and then... try and focus on the beautiful things that the new season will no doubt bring. Will it work?

Magic! It already does.

P.S. I'm not sure I will remember I need to start putting warmer clothes on, so the whole process of "bending the reality" might take time.

The Easiest Apple Pie – Dutch Apple Pie

When the apple tree branches are nearly breaking from their load and it’s impossible to keep up with the new ripening varieties, an apple pie always seems like a good idea. It’s just that sometimes the preparation of the pie might kill the enthusiasm – all the complicated ways of mixing sugar, flour, butter and then adding the separately whipped egg whites, oh, and if you also have to use a rolling pin… No, no, no! That’s not for me.

A few weeks ago I found and easy recipe of an incredible apple pie. 15 minutes and you shove it into the oven. Job done. And after 50 minutes of baking, you’ll definitely receive loads of compliments! (Guaranteed.) Anyway, here’s the recipe – an interpretation of a Dutch style apple pie.

Ingredients:

For the filling:
6 or 7 middle sized apples
Cinnamon
A few tb spoons sugar
Raisins (only if you like them)

For the dough:
400g flour
250g butter
250g sugar
1 t spoon baking powder

Preheat your oven to 200C. Melt the 250g of butter. Put the melted butter and sugar into your food processor. Add the baking powder to the flour, mix well. Put this mix, spoon at a time, into the food processor together with the butter and sugar. After a few minutes of mixing your dough should be soft, but fall into pieces easily.

After greasing a round tin sprinkle it with flour. 2/3 of the dough spread on the bottom of your tin - work with your fingers, pressing the dough down and covering, more or less evenly, the whole surface.

Prepare the filling. Get rid of the cores of the apples and slice them into little pieces. Add a bit of sugar, cinnamon and raisins. Mix well and spread everything on top of the dough in your baking tin.

Cover the filling with the remaining 1/3 of the dough. Just form crumbs, that wouldn't completely cover the apples. Bake for about 50 minutes. Keep an eye on your pie - if the top starts browning too much, lower the temperature in the oven.

And here are some facts for increasing your culinary knowledge:

Dutch apple pie (appeltaart or appelgebak) recipes are distinct in that they typically call for flavorings such as cinnamon and lemon juice to be added. Dutch apple pies are usually decorated in a lattice style. Dutch apple pies may include ingredients such as raisins and icing, in addition to ingredients such as apples and sugar, which they have in common with other recipes.

Recipes for Dutch apple pie go back centuries. There exists a painting from the Dutch Golden Age, dated 1626, featuring such a pie.

The basis of Dutch apple pie is a crust on the bottom and around the edges. This is then filled with pieces or slices of apple, usually a crisp and mildly tart variety such as Goudreinet or Elstar. Cinnamon and sugar are generally mixed in with the apple filling. The filling can be sprinkled with liqueur for taste although this is very uncommon. Atop the filling, strands of dough cover the pie in a lattice, holding the filling in place but keeping it visible. Though it can be eaten cold, warmed is more common, with a dash of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. In the Netherlands it is usually eaten cold, sometimes with whipped cream on top. *

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* Information found on Wikipedia.