Ink & Penstemon

If a flower produces a fruit that is edible, you can eat it. Their delicate flavor can be difficult to capture in food, but steeping the blossoms towards making ice cream is one of the best ways to do it. The key is using highly fragrant ingredients; the stronger the odor, the stronger the flavor.

The smelliest thing I have flowering right now is Mahonia repens. Its blossom flavor is rich, almost buttery, and rose-like. Adding some lemon zest mellows its flower-power and hints at the tartness of its fruit. And it makes for a more interesting spring dessert than regular vanilla or lemon.

• 1.5 to 2 cups unsprayed flower blossoms (checked over for critters)
• 1.5 cups cream (sold as heavy or whipping)
• 1.5 cups whole milk
• 0.75 cup sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

Mix the cream, milk, flower blossoms, lemon zest, and 0.5 cups of the sugar in a 3 to 4 quart saucepan over low and stir until the mixture begins steaming and reaches 175F. This can take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes depending on your altitude. Meanwhile, whisk the remaining quarter cup of sugar and egg yolks together until the yolks are pale yellow and set aside. Once the dairy/blossom mix has reached 175F, strain out the flower blossom mix using a fine mesh strainer and discard. Add the dairy mix to the eggs a half cup at a time while whisking. Once half of the dairy has been tempered in with the eggs, pour the whole of it back in with the remainder and heat over medium heat until the mix is steaming and is thickening or 180F but not higher, stirring with a wooden spoon constantly. The custard will be ready when a finger drawn across the back of the spoon leaves a distinct trail. Remove the mix from heat and pour through a strainer into a bowl set in ice water and cool to room temperature. Then, move to the fridge and cool for a minimum of 3 hours. Twenty-four hours is ideal. Transfer the mix to your ice cream maker (I use a Cuisinart) and process for 20 minutes. I recommend transferring the finished ice cream to a tub and freeze till hard as it gives the flavors more time to mingle, but you can also enjoy it soft, garnished with a sprig of mint. Makes 1 quart.

This recipe can be adapted to apple blossoms, cherry, peach, plum, pear; whatever is blooming, just omit the lemon zest.

Everyone is busy in their yard this spring, including Steve, who keeps things interesting on the blog with his photography from Utah’s wild and not so wild places. Here, he shares a post pointing out that things can be interesting in our backyards when we let the wilder things come in.

I mentioned last year that I’d moved into a new (to me) home on the sandy slopes in NE Lehi that had been vacant for several years. All grass and bushes (1 lilac excepted) had died and the yard had gone wild. I enjoyed identifying the summer plants I found and was amazed at how the Erigeron divergens that I cared for bloomed for at least 7 months.

In September I planted buffalo grass plugs in the front yard to create a low water use lawn. Up until a week ago I thought they were all dead. But in just the last week almost all of them are showing green growth at the base.

Meanwhile most of the rest of space is growing “weeds”. Even though I have a big weeding task, it is actually quite fun to see how this dead front lawn has been colonized. I assume that left alone for a lot of years it would eventually look like other long abandoned spaces in Lehi. But right now it’s quite a cornucopia of things.

• Holosteum umbellatum (Jagged Chickweed) - a Caryophyllaceae (Pink) Family plant visiting from Europe
• Capsella bursa-pastoris (Shepherd’s Purse) - a Brassicaceae (Mustard) Family plant visiting from Europe
• Draba verna (Spring Draba) - a Brassicaceae (Mustard) Family plant. The ones in my yard seem quite robust - see the attached pictures. “A Utah Flora” describes this plant as having 3-5 scapes. I count at least 10, with maybe more to come. An offshoot of living in the ‘burbs no doubt.
• Veronica persica (Persian Speedwell) - this may get to stay in some of the shady areas of my front yard. It used to belong to the Scrophulariaceae (Snapdragon) Family, but is now part of the Plantaginaceae (Plantain) Family.
• Ceratocephala testiculata (syn. Ranunculus testiculatus) (Bur Buttercup) - this member of the Ranunculaceae (Buttercup) Family is definitely NOT staying in my yard.
• Erodium cicutarium (Filaree) - There is some contention about whether or not this plant is native in America, but it’s everywhere now. A member of the Geraniaceae (Geranium) Family is not common in my front yard, the north, shadier side of the house, but is the dominant species in my back yard, the south side of the house. My kingdom for a large rototiller.
• Senecio vulgaris (Common Groundsel) - an Asteraceae (Sunflower) Family plant visiting from Europe. I’m realizing, as I write this, that I’ve photographed 13 of the 29 Senecio species found in Utah…but this isn’t one of them. I’ll rectify that later today. Wikipedia says that 1 lb of seed contains over 2 Million seed, which have nearly a 100% germination rate. It has a shallow taproot and pulls up easily.
• Taraxacum officinale (Common Dandelion) - an Asteraceae (Sunflower) Family plant visiting from Europe. I’d say it’s not staying, but I’d be lying to myself. It’ll always return. Right now I have some plants just larger than a half dollar with dime-size blooms. What an opportunistic habit this plant has! It gets its seed out there as quickly and as often as possible.

I addition to the listed blooming species I have several plants that I can’t recognize yet and I’m letting them grow in order to see what they turn into.

The sunnier backyard has some of these same species, though in different proportions. But in addition, I have half a dozen Utah Milkvetch (Astragalus utahensis). The one growing at the base of a 7 foot tall, south facing rock retaining wall has about 30 blooms on it right now…must be a nano climate there.

Next [time]…back in the field somewhere, somewhen.

I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time. Since I bought the house, really. One of the first things I did was to weed out a patch of Mahonia repens along a south wall to turn into a dry land bed mulched with gravel. (I learned quickly that it wasn’t wise to mulch an area with gravel underneath a tree canopy.) But even then, I was only sold on the blowzy, cottage garden look for dry land gardens. Interest in cacti and other succulents has come more slowly, but I’ve turned a corner. At the moment we have representation from Agave, Echinocereus, Opuntia, Cylindropuntia, Pediocactus, Echinocereus, Maihuena, and Yucca. I’m on the fence on Dasylirion texanum; I may need more room for that one. In addition to these I’m adding softer structures of Salvia dorrii, Zauschneria, Stipa barbata (supposed to be hardy), and David Salmon’s “Blonde Ambition” Bouteloua. A Chrysothamnus nauseous (technically Ericameria) hedge is going in and I’m growing Hesperaloe parviflora from seed. They will need a place somewhere. Delosperma ‘Fire Spinner’ is in there, along with a whole flat’s worth of Penstemon sepalulus, endemic to scree in the mountain canyons. There will be some seasonal color added by the various “rockery” irises (reticulatas, histrioides, danfordiae), as well as species tulips, crocus, and some skyscraper Eremurus at the back. In the meantime, I’ve scattered several packets worth of Eschalozia and Phacelia campanularia to color the barren rock field for this summer.

I write this as much of a reassurance to myself as to my neighbors. Weaning one’s self off the visions of east coast green is one thing, but rototilling 4 cubic yards of squeegee into your sandy loam and then covering it with 9 tons of rock and boulders takes cajones. Especially when you’re the first in your neighborhood to do it. 

I’ve got to say, this project has revealed people’s stripes. The woman who lives across the street thinks this is as exciting as I do and has the best view of it. She has a very interesting past and is liberally minded, so her enthusiasm isn’t surprising. All the same, I was glad to have her support when an older neighbor passed on her walk and asked what I was doing. Super-excited neighbor exclaimed “She’s putting in a desert garden! Isn’t it great?” Older neighbor: “Better her than me.” Later, as we were talking with some friends of ours with kids around the block, one of them asked what I was up to. I explained it away as a “xeriscape” to simplify things. I said that I was excited, but also nervous, to which he responded, “Yes, especially as it alienates a lot of people.”

Well, I hope by next spring, I’ll have brought those alienated folk back around.