Tuesday 17 June 2014

Hot Sandwich Wraps...and the twilight garden

If the Borscht Dumpling God decrees there will be a surplus of that nice soft dough made just with milk, flour, and salt, I'll stretch my culinary noodle so to speak and make some fresh pappardelleHowever, one early evening saw my rolling that pliable mass into a circle which demurely asked to be left whole. Inspired by its shape, round and round I went in the kitchen gathering ingredients -- a few fresh sage leaves there, veggie oil here, and some eggs way over there. A mental image of a pan-fried sandwich wrap stuffed with speckled-with-sage scrambled eggs gradually came into focus.


For one 20 cm diameter wrap, thinly roll out some dough (mix 600 grams of plain, white flour, 325 ml of milk, and 1/2 tsp salt together and then knead about five to eight minutes until smooth which makes five pieces the size of baseballs, so a lot but they can be frozen or kept in the fridge for about a week) the size of a golf ball into a circle more or less -- any irregularities will not be noticed after it puffs up in hot oil.


Cover the bottom of a heavy skillet with an 1/8 inch (.3 cm) of oil and heat over moderate flame for a minute or two. Carefully ease the dough into the pan.


Let it fry for a couple of minutes or until it is covered with air bubbles and is nicely brown, and then flip it over. Reserve warm.


Rinse and chop a few fresh sage leaves. Pour off the excess oil in the skillet. Scramble some eggs beaten with the sage in what will still be a well oiled pan.

The Calm One replaced our spatula with one of my favorite colour, royal blue!

Blot it if so desired, put on a plate and arrange the eggs well inside one half of the wrap. Pick up the edge closest to the eggs and neatly tuck them within the first roll which needs to be nicely packed. Continue tightly rolling to the other side.


Cut into four pieces, their warmth comforted, their taste pleased, and their substance fulfilled.

As I gobbled down these using my hands, that fork is just for show!

Well fed, I returned to the garden to finish up the day's work and to take some photos in the twilight because such a setting shows a different side -- flower details are not washed out by abundant sunshine while the darker background makes their delicate outline be seen more clearly. The abelia, beloved by bees, is covered with tiny, sparkling flowers.

Their red sepals are pretty too!

The late season potato variety, desiree, which I had sowed just a mere two weeks ago, is flourishing in that lusty way happy plants have.


The potted bougainvillea is putting out its first flush of fabulous, pink bracts. Their actual flowers are tiny and inconspicuous.


These lilies are planted close to the front pathway which makes it easy to get a whiff of their heady fragrance when we are coming and going.


The perennial day lilies took several seasons after their planting to feel at home. Though a flower lasts just a day, they put out an abundance of them successively.


The shasta daisies are wonderful perennials to have in the garden; they are beautiful, generous, and flower all the way into autumn.


Hydrangeas, like peonies, usually don't do well in our long, dry, hot season, but I appreciate whatever they do.


Think of tucking a few perennial herbs here and there because they add so much to both the kitchen and garden. When picked fresh they perk up pasta, eggs, soups, stews, spreads, quick and yeast bread batters in the way only they can. Additionally they are great for garnishing. Outdoors they give both unusual foliage and flowers. Fennel which is now about six feet tall and whose feathery foliage is past its prime is putting out flower caps. By autumn they will be transformed into seed clusters. The young green seed tastes like dill seed while the mature grey-brown ones resemble caraway.


David Austin's Falstaff is revving up for another bunch of blooms.

That purple glow in the left background is lavender

I tried to photograph a murmuration of starlings who were flying to a couple of spruce trees for roosting, but instead I accidentally got this appealing shot of the mellow setting sun -- the sky in the upper half is a warm, pink-tinged gray while the lower half is tinted a cool blue-gray.


À la prochaine!