Know your genera - Lesson 1: Asparagus

Asparagus. How easy is that? You thought botanical Latin names were so difficult, but you have been using some of them all along. Starting with asparagus seems logical alphabetically, but it's also spring, and nothing, nothing is better, and nothing, nothing says spring more than fresh asparagus.

You will probably have to work on pronunciation a bit. The last syllable should probably use an oo vowel sound, so goose instead of gus.

Asparagus is one of the pleasures of the northern temperate zone, but if you want a taste treat to treat, complement this vegetable with a bit of the tropics and have the best of both worlds.

Here's a gastronomic suggestion. Top your lightly steamed asparagus (please do not tell the Phactor you boil it) with a generous dollop of avocado butter.

Avocado butter recipe: 1/2 cup soft butter (1 stick), 1 ripe avocado diced, 2 Tbsp fresh lime juice, 2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley, 2 tsp worcestershire sauce, 1/2 tsp finely minced garlic (1 small clove), and a good dash of Tabasco sauce. Combine in a mixer, place in a covered container and cool to firm up. It will last a week or so fresh in the fridge. It can be frozen and chunks cut off for use if you give it enough time to defrost.

Berry-go-round #19

Zip on over to Quiche Moraine for the latest round up of plant related blogs. As always you'll find some interesting items, including a couple from yours truly. Since the theme was food, my asparagus blog was dug out special. You really do have to try the avocado butter.

Saturday AM field trip

TPP is generous and supportive of a number of nonprofit organizations and lots of starving artists.  So this AM he found himself leading three couples on a field trip wild flower foray.  It seems TPP's expertise was auctioned off along with fancy brunch for a fund-raiser; yes, botanically prostituted by his own wife.  Since 2013 has been a pretty cool and late, it was hard to know what to expect out in woodlands, but when you teach plant taxonomy for a few years, you learn about all the good places to find nice wild flowers.  So here's the rundown for April 20, 2013: early whitlow grass, cottonwood, cutleaf toothwort, dutchman's breeches, bloodroot (almost gone), troutlily (white), bluebells (only on south facing slopes), yellow violet, spring beauty, and a buttercup, and after a bit of searching, liverleaf - Hepatica.  And like any good field trip this one finished with a nice dry Spanish champagne, a mushroom quiche, sauted asparagus with avocado butter, a fruit salad with ataulfo mango, a lemon-cream cake, and bacon.  So as you can see Mrs. Phactor made it quite worth my while, and quite worth their while to have made a generous contribution for this field trip.  It was fun all the way around.

Asparagus season & seasoning

This is asparagus (Asparagus) season in the upper Midwest, so best take advantage of it.  Find a local source and get it very fresh. When it's growing quite fast, the amount of the stem that's edible is optimal. Fibers mature from the base upward, and fast growing stems leave the maturation zone behind.  Then don't over cook it; the Phactors recommend steaming because it's fast and easy to control. Lastly, and this is a very serious suggestion, smother it with avocado butter (recipe here).  Easy to make & delicious!
It was part of our Eostre dinner that was most appreciated after raking countless buckets of leaves out of our perennial gardens. This is earlier than the Phactors usually are so hopefully the plants appreciated it.  When you get all the old stuff out of the way you can more easily see what the baby bunnies are eating (Actually it was dandelions, so yea!). But just in case a lot of bunny exclusion cages were moved from shrubbery to emerging perennials (tastiest stage!). Or just grow wolfbane/monkshood (Aconitum); it's one of the first plants to emerge in the spring (and last perennial in our gardens to flower, sometime in October), and nothing, nothing eats it!  It's toxicity is famous.  Wait, this blog started out about good stuff and then turned to bunny fodder and poisonous plants.  Sorry!