Yesterday dawned more like any fall day you can imagine, even though the calendar says we still have a week of summer left. It was drizzly with dark clouds and no sun to be had, and the thermometer on the back porch read a bone chilling 46 degrees F.
Though I've been living here for many years it still surprises me by just how quickly the weather changes right after Labor Day. So being chilled to the bone I decided there is just one thing to be done about it, I broke out the 16 quart stock pot and decided to "go to town" on a batch of seafood bisque.
Now I love summer and the hotter the weather is the better, but one thing I do like about fall and winter is cooking becomes "no holds barred". When it's hot you may not want to fire up the stove or the oven, but come fall you don't mind a bit simmering a nice stoup all day long, and there is nothing better than the warmth it brings when consuming it, not to mention the bonus of heating the house up a couple of degrees without turning on the furnace.
This is my recipe for Seafood Bisque, guaranteed to warm you up on any chilly fall day:
1 stick butter
4 stalks celery - sliced (including tops)
1 large onion - diced
1 bunch green onions - sliced
1 red bell pepper - sliced
1/4 cup flower
1 can mushroom bits & pieces 4 oz. (include juice)
1 can white corn 15-1/4 oz. - drained
1 can diced potatoes 14-1/2 oz. - drained
1 can chopped green chiles 4-1/2 oz.
1 pint heavy cream
1 can cheddar cheese soup 10-3/4 oz.
1 can cream of celery 10-3/4 oz.
1 can cream of potato 10-3/4 oz.
2 cans whole milk 10-3/4 oz.
1 tbsp. Old Bay seasoning
2 tbsp. Creole seasoning
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. basil
1 tbsp. parsley
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
6 cups water
1/2 lb. langostinos
1 lb shrimp peeled, deveined & detailed
1/2 cup white wine
Start by sauteing the celery, onions & bell pepper until soft then add the rest of the ingredients and cover and reduce all day. I simmered this batch for about six hours on very low heat. If you don't want to cook that long, reduce the amount of water, also this does have a little bite to it, so if you don't want it quite this hot you can reduce the Creole seasoning and crushed red pepper. Also adding and 8 oz. package of crab meat wouldn't hurt this any, though it does tend to disintegrate in the soup. What seafood you use may depend on your taste and what's available at the time...
It's a little after 6:00 a.m. on Sunday morning and the sun is just starting to come up. I love being up this early in the morning while it's still cool out and oh so quiet. The rain continues to come down outside as it has all night, but I am not complaining since it is our first real rain in a very long time. In fact I can't remember the last time we received any significant precipitation. One problem with living this close to the windward side of lake Erie is that sometimes you can go all summer without rain. The lake can cause storms to "split" and go around this area so that it rains everywhere else but here. It's a strange phenomenon, but one I have lived with all my life. There are times when you can see that the thunder and lightning are being "pushed" way south of us and you know they are getting the rain that you were so desperately hoping for. Very often we can look up at the sky and see a ring of storm clouds in a circle all around the horizon, but nothing but sunshine and blue skies right over us. This may sound nice, unless it hasn't rained in two months and all your greenery is turning brown.
Last weekend I decided to move the small saplings that have been growing in my flowerbed out into my yard. I knew with as dry as it's been t
hat I was taking a chance with this, but I have noticed that some of the trees around here are starting to change colors already and I didn't want to wait any longer. So last Saturday I moved sixteen trees, mostly Maples, out into my back yard, and have been carrying buckets of water out to them every night since. My hands were very swollen after all that digging but it was nice to stand among them and imagine what they will look like in ten or twenty years. Now all I have to do is keep them alive until the rains come, which hopefully last nights rain marks the beginning of the wet season. Weather forecasts around here really are useless. I may have lost two of the trees that are out in an area that gets a lot of sunlight, but hopefully most of them will survive. This year I hope to get some nice pictures of the fall foliage as it changes. Last autumn we had tremendous winds that blew all the leaves off of the trees as soon as they would change. The only good thing about that was that I didn't have to rake because all the leaves blew out of my yard. We'll see what this season brings.
I was going to mow the lawn today but the rain is putting an end to that idea. I am going to have to work on the mower before I can do so though. Last week I was about twenty minutes into mowing when, for no apparent reason, the mower lost most of its compression, which caused it to run very slowly. It wasn't mulching after that, but I did manage to fight my way through the rest of the yard, hopefully I haven't blown the engine on it. I really don't want to have to buy a new mower with so little of the season left, though now is a good time to do so, as they are all on sale. This mower is only two years old so I don't plan on giving up on it just yet. It does take quite a beating, as my yard is big enough for a riding lawn mower. All my neighbors have riding lawn mowers and the neighbors on either side of me (good guys that they are) have been mowing quite far into my yard. I think they feel sorry for me, not having a rider, but I've tried to explain to them that I like push mowing my lawn (it only takes me about two hours) and I don't intend on ever buying a rider. I tell them that some guys walk eighteen holes of golf every week, I push mow my lawn, but this hasn't stopped them, in fact they seem to be mowing further and further into my lawn every week. I'm not complaining mind you, last week, when the mower gave out, I was very glad to have less lawn to mow. It has always been a puzzlement to me, that we do things to make our lives easier (like buying riding lawn mowers) but then we have to start an exercise program because we've made our lives too easy.
I have found a new Website, www.livescience.com, that has quickly become my favorite site. They have lots of interesting articles, and new ones every day. The site changes all of the time (unlike my blog), which means you can go back to it every day and find new and interesting stuff to read. They also seem to be affiliated with half a dozen other sites, which provide new and interesting articles as well. The most amaz
ing article I have read so far is one about a hexagon shape they have found in the upper atmosphere on the planet Saturn, which they can't explain, and it doesn't seem to go away, as they have seen it for over twenty years now by different space probes. These sites also have top 10 lists and trivia & quizzes that are a lot of fun to take. I know just the mention of the word "science" for many people will conjure up nightmares of high school science classes, but I was fortunate to have some really excellent teachers that fostered a love of the subject in me. These sites also tend to deal with the more interesting discoveries in science these days and they won't be asking you to memorize the periodic table either...
PS: The picture of the moon at the top is just one I took with my camera zoomed all the way out and really has nothing to do with this post. The picture of the hexagon on Saturn, on the other hand, was borrowed from www.space.com as my camera can't zoom quite that far...:)
Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.
-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
