Beautyberry bread

Gathering the berries. I used only the ones at the ends of the branches because they
are the last to ripen.

I robbed the birds!

Many birds feast on our beautyberries (Callicarpa americana) including mockingbirds, catbirds, and cardinals.  So I felt guilty removing even one cup of their winter berry supplies, even though I have a dozen bushes plus more berries on the wax myrtles. But I saw a recipe for beautyberry cake in Peggy Lantz's new book, Florida's Edible Wild Plants and wanted to try it. I tasted a few berries right off the bush. They were fairly bland and only slightly sweet.

It didn't take long to gather the 1 cup of berries...

I modified Peggy's recipe to fit with the ingredients that I had on hand and added nuts and sunflower seeds to make it more of a bread.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup old fashion oatmeal (Peggy used wheatgerm)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (Instead of the vanilla and nutmeg, she used ground ginger root)
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup brown sugar (Peggy used honey and molasses)
1/4 cup hot water
1 cup beautyberries, washed
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup sunflower seeds, roasted and shelled

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease one 9" x 5" loaf pan. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, in a separate bowl mix the eggs, sugar, oil and hot water, add the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients, and then fold in the beautyberries, nuts and seeds. Pour batter into the pan and bake for 40 minutes or until the bread cracks on top.

Verdict: The bread was dark, moist, and quite tasty. Both my husband and I liked it, but neither of us could really taste  beautyberries in the bread and wouldn't know they were there except for getting occasional seeds stuck in our teeth. It's sorta like carrot cake where you can't really figure out where the carrots went, but you can still count it as a serving of vegetables anyway. :-)

The bread is beautiful: as it should be.

Hot out of the oven, the pat of butter melts readily. For
subsequent slices, we'll zap them in the microwave for 45 seconds.

Out and about...

A Muscovy duck and a large brood in a Chick fil-A parking lot. Hey what's in those sandwiches anyway?

A mound of mushrooms at the foot of a live oak tree is beautiful in the morning light.

Root beer anyone?? How's this for a catbriar tuber? We were clearing an overgrown area at the edge of the elevated drainfield for the septic system. The catbriar (Smilax ssp.) vines were as thick as my thumb, so I knew there was a tuber, but I did not expect one this big.

The other day, the skies were filled with a wide variety of cloud types. Beautiful.

October is supposed to be one of our 5 wet months, but the dry season has started early this year with not only no rain, but also record heat. We only received 1/2 an inch of rain early in the month and none since then. (The 30-year average rainfall in October for our area is 3.86".)  Don't forget to water your winter vegetables and if you've planted new trees and shrubs this year, be sure to give them extra irrigation as we move into winter so they'll get a good start on their spring leaves.

And most important, vote green and YES to Florida's Amendment #1.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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A warm afternoon yesterday saw more monarchs nectaring on the big Buddleia, as they were heading south.

These must be some of the last stragglers (I hope). By the weekend, temperatures look to be seasonally cold, and probably the first frost/freeze -- depending on the the lows.

The first monarchs are expected in Mexico any day now.

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My gardening companion just received layouts for his upcoming book about waterfalls and wildflowers.  Woo-hoo- I'm so excited and proud for him (it takes DISCIPLINE and hard work and a lot of time to write books;  many, many hours over days, nights, and weekends, with lots and lots of work, but it's magic to see the manuscript and photos transformed into something wonderful!) 

UNC Press is doing a lovely job, again.

Since I'm the first editor and photo manager, I'm sharing the excitement, too!

Here's a photo from last weekend's excursion -- with a created waterfall.

Bass Pond waterfall

An addition to a waterfall talk!

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view beyond the field

distant view

reflections on Bass Pond

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Biltmore walled garden

view from terrace

Last Sunday's visit to Biltmore included a visit to the walled garden, as well as a walk up to see the far vista from the terrace.

the creativity with grasses, mums, and Mexican bush sage were nice, and way beyond the usual

the mums were the stars, but the interesting twists with grasses were clever

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This is the first full week of clear, crisp sky we've had so far this fall.  The characteristically soft, hazy light of spring and summer blew away, leaving behind dramatically blue skies.

We don't see this kind of blue very often in the southeastern U.S.  Today's walk felt different, almost like I was in an unfamiliar place, even though it was one of my usual routes.

Bass Pond, Biltmore Estate

Yesterday's walk around Bass Pond found the sky reflected in the pond;  I was amazed to see that the camera managed to capture the reflection so clearly.

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An amazing mushroom

I've never seen a mushroom that looked like this before (nor had my gardening companion).

Its markings echo long-ago learnings about selective pressure around moths, and industrial Britain. (They became darker as coal ash polluted the air over a century ago).

Nevertheless, this was an extraordinary-looking mushroom, seen on a outing this morning to Biltmore  -- in the Winter Garden.

mushroom near Japanese maple

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