Aloo romanesco – a recipe adaptation

It was love at first sight in the produce department. I had to stand and stare. Called romanesco, this striking vegetable has the same basic structure as a cauliflower and a similar pattern of florets. However, each romanesco floret is a fractal!

Photographing this beauty meant I could admire the repeating patterns to my heart’s content at a later date – and so can you, dear reader. I cut it up just like I would a cauliflower and adapted the recipe for aloo gobi, Hindi for “potato cauliflower.” Romanesco tastes milder than its cruciferous cousin, providing the perfect canvas for the spice blend that flavors the dish. Time to cook!

Restaurant-style aloo gobi calls for frying the vegetables as the first step. No wonder it’s tasty. To homestyle it, toss parboiled potato chunks and cauliflower (or romanesco) florets in a fraction of the oil and oven-roast until tender, then proceed with a touch more oil for the rest of the recipe.

Feb 19 update: So I gave my low-oil workaround a try. Instead of frying the vegetables to brown them (recipe as written), toss the cauliflower florets and chunked parboiled potatoes with oil (1 tsp per cup of vegetables); roast at 375 F for 20 minutes. As every oven is different, experiment with temperatures and bake times. The goal: slightly browned vegetables. Then follow the rest of the recipe: bloom cumin seeds and asafoetida in 1-2 tablespoons of extra hot oil and continue with the remaining steps.

This update includes an authentic recipe from Nisha Madhulika’s website. When I first published this post, I linked to a New York Times recipe. Two experiments to try. 🙂 Enjoy!

P.S.
Check out these older posts on fractals in nature:
Feelin’ Fibonacci
Birth of a fractal

Prairie sunflower

For you, dear reader, a sidewalk surprise from a recent stroll.

“The earth laughs in flowers.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks for reading! I wish you peace and joy in 2024.

Fall in love

Nature paints three napping mallards.

water
color
leaves
me happy

***
The Cornell Lab: Mallard Identification

Fall finds

No tricks, just treats.

for all you sweet PUNkins

enjoy!

Wordplaytime

It’s refreshing when upscale businesses don’t take themselves too seriously.

Knot Standard on Henderson Avenue, Dallas — tongue in chic!

There are two instances of word fun on this package:

Saw both?

What treat will we find in the candy aisle?

How sweet it is!

And now for a visual pun. Check out The Concert Truck logo.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra offers free pop-up concerts around town. The music that day (two hands and four hands on piano) was superb — included Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Nice to see playful branding for classical music!

You’ve probably figured by now that the goal of this post is to:

Hope it brought a smile. Until next time, take care and have pun! 😉

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Links:
Brighton
Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Knot Standard Custom Menswear
Milkadamia

North Shore Trail – Lake Grapevine, Texas

Hugging Lake Grapevine, North Shore Trail offers hikers and bikers scenic views and plenty of room to roam.

Take a little walk. Find a cove for chilling. Hear the waves lapping at the shore-shore-shore. H2O eau eau eau!

Dallas is a hap-PUN-ing place

Want proof that Big D is a word lover’s paradise? Here you go.

Bobbin’ around town has its benefits 😉

The cookbook section at Barnes & Noble comes through.

No help for my wonton ways.

So does The Container Store.

Better organization? Spud-denly, life has new meaning to me.

Chipotle spells out “thanks” with foil-wrapped burritos.

Pepper or plastic?

Second busiest airport in the States after ATL, DFW signals the metro’s innate warmth and friendliness with a giant sign.

See you next time, dear reader! Remember to have a little pun every day.

Links:
Billy Ocean: Suddenly (inspiration for the Container Store caption)

Cypress Waters Trail – Coppell, Texas

Last month when it was cooler, I found a new walking trail to explore.

Saw a great blue heron meditate

funny signs along the way

a monarch nectar buffet.

Flowers dot the landscape.

People live here too.

There’s a music amphitheater. Lakeside restaurants.

Wanna have a little pun? Here you go.

Links:
Cypress Waters Trail
Audubon: Great Blue Heron

Baby swallows bond

Some swallows build nests on manmade structures. Wanna see some photos I took this spring?

Here’s a cliff swallow nest colony under a city bridge.

Zooming in …

Each nest is the handiwork of parent swallows that bring building material bit by bit in their tiny beaks. A swallow is no bigger than your closed fist, if that, so imagine the number of trips the parent birds must make to gather enough material for a nest.

Bridges offer shelter from rain and easy access to river water and wet mud and grass for nest building. Stand somewhat near the bridge to watch parent swallows pop in and out of nests to incubate eggs or tend to their young.

As well-placed as those nests are, not all swallow species like colony life. Some, like barn swallows, prefer single-family settings. Here’s one such nest in an apartment building.

A barn swallow clutch is typically four to five eggs.

See the white lines under the hatchlings’ eyes? I counted five baby swallows in that particular nest. The parent birds leave to forage, and all five little beaks open wide when they return, the young begging to be fed at top volume.

The hatchlings get bigger and stronger and learn how to use their wings. Is flying a natural instinct for these birds? Does learning to fly take parental involvement?

And now for the photo that inspired the title of this post: three barn swallow siblings perched on the ledge below their nest!

Wonder what caught their eye!

Here’s a photo from later that day.

And here’s a fledgling pair the next day, same ledge.

Scanning the scene

Seeing as one

According to the National Audubon Society, the natural nest sites of barn swallows were in “sheltered crevices in cliffs or shallow caves,” and those of cliff swallows, as one might expect, were on cliffs. (I’m so glad these avian architects branched out, finding the right conditions and safety in manmade structures.) Follow the Audubon links for fabulous photos, range maps, and audio clips of songs and calls. Feeling chirpy? 🙂

Note: I incorrectly attributed the nest colony under the bridge to barn swallows when I first published this post. Now corrected — the first two photos show cliff swallow nests. June 3, 2023

Links:
National Audubon Society:
Barn swallow (hirundo rustica)
Cliff swallow (petrochelidon pyrrhonota)

Renewal reminders

It’s Spring, a time of awakening and growth in the natural world. This year I saw:

Nesting birds.

Hirundo rustica (barn swallow)

What do you plan to build?

A colorful moth at my door.

Which thresholds will you cross?

Hyles lineata (white-lined sphinx). Like butterflies, moths are pollinators.

New foliage.

Bare to burgeoning in just weeks

How do you plan to grow?

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Links:
Audubon Guide to North American Birds: Hirundo rustica (barn swallow)
Sphingidae of the United States of America: Hyles lineata (white-lined sphinx moth)
U.S. Forest Service: Hawk Moths or Sphinx Moths (Sphingidae)