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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Fruit of the Harvest

Welcome to my kitchen! Today it's time to harvest the basil! Here's my little basil garden (and one calla lily towering in the background). I cut the basil down to about 1/3 of the height you see here. It should grow back to yield another crop later this summer.

The best part of harvesting basil - fresh pesto! Our family loves pesto over pasta, drizzled with a bit of EVOO. The only downside is that a lot of basil....

gives you such a little bit of pesto.
One little 4 oz. jar and a couple tablespoons (for grilled paninis for lunch).

Next year I need to plant twice as much basil and parsley. I start the basil from seed - what you see is up top is about 3/4 of a seed packet. I have a couple other pots that hold the rest, along with 2 parsleys I bought from Lowes. I haven't had as much luck starting that from seed so I just buy the plants. ;) Our deck is the only consistently sunny spot to grow anything, so I just do some small container gardening. This keeps the bunnies away, too! I love sitting on our deck and brushing my hand through the plants to fill the air with their aroma. It takes my mind out of the city for a few moments.

If you want to try your hand at making pesto, here's my recipe given to me by a good friend.

BASIL PESTO
1 cup firmly packed basil leaves
1/2 cup firmly packed parsley leaves
1/4 cup pine nuts, can be toasted
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp lemon  juice
1 garlic clove, quartered
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Put everything except the olive oil into a blender. Buzz it up until a paste forms. While the blender runs on low speed, slowly drizzle in the olive oil until the pesto has a consistency of soft butter (I didn't use the full 1/4 cup....maybe only half that). Pesto can be stored in the fridge for 2 days or frozen for later use.

Enjoy!

1 comment:

Margaret in VA said...

When we only have a bit of basil, we make roasted red pepper pesto. Delicious! I'll bring the recipe for you.