Basil

Making Pesto or How I Almost Burned Down the House

Some grape tomatoes hidden among the basil.

I have mentioned before that I have two self-seeded basil patches that are quite large--meaning my cup runneth over with basil. I have given away plants and cuttings to everyone I know, enough so that they are starting to run the other way when they see me coming. Also, I have left some to flower to make the bees happy and I've made pesto. And more pesto.

The traditional recipe for pesto calls for pine nuts. I'm not even certain what pine nuts are, but they sure are expensive. So Theo and I studied substitutes and decided on cashews. We had used almonds before, but didn't like the texture they produced, and while cashews are expensive, they cost about 1/2 the price of pine nuts.

The other day, I was making a another batch of pesto to use up some basil that I hadn't been able to give away. I picked and washed the basil leaves, shredded the cheese, and chopped the nuts and garlic so they would blend better. Then I decided I would cook the garlic just a bit to mellow its bite. I wasn't going to take the time to roast it, so I popped it into the microwave. And flash! There were large flames. This wasn't a little arc but flames filling the oven. Luckily they were gone as soon as I turned it off.  Crisis averted. I quickly examined what was in the oven, but nothing was there except a little glass bowl and some charred garlic.

Beginning to make pesto. Notice this was
before I burned the garlic.

Then I did what I always do in these situations. I consulted Google. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly) I got a hit when I entered, "garlic burning in the microwave."  It seems that garlic has minerals in it that are not evenly distributed and it can arc between these different charges in the microwave.  And it is especially prone to happen if there are sharp edges on the food. Just like the ones I had made by cutting up the garlic cloves. It turns out that garlic is not unique with this characteristic. It happens with other vegetables. So, I don't know how I've been using the microwave for over 30 years and not have this happen before.

So what did I learn from this? For a fun time, try cooking some cut up garlic in the microwave. In fact, I feel an experiment coming on. Trying different vegetables to see which ones are most likely to arc in the microwave. Mmmmm...... What ones should I start with?

But Wait, There's More!

As I suspected, pine nuts are just what the name says, seeds/nuts from a pine tree. They are expensive because it can take 36 months to produce them and harvesting is usually done by hand.


But Wait, There's Even More!

I found this book at the library, Pesto by Leslie Lennox. The perfect book for a bumper crop of basil. All kinds pesto recipes as well as ways to use the pesto. Lot's of ideas to explore.

Here we go again.

Well, gosh, darn it. My attempt to post more frequently is not going as well as I had hoped. In fact, I'd say no change so far. But after posting regularly on this blog for 8 years, I'd say it's pretty remarkable that I am even still doing it. Especially since there is no theme to guide the posts. Well, it's either remarkable or I don't know when to quit. But I'm going to give it a go again. : )

Here's another time Annie was not happy
after a trip to the vet.

Last week was filled with appointments and meetings plus the ever-present work. We are moving ahead on the porch that we want to replace our rotting deck with and had another meeting with the architect. Now we are starting to contact contractors. The cats had to go to the vet where she found both of Annie's ears infected. Let's just say Annie is NOT fond of the drops she needs twice a day. I hosted my book club where we discussed a very interesting book (more on that another day).  And we're still figuring out what to do with our good crop of pears. And yadda, yadda, yadda or if you prefer, blah, blah, blah. You know, just a lot more of the same.


Now onto the subject of the day:

Bumble bees vs. Carpenter bees

It wasn't that many years ago when I didn't know that carpenter bees and bumble bees weren't the same thing. I just called every big bee that was gold and black a bumblebee. Well, doing my Second Looks taught me differently. I learned that bumblebees are fuzzy on the end and carpenter bees are smooth and shiny on the end. (I know entomologists are out there screaming with my over simplification, but you gotta start somewhere.) See below. These pictures were taken a couple of years ago at my old house.

Bumblebee on the left and carpenter bee on the right. Notice fuzzy vs. shiny.

Carpenter bees may not always desirable to have around. Notice the round holes on the fence board above the woodpecker. Those were made by carpenter bees and our fence is full of them. They can do the same thing to your house. However, they are good pollinators just like other bees.

Here's your quiz. Look carefully. Is this a bumblebee or a carpenter bee on this Mexican sunflower.
(Hint: Is it shiny?)

Until next time, Happy Trails to you ....

Thankful Sunday, August 11, 2019

I am thankful for nature's surprises.

This week in my yard I found a few surprises from nature that made me happy.

At the beginning of spring, we saw several goldfinches. However, we hadn't seen any for a few weeks until recently. This one was eating seeds from the sunflower head it was sitting on.

Yesterday, I went behind a row of bushes to see if any of the invasive weeds that I'm trying to control were growing again. I only found a couple of weeds, but I found something else I was excited about. I found several little volunteer begonias from ones we planted in front of the bushes last year. In our climate, begonias don't reseed themselves very often and especially not this far from the originals.

I think the name of these lilies says it all--surprise lilies. They bloom on stalks that shoot up months after their leaves have died.  

We don't see as many butterflies here as we used to at our old house so we have been planting more flowers to attract them. I think it is starting to work with the sighting of this swallowtail last week.

So for these things and the rest of the beauty that nature has to offer, I am thankful.

Dr. Google

Last week, I had an MRI to gather more information about possible causes for my trigeminal neuralgia. An MRI is a common diagnostic tool these days, so I'm sure many of you are familiar with the experience I'm going to describe.

I was apprehensive before I went because I answered yes every time someone asked me if I were claustrophobic. But with some good strategies in place, I did okay in the confined tube. However, I had a hard time believing the machine had to be so loud to do its job. It was like someone figured out the most obnoxious sounds they could, turned up the volume, and put them into a MRI machine. But it was what it was and I survived the noise, too.

A few days later, I met with the doctor to go over the results. All was good and more options for treatments opened up. And it's always good to have options.

So all was going well with my latest endeavor until the MRI report showed up online which, of course, I immediately read. Even though I consider myself fairly well educated in medical matters, the report, that was meant for doctors, had several things in it that I didn't understand. I immediately went to the expert in all things--Google. After a short while, Dr. Google had me convinced that there were some major blood flow problems in my brain. I was also convinced that I had had or was going to have a stroke soon. It all made sense to me. This information of course explained why I sometimes forget someone's name or what I had for dinner last night. It didn't matter that the doctor didn't mention any problems because I assumed that he only looked at the part of the report he needed.

Pretty soon I told myself that my relationship with Dr. Google was turning me into a hypochondriac which surprised me. But after a few panicked moments, I did something very smart. I told Dr. Google that I wouldn't be seeing him again any time soon. Then I closed Google and went to fill the bird feeders.

Do you ever scare yourself with Dr. Google? Or am I the only one? :)

Until next time...

News

or Not

My blogging has been waxing and waning over the last couple of years--mostly waning. I'm going to make an attempt to change that if for not other reason than I like to say waxing. Also, I'm going to make a conscious effort to not have anything of substance on this blog. I will leave others to comment about the tragedies of the world, both natural and man-made, even though they effect me deeply. I will also let someone else talk about the news and how it is not really news, but just noise that tells us how upset we should be about something.  In other words, I'm going to emulate the  Seinfeld Show which very proudly advertised that it was a show was about nothing.

I'm not sure that will make my blog any different than it was before. We will see. But I hope this is a place you can visit and not be reminded of the difficulties in your life and the world. Or at least I hope that is what it does for me.

Here is my non-news item for today.

A sunflower is one of many flowers that have a center with intersecting spirals that can be defined by a Fibonacci sequence.  This sunflower was planted by a bird with seed from our bird feeders.

Until next time...