Another afternoon

It was a bright, sunny day before the storm.

It's almost 6 pm and I'm sleepy. It's too late for a nap and too early to go to bed. So what to do? This situation usually sends me outside to putter in the yard, but the rains are tumbling down. Recently, our weather has been much like it was when we lived in New Orleans - a thunderstorm every afternoon. In New Orleans, it seemed that it stormed every day after work as we were walking to the bus. I wish I could say the storms cooled things off, but they didn't. If anything, the air was even more humid afterwards, but we are luckier here in that regard--after the storms, the air is usually cooler. 

I have to work tomorrow, but I had today off, so I spent most of it trying to process produce so it won't go bad while we are away. After I ran out of ingredients for pesto, I put the rest of the basil into the dehydrator. Herbs dry at a very low temperature and it seems to take forever. In fact, the temperature outside was higher than it was in the dehydrator-98 F and 95F, respectively. As I was expressing my impatience with the drying basil, Theo suggested I take it outside where it was warmer. :)

The last sauce I made, I used the food mill.
This time I used a blender.

Also, on the produce menu today was tomato sauce. After preparing it this morning, I've been cooking it down all day and now it's cooling. The goal is to get it into the freezer tonight. However, if I still had my canner, I would can it. Several years ago, I gave the canner away after not using it for a long time. If this keeps up, I may need to get another one. Besides the basil and tomatoes, throw in some dropped pears and apples and it's been a full day.

The rains have stopped and I'm going to go find Ward, who has wondered outside somewhere.

Until next time...

This and That

There's a lot more basil to pick.

 I don't go to work until this afternoon, so I am devoting the morning to processing basil. I have my third batch of pesto in the food processor ready to go. However, Ward has a meeting now, so the actual chopping will have to wait because the food processer is one noisy appliance. (Our food processer, by the way, is almost 40 years old! We got it as a wedding gift.) So while I'm waiting for the go ahead with my noisy project, I've decided to check in here. 

Ward and I have two trips planned for this month. One is going to Pennsylvania to do some genealogy work for Ward's family, who were Polish immigrants around the turn of the last century. Both his grandfather and great grandfather died young, so there's not much oral history to go on. We are going with another brother and his wife and plan to explore church records, cemeteries, and the historical society. I like trips that involve exploring with a purpose - they're like scavenger or treasure hunts. This one fits the bill and I'm looking forward to it.

The other is to West Virginia for my annual family reunion picnic. We take turns among the families hosting it, but because of some difficulties, the next-in-line are not able to do it. So, I've stepped in to make it happen. The numbers have dwindled over the years, but it's not something I want to give up. Normally, we have a much longer planning horizon, but it's all doable. Thank goodness for the internet and phones or this job would be a lot more difficult than it is. We don't live close to where it's going to be held, so the logistics are a bit complicated. 

An earlier family picnic when we would gather for my grandmother's birthday every year in July. There were 13 more cousins to come after this. In case you're wondering, I am the one with the curliest hair.

I've been given the go ahead, so back to the kitchen and the wonderfully smelling basil.

Until next time...

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.