Saturday, May 21, 2011

Backyard Gardens Are Fun!

Our garden is getting into summer shape. We've got four tomato plants doing real well. Two of them are growing through our wire box cover! Bertie's tomatillos, she has four of them going, look like they are going to be real bountiful. That means lots of red salsa this summer, good thing we've been saving jars. Our lettuce and spinach have lasted longer than we expected, probably because it hasn't gotten real hot yet.

There is a great sense of satisfaction in harvesting baskets of three different types of lettuce for a week's worth of salads. I also get a big kick out of snipping leaves of lettuce for Tommy's sandwich wraps for his lunches during the week.

Having herbs is also great. You can spend $2-$4 for a few leaves of basil, dill or oregano at the store. We've got peppermint, rosemary, thyme, basil, dill and fennel going so far. For dinner tonight I made some pesto with our basil. Two cups of basil, 1/4 cup of pine nuts, 3 garlic cloves, 7 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of grated parmesan, salt and pepper. You roast the garlic cloves unpeeled for about 5 minutes and then add the pine nuts for just under 2 minutes. Remove the garlic and nuts from the pan. Let the garlic cool th and then unpeel them. Add all the ingredients to your food processor and run into a paste. You're done. How cool to go out and snip off a couple of cups of basil and have it on your table for dinner!

Speaking of pine nuts! Holy crap, I'm going to be a pine nut farmer! $35 a pound for cripes sake.

If you've got a garden going let us know what you have going on.

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