basil pesto

Herbs have been making their way into the kitchen in fistfuls and basketfuls over the past several weeks.  My first batch of oregano has been dried, crushed, and stored away for the months ahead.  A small batch of thyme is now ready to crush and put in a jar and a bit of peppermint is now hanging in the kitchen window.  Finally my basil plants were ready this week to cut back for my first batch of pesto.  I love to make pesto a few times during the summer, freeze it in ice cube trays, and then move it into containers in the freezer.  I've found that ice cube-sized pesto is the perfect amount to add to any recipe.  It's just the right amount for my favorite grilled pesto, provolone, and red pepper sandwich and just a few cubes are needed for a batch of pasta or gnocchi for a dinner for two.  

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There are so very many pesto recipes out there, and mine is nothing new or revolutionary.  However, I do like to use walnuts instead of pine nuts in my version.  I like the darker nutty flavor that walnuts give the pesto and they are also cheaper, which is a great bonus.  I also usually have walnuts on hand, whereas pine nuts I do not.  So, if you're looking for a new recipe to try...here you go!  Most pesto recipes call for parmesan, but since I freeze mine, I don't add any parmesan to the pesto.  Instead, I usually add parmesan, or another type of cheese, to the dish that I'm adding the pesto to.  I find that this just works better for the way I cook and simplifies what's needed to make the pesto, which I'm all about.  

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Basil Pesto 

1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 cup olive oil

2 cloves garlic

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves

1 teaspoon lemon juice (fresh or bottled, but fresh is preferred)

1/2 teaspoon salt

Add the walnuts and olive oil to a blender or food processor and blend until mostly smooth.  Add the garlic and blend until smooth.  Add the basil leaves, small amounts may be necessary depending on your blender/food processor.  Add the lemon juice and salt.  Processor until it reaches your preferred consistency.  I tend to leave mine a bit chunky.  Fill an ice cube tray with the pesto.  One batch should fill one ice cube tray (in the picture above I reserved a bit for my dinner that night so it didn't quite fill a tray).  Freeze until solid and then transfer into a freezer container or bag.  Keep in your freezer for up to a year and use as you need it!

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How about you?? Do you have a favorite basil pesto or other herb pestos that you love??  I'd love to hear about them! 

fermented cucumbers and jalapeños

You know that team building game that people sometimes play where you have to choose what two foods you would want to live on for the rest of your life if you were stranded on a deserted island??  Well...one of my two foods has always been pickles.  I mean, really, if you're stranded on an island what better food to have with you!  They are shelf stable, they are a vegetable, and they are always delicious.  Yum.  My mouth waters every time I think about those sour crispy delectables.   

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For the past few summers I've made a couple batches of traditional vinegar dill pickles--and I love them and wouldn't go without them.  But last year I also tried my hand at fermented dill pickles.  It was an experiment--as I've found all fermenting to be.  It's not an exact science the way that hot water or pressure canning is.  With canning you have to have just the right amount of food in the jars, the jars have to be closed just right, the temperature and/or pressure has to be just right, and you have to do it for just the right amount of time, but with fermenting it's totally different.  Your jar of cucumbers can be half full, you can have several different sizes of jars with different types of lids, you can ferment something for a week, two, five, twelve.  Every ferment is different and each one is a bit of an experiment with far too many variables to make it scientific---it's awesome!  Those are my favorite kinds of experiments.  It's like when you make a really delicious meal and your husband says, "Wow! This is amazing!  Can you make this more often?"  And you respond with, "Um...this exact thing?? Probably not.  I made it up."  That's kind of how fermenting works, at least for me.  

Another thing about fermented pickles is that they taste a bit different from their vinegary counterparts.  They are more sour and they are kind of bubbly.  They can make your face pucker and they can be incredibly addicting...but I do think they are a bit of an acquired taste.  If you've never made or really eaten homemade vinegar pickles, then tasting your first fermented pickle may be quite a shocker.  They are very different from the jars of pickles that line the grocery store isles.  However, if you are a homemade pickle lover, then I encourage you to try fermenting a batch.  The best part is that you can start with a little pint jar and if they don't turn out or you hate them, you can compost those babies without it being a big deal at all.  

The basics of fermenting cucumbers include packing pickling cucumbers (I get my mine at the farmers market) into a jar with pickling spices, garlic, and fresh dill, and then filling the jar with a brine of salt water.  You then tightly cover them and leave them in a warm place for a bit.  If your kitchen is warm (mine was in the 70's and 80's this week), then it may take just 5-7 days for the pickles to be ready.  If it's on the cooler side (consistently below 75) then it may take a few weeks for them to finish.  Once they have changed from bright cucumber green to dull pickle green and the liquid is bubbly and cloudy, then they are ready to taste.  When you bite into them, they should look pickled all the way through.  If they are still bright green in the middle--they are not done, or if they taste really salty they are not done.  When they get to the sour level of your liking and they are pickled all the way through---they are done!!  Hooray!  Then you can wipe down the jars (in case they've dripped a bit in the fermenting process) and move them into the refrigerator where they'll keep for 6 months to a year.  So easy and so good!

Also, adding traditional fermented foods to your diet can be so good for you!  Unfiltered and unpasteurized fermented foods are full probiotics that help to build a healthy gut flora.  Stop buying those expensive probiotic supplements and start eating fermented pickles and you'll be set!! I wrote a bit more about this in a post last summer, if you're wanting to find out more.  

If you are looking for a recipe to get you started with fermenting cucumbers, this Nourished Kitchen recipe looks like a good one.  The one I used this time around is from The New Midwestern Table by Amy Thielen.  It's a fabulous cookbook that includes so many great updated traditional midwestern recipes, which is great if you want to cook using local and season ingredients.  I fall more in love with that cookbook each time I use it.  

For my fermented jalapeños, I just added some garlic and used the same salt water brine that I used for the cucumbers.  They take a bit longer to ferment (you can see the changing green colors in the picture above; once they are all the duller green color, I'll start checking them), but I find that fermenting them is a great way to preserve the handfuls of jalapeños that come in from our garden as I can ferment them as soon as I have a pint jar full.  

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How about you??  Have you tried your hand at fermenting??  If so, what are some of your favorite things to ferment?  

spruced up and dandy gimlet

Well, as promised, I put all those spruce tips to work and came up with this lovely little spring cocktail!  I was even able to incorporate the Citrus Spiced Dandelion Bitters I finished making last week!  Together they make a cocktail that's light, refreshing, and just delightfully earthy!  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 

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Spruced Up and Dandy Gimlet

2 oz gin

1/2 oz spruce tip syrup

2 lime slices, squeezed

soda water

1 dropper full (or a few dashes) of Citrus Spiced Dandelion Bitters

Mix syrup with gin and limes, add ice, soda water, and bitters.  Stir and enjoy.  

 

spruce tip creations

Some days are meant for little surprises.  Yesterday was such a day.  With rain lightly falling all morning and gloomy clouds hanging around, I was in need of a bit of a pick-me-up.  While I sat in the living room grading final essays for one of my classes, Dan went out to trim the neighbor's spruce tree that was hanging on our power line.  When I went out to see his progress I noticed the brightest little green tips on those branches and instantly realized that they were spruce tips and we had an abundance of them on our hands!  I've never really thought about spruce tips or their uses before this past week, but after seeing a few posts about the them on social media I was intrigued!  So, I grabbed my basket and began gathering them from the fallen branches.  Within a few short minutes I had a basket full of spruce tips and a mind that was spinning with ideas of what to do with them!

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By the end of the evening, I had prepared three infusions and a spruce tip syrup!  The first infusion on the left is a kombucha, spruce tip, and rhubarb combination.  The middle one is a white wine fruit vinegar and the last is a spicy apple cider vinegar.  Both of the vinegar recipes are from Issue 7 :: Gather of Taproot Magazine. The syrup recipe can be found here (I let mine cook down a bit more and it darkened quite a bit).  A spruce tip cocktail recipe will hopefully follow soon! 

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The ladies were equally excited about the spruce tips!  They love them!  And so their side of the yard is now adorned with several draping spruce branches for them to nibble on and hide under.  They happily approved!

It's so fun to start to see wild food growing all around us.  The more I learn, the more I want to learn, whether it's about wild herbs and plants, or bees and animals!  It's so much fun!  Cheers to all of the spring foragers and gatherers out there!  May your adventures be bountiful!