Basil Pesto

With the weather turning cooler, I recently picked all my basil and turned it into pesto for the winter. It turns out that I only had about 8 cups worth of basil, which translated to about a cup and a half of pesto.

Next year I'll start making the pesto earlier, before my basil starts going to seed.

I follow a pretty basic recipe for my pesto, with pine nuts being my nut of choice. Sadly the pine nuts are around $18 a pound, so walnuts might be a better choice. I googled "why are pine nuts so dang expensive," and I learned that it's because they are a very labor intensive nut to produce. It takes a lot of time to separate the nuts from the pine cone. That, and demand for them has increased, so the price has too.

Somehow it doesn't make me feel better about buying them, so I think I'll use walnuts next time.

I couldn't find my back up ice cube trays, so I used this pan intended for brownies. It worked out great and left me with cute little 2 T pesto hearts. How cute is that?

This is the recipe I use. It's not difficult at all, and so worth it. I put the pesto on pasta, fish, and even as a spread for sandwiches. Yummy!

Don't forget to click on the recipe for the best resolution before saving it to your computer. Enjoy!

Jammin' . . . and a new Recipe Card Divider

Hey Peeps . . . I'm officially on summer vacay. Whoo ha! I mean, WHOO HA!!!!!!

Yes, I am quite excited about it. The first few months back in the classroom kicked my butt, I think I told you, but I did get into the groove and I had a great year. I absolutely adored my class, and I don't think I would have made it without such a great bunch of kids.

The last day of school is always such a surprise. It's like you come out of this fog and you realize, "Jiminy Cricket, I made it! I'm at the light. The one at the end of that looooooooong tunnel." Whoo. HA!

It's the best.

I'm so tired.

Anyway, to celebrate I decided I was going to learn how to make jam. I know. Everyone wants to celebrate by making jam. Let me just remind you that you don't come here for original, you come here for crazy.

The Renaissance Woman was going to teach me how to make jam last summer, but then she got into a tragic fight with an Adirondack chair and she was out of commission until Christmas. I'd like to tell you about that riveting WWF match, but she forbade me to talk about it. I don't think casually mentioning it on the internet really counts.

I should shut up now.

Anyway, since I'm very new to this whole food preservation business, I turned to that scary book to get the 411 on jam.

I'm going to tell you a little about my experiment in just a sec, but first I want to calm you with some pretty pictures. You know, before I bring on the gore.

Aren't these berries pretty? They made me want to make jam.

And isn't this little jar so pretty?

And this little jar . . . isn't it just the cutest?

And this? A-A-A-AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Is just a small glimpse of what it did to my kitchen. I made blackberry-raspberry jam, blueberry jam, and strawberry jam, and this was the result every ding dang time.

And I was the bonehead who cleaned up between batches. Doy.

Sorry, I just can't stand it when my feet are sticking to the floor. It was EVERY. WHERE. I had jam splatters ten feet away from the scene.

That's not even the bad part though. The jam I made was without added pectin, so to get it to the gel stage I had to heat it to 220 degrees fahrenheit. At about 210 degrees it started spitting at me like it was a little Vesuvius or something. It splattered everywhere.

I have napalm-like burns all over my hands and arms from stirring the jam. I was trying everything I could think of to protect myself. What I really needed were some potholder mitts that went up to my elbows.

Sadly we don't have any of those left in the house because of our glory days playing Potholder Monster with Hank.

I dug up this little picture for you. That's me on the left, wearing the highwaters, and Hank is on the right. He was the best cat. Whenever we were in the mood for some rasslin' we'd fetch the potholder mitts and stalk him with them. We turned him into an animal, as you can see by his flattened ears. . . so nicely juxtaposed against his happy face ID tag. I picked it out special, just for him. He was one scary kitty cat.

Yeah. So. No potholder mitts in this house anymore. They retired with Hank.

Since I couldn't protect myself with potholder mitts, I was wrapping my hands and arms with wet dishtowels and pretending like I had to fight my way through a burning building to save my babies.

Didn't work.

Then, doy, I started using my noodle. Right before my last batch I went and put on a long-sleeved shirt. How brilliant is that? Wait, it gets better. Then I rifled through my winter accessories and found a pair of wooly gloves. Perfect!

And you know what, it worked. Except in one tinsy, tiny little spot where one wooly glove fused to my skin.

Did you know that the largest organ in the human body is skin? I know. Creepy little bit of trivia, but my point is that I have lots of skin, and in the whole scheme of things, one tinsy little square centimeter is no big deal.

More calming berries.

And pretty jam. Pretty, pretty jam.

You know, I really don't even like jam. What am I going to do with all this stuff?

I couldn't decide whether or not to make a recipe card for these recipes. I thought I shouldn't because the only ingredients are the fruit and sugar. Not really worth a recipe card, right? But then I decided I needed to put something in my new "Canning" section of my recipe box, so I just went ahead and did it.

And here's that new divider for the new section.

And just in case you didn't like my Slow Cooking recipe divider, like maybe you'd prefer a Crock Pot divider instead, here's that.

And the new divider tabs.

And every single time I start a sentence with the word and, I see and hear my third grade teacher, waggling her finger at me and scolding, "Never start a sentence with and."

And I do it anyway because I'm so naughty.

We Don't Need No More Stinkin' Apples

The other day Peanut Head was telling me that he wants to plant another apple tree.

Over my dead body. I think we have enough apples.

In fact, "Get down off of that ladder and leave those apples alone!"



He never listens to me.



This is one of three buckets of apples from the tree in our backyard. I think we have plenty.



As a matter of fact, I'm sick of apples.



Today I made applesauce and I'm still scared about botulism. I was reading the scary book again and it said that if you have a botulism contaminated item, not only do you need to throw it away, but you need to boil it first, in the jar, and then disinfect everything it touches with a bleach solution. Including the pan you boiled it in and your kitchen.



But I still have these apples to deal with, so that's why the applesauce. What the heck.

After I made applesauce, Peanut Head made applesauce.



Except he left the skin on his apples.



I told him the girls and I won't be eating any of his nasty applesauce with all the skin bits in it. Ick!



On second thought, it is pretty.



Maybe we'll eat just a tinsy little bit.

UPDATE: We ate some of this pinkey red applesauce today and I can report that it was chewy, very tart, and I know it contained my fiber quota for the day.  In short, Thing 1 and I were gagging over it, but Peanut Head and Thing 2 loved it.

Late Bloomer

That's me, a late bloomer. Every one else did their canning last month, and here I am, trying to beat the freezing temperatures that will supposedly be descending upon us overnight.

I've never canned before, so these seven jars of apple pie filling are my very first.

I have this strange urge to turn off all the lights, light some candles, and read Little House on the Prairie books.



Since I was so late to start, Mattie Cake let me use her big canning pot. It's actually a pressure dealie and I used the boiling water method, but I think that's okay.

I hope it's okay.

Is it?



When I decided I wanted to give canning a try, I went and bought this book.

It scared the crap out of me.

I am not kidding. It made me want to curl up in bed and suck my thumb. It's worse than any Stephen King book I've ever read.

Am I alone here? Is anyone else terrified of botulizing their family?



Look here at this pretty, unsuspecting jar of apple pie filling.

Now look a little closer.



Ah ha! Bubbles! Are those air bubbles which are inviting botulism, or are they just apple pie squish smashed up against the glass.

How do I know?

I did the whole spatula squoosh and smash around each jar about 85 times, so what the heckito is this?

I need some input here from you veteran canners. Please. I'm begging you. Susie, I know you're good for some professional advice. Hook me up, please.



Look. Here's a close-up. What have I done? Somebody?