Showing posts with label basil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label basil. Show all posts

August 11, 2011

Summer Lovin'

This summer has been hot and this summer has been long. Oh, wait. It's only half over so far and this is a good thing because I have a ton of knitting to do.

The last week has been perfect as far as figuring out which gifts I'll be knitting for my loved ones and I've been lucky enough to be keeping busy with custom orders too. It's also been perfect for designing some new and exciting pieces for the fall shows and we're starting to get those set up. I'll be posting dates soon on the facebook page and the site.

My garden has been growing in leaps and bounds and at this point, it's hardly containable. Turns out the cucumber seeds ordered from burpee were packaged incorrectly and where I planned cucumbers, there is the most beautiful pumpkin vine curlicue-ing around almost everything. In the morning, there are gorgeous huge yellow star-shaped flowers blanketing the large leaves.
If all of these bloom, everyone I know will receive pumpkins this year!  It's the first time I've ever grown pumpkins. My garden is not very large and I usually plant bush cucumbers and bush beans to consolidate my space. These may even choke out my peppers and it's grown out of the garden and across the lawn too. 
The tomatoes are doing well! These are from this morning and I have to go back out later to finish picking. I used some last night to make a fresh bruschetta-style salad to toss into cheese tortellini. Is there anything better than fresh tomatoes? Yes, possibly the fresh basil. Mixing the two together is delicious!

August 27, 2010

Frozen for Winter

wash and uncap

boil just long enough to easily remove skins

set on a plate, tops down and slide the skins off

halve and cool

Adding a sprig of fresh basil before freezing locks in a fresh flavor. I use Big Mama Plum tomatoes and usually start them as seeds myself in recycled newspaper pots I also make. They are meaty and enormous and make beautiful sauces. There are minimal seeds in this type of tomato, so there's no need to remove the seeds, unless you really want to. 

Today, I skinned and halved one bushel and expect to have another before the season it finished. Happy gardening!
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