3-4 large handfuls fresh basil (at least 100g)
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
sea salt
1 tablespoon pine nuts
2 tablespoons Parmigiano Reggiano, freshly grated
3 tblsps Pecorino Romano, freshly grated
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Pick the basil leaves from the stalks, discarding any leaves that are bruised or damaged.
Put the garlic, a pinch of salt and some of the torn up basil leaves in a mortar (the rough salt provides some friction needed to grind up the leaves). Use the pestle, adding more leaves to the mortar until they are all ground down.
Add the pine nuts and the two cheeses. Lastly add enough oil to make a thick consistency. Adjust the seasoning if necessary.
Wonderful with drained and hot cooked pasta, just toss well with a fork and spoon.
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
sea salt
1 tablespoon pine nuts
2 tablespoons Parmigiano Reggiano, freshly grated
3 tblsps Pecorino Romano, freshly grated
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Pick the basil leaves from the stalks, discarding any leaves that are bruised or damaged.
Put the garlic, a pinch of salt and some of the torn up basil leaves in a mortar (the rough salt provides some friction needed to grind up the leaves). Use the pestle, adding more leaves to the mortar until they are all ground down.
Add the pine nuts and the two cheeses. Lastly add enough oil to make a thick consistency. Adjust the seasoning if necessary.
Wonderful with drained and hot cooked pasta, just toss well with a fork and spoon.
7 comments:
Are you certain that you're not from the Balkans? Mediterranea? Sounds delicious! In a few more years, I may have my own, private source of pine nuts. I've a couple of pinon trees that are about 15-20 years old (chest high). Pinons are slow growers, don't get very large at maturity, and these have been transplanted--twice!
Many pinons sprouted in my brother's yard when he still lived in the pygmy forest (all pinons) of Santa Fe. It is illegal to take pinons off of public lands, but since these pinons were on private property it was OK to move them. Elder Brother brought the two pinons to me in about 1991 (one was about 1 foot tall, the other a few inches taller). I planted them (temporarily, while I figured out where to put them) in my tomato bed. After we moved here (about 2-3 miles from the previous house), I had the landscape people transplant the pinons from that tomato bed to the south corner of this house. They have thrived in both places (which, I had been told, they aren't supposed to do!)
Cop Car
Nope, three quarters English, the other quarter Tasmanian (grandfather came over here in the First World War and never went back). I just love Italian food and we eat a lot. Very delicious and very healthy.
No nut trees over here that I know of. I believe virtually all pine nuts are imported. I'm really envous of your pinions. How tall are both of them now?
I grow my own basil and it really loves it in the garden.
Since you asked, Val, I went out to measure the trees. They are not "chest high". The larger is about seven feet tall, the smaller is just over four feet tall. And they are both too close to the house. I didn't have the heart to have the landscape people come out to move them, again--I was at work when they actually planted the trees. I keep pinching off the candles that point toward the house, and I'll eventually have to take out some branches, probably.
I'm just amazed that the pinons are still alive. When I landscaped in Albuquerque, the people told me that about one-half of transplanted pinons died within six months. If you could get them past the six months point, they were apt to live. The few pinons that I had put in were about the sizes of these two, or a bit larger.
Cop Car
P.S. In several more days (if the critters don't get them, first), we should be harvesting cantaloupe from our volunteer vines. I picked one tomato off of each of our three tomato plants, yesterday. Some critter had eaten about 1/2 of a tomato, so I brought two tomatoes inside to ripen and we had the third for dinner. Ahhh...the first home grown tomatoes of summer!
[grin] I am not surprised at your surprise at how the pinions have grown. It's odd how trees never seem to grow at all,and then you look at them one day and they are three times the size they used to be. That certainly happened to me with a Liquidambar tree on the front garden.
You obviously have green fingers to get the pinions to grow when so many planted don't. I hope they are not too close to the house. Every so often over here there is publicity about the dangers of planting trees too close to a building. The roots can, I understand, damage a building's foundations.
Enjoyyour canteloup! We don't have room to grow fruit in our garden, except for a very old pear tree we keep for decorative purposes only. Herbs I do grow though.
Our trees (mostly dwarf or semi-dwarf) include: 2 pears (Seckle & Bartlett), 2 peaches (different crosses with Hale Haven), and 1 cherry (North Star). Until this spring, we had a plum tree; but, I don't spray or use chemicals and the plums were always full of worms, so I replaced it with an Oklahoma redbud (HH hasn't noticed the difference, so far!) We have a patch of strawberries and a few fruit bushes (actually, we have a lot of fruit bushes--but most of them are there for the birds and other wildlife). The gooseberries just finished bearing. Back in the woods, we have at least one mulberry tree that bears fruit.
I plant a lot of greens (spinach, turnips, etc), but I rarely get them picked. They are so nice looking and they make such good green manure (which is much needed in our clay soil).
Cop Car
OUrs is a small garden (only about 50ft x 60ft) and so we grow very little fruit as we just do not have the room. We have a very old conference pear tree, which I very much fear may be coming to the end of its life, and a robust couple of clumps of rhubarb (I'mnot exaggerating its robustness - it is planted adjacent to a path and the clump has forced one of the concrete paviers right up.
Realistically, given the size of the garden, we've made it an ornamental garden, concentrating on flowers and shrubs.
Ah, Val, people vary, don't they? For years I said that if I couldn't eat something off of it, there was not reason to grow a plant. I have come to enjoy ornamental flowers, but not to the extent that my mother did and that my daughters do (you can tell that Bogie enjoys flowers by her blog!)
A 50x60 garden is huge, when one thinks of the care that it takes. Our/my plantings are mostly about the perimeters of the house (foundation planting) and property (along the neighbors's fence lines--we have no fence). Most of the plantings are ornamental--but for the foliage rather than for the flowers. I have planted a few roses for Hunky Husband, a few daylilies, and many irises (most of which are progeny of plants that my mother gave me 30-35 years ago).
Cop Car
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