by jphilo | Jun 11, 2014 | Recipes
The pot of cilantro in the kitchen garden is going great guns, and so the hunt for recipes requiring copious amounts continues. Today’s recipe for cilantro pesto comes from A Teaspoon of Happiness, the same website where last week’s cilantro-peanut pesto was found. (I must have been half-asleep when typing that recipe as a couple ingredients were left out. The second link above takes you to the corrected recipe.)
But, back to today’s offering. This pesto has plenty of zip. We served to friends who used it as chip dip. And I used it instead of tomato sauce on pizza…and the pizza exploded with flavor. The only change made from the original recipe was to replace the cheese with non-dairy bread crumbs.
Cilantro Pesto
½ cup whole almonds (with or without skin)
2 cup cilantro, large stems removed
⅓ cup non-dairy bread crumbs
2 garlic cloves
½ cup olive oil
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
Process the almonds in a processor or blender until the almonds turn into fine crumbs. Add the remaining ingredients and process until smooth. Store in an air tight container in the refrigerator. Or drop spoonfuls into ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen solid, pop the pesto out of the tray and store it in freezer bags.
by jphilo | May 12, 2014 | Daily Life
Our herb garden has been planted! Not an easy feat on a weekend sprinkled with rain showers to dodge and graduation parties to attend. Add to that a mystery that needed to be solved before the planting to begin, and the accomplishment seems almost miraculous.
The mystery sprouted in the container pot that housed thyme, oregano, and rosemary. The shape of the seedlings immediately eliminated rosemary as a suspect. My inclination was to declare last year’s thyme the culprit, but decided to sleuth a little before making any accusations. So I did the first thing any good detective does in this day and age. I searched the internet for pictures of herb seedlings…and discovered they look a lot alike.
So I did the second thing any good plant detective does. I crushed one of the seedlings, gave it a good sniff an compared the scent to the scents of the dried oregano and thyme in my spice cabinet. The results of the test were ambiguous, so I repeated the experiment. At which point my allergies kicked in, and I couldn’t smell a thing.
So I did the third thing any good plant detective does. I drove to the nursery for an herb pot line up. Lo and behold, the German thyme was a dead ringer for the suspects back home. Determined to not declare thyme guilty without indisputable proof, I gave the suspect a sniff. The scent was a perfect match. I had proved without a doubt in the world that the pot at home contained all the thyme in the world.
Then, I did the fourth thing a good plant detective does. I purchased a pot each of rosemary and oregano, went home, and started planting. Which was when this detective discovered she’d wasted a whole lot of thyme time planting cilantro a few weeks back. Last year’s crop had seeded itself in the sidewalk cracks as prolifically as the time thyme had seeded it its pot.
Which goes to show I have a lot to learn before being considered a herb gardening expert. But with all the thyme in the world at my disposal, I have plenty of time to get there.
by jphilo | Apr 11, 2014 | Out and About
How can it be Friday already? I’ve been playing catch up since returning from the Accessibility Summit in the DC Metro area–a day late thanks to US Airlines cancelling their Sunday night flight to Des Moines because they couldn’t assemble a crew willing to fly to our state capitol.
Who doesn’t want to fly to Iowa in April?
Along with unpacking, doing the laundry, debriefing the conference, and mentally composing a letter of complaint to the airline (they paid for our hotel, but did not issue flight vouchers or pay for meals and extra parking fees), I’ve given considerable thought to the cultivation of cilantro.
Why cilantro?
Because at Monday morning’s flight-bumped breakfast in DC, my egg wrap (minus the cheese) at Busboys and Poets included a cilantro-heavy salsa that almost made the extra day of travel worth it. (Please don’t pass that tidbit on to US Airlines.) The deliciousity of the salsa motivated me to return cilantro, which I mentally banished from this year’s herb garden, as a resident in this year’s herb garden.
Why was it banished?
Because for 3 years running it bolted before I could pick it. A quick internet search led to www.Sunset.com and an article about how to grow cilantro. Several problems with my cultivation techniques surfaced:
- Cilantro grows best in cool weather. Like tomorrow would be a good day to start planting.
- Once weather turns hot, it needs a shady spot. Mine’s been on the south side of the house.
- Frequent haircuts keep it producing longer.
Guess what’s happening at our house this weekend? One of us will do the heavy potting soil lifting, and one of us will sow cilantro and brush up on plant barbering. It’s gonna be fun…and quite possibly in the near future, very tasty.
What about you? Have you fine tuned the fine art of raising cilantro? Do you have cultivation or barbering tips? Please leave a comment.
Photo Source: www.sunset.com
by jphilo | Jun 22, 2012 | Daily Life
The resident man of steel is on the mend after his back surgery on June 12. But, he’s still feeling a bit rusty, so he’s obeying the surgeon’s orders: no driving, no extra bending, no twisting, and no lifting anything more than five pounds.
Hiram’s back pain is preventing us from launching any new yard projects this summer. Thankfully, the heavy lifting for the container herb garden on the south side of the house was done before the man of steel’s back went wacky. This warm spring encouraged the herbs (oregano and rosemary in the far pot, basil in the middle one, chives and thyme in the near one, parsley and cilantro in a fourth pot not pictured) to grow faster than expected.
The basil’s already had one haircut which yielded a good-sized batch of pesto. (The recipe for a non-dairy version coming next Wednesday.) As the picture shows, the basil’s ready for another haircut this weekend. Some of the rosemary and chives spiced up a batch of grilled potatoes and onions, and the oregano put in an appearance in last week’s grilled red onions recipe. But this wannabe spice chef can’t cook fast enough to keep up with the other spices. The best I can do is trim the ends before everything begins to blossom.
So if you have good recipes that require copious amounts of fresh herbs, please leave a suggestion, a recipe, or a link in the comment box. If you like, comment on the artistically arranged vintage bicycle, too. The resident man of steel thinks it’s kinda crazy, but I like it!
