I Heart Cilantro

This was my herb garden when I first planted it. Someone in town was tossing out a bookcase which was open on both front and back sides - I thought it would make a great planter and it did! I stapled non-skid kitchen drawer lining to the sides of the bookcase to keep the soil in, filled it with potting soil and planted it with lots of herbs. It was really lush the first 2 years I had it - not so much this year.

The soil in this area needs a ton of amendment - it's got a lot of clay in it. Behind this box is my first herb garden that I dug out with a lot of effort! There were lots of rocks, roots and red clay soil - I wasn't deterred by them, although I was exhausted afterwards! It needs a lot of TLC right now - I'll rake out the debris, mulch it and let it sleep throughout the Winter. Maybe next year, it will perk up again.

I didn't plant any cilantro back then, but I sure discovered my taste for it this year! Here's a great recipe for cilantro pesto - yum!


Ingredients

2 bunches cilantro, rinsed of all grit
2 to 3 cloves garlic
1 shallot
1 small jalapeno pepper, pith and seeds removed
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 Tsp sherry wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Remove skins from garlic and shallot - put them with jalapeno into food processor and process. Add cilantro and sherry wine vinegar - process until it becomes a paste. Add in pine nuts - process until nuts are almost invisible. While food processor is running, pour in the olive oil and process until the mixture is a very smooth and wonderful shade of green. Taste for salt and pepper - give it a few pulses until everything is combined.

Spoon into old ice cube trays (ones you'll never use for ice!) and freeze. When frozen, remove from tray and put into a plastic container - keep in freezer until ready to use. I find these cubes a very convenient and handy way to have fresh cilantro pesto whenever I want.

Use with pasta, shrimp and even in guacamole (discovered when I realized I was out of fresh cilantro for the guacamole and tried one of the cubes with the rest of the ingredients - delish!)

Blessed Bee

Click image to enlarge it.

This is mint from my neighbor's garden - the one that has the corn and squash. I didn't do much in my garden this year; I'm still trying to figure out how to plant with the seasons. This year was so wet in June and then July sort of flew by. Now it's August, there is Hallowe'en and Autumn stuff at Marshalls (!) and I still have some donated perennials from my sister, Jane, in their temporary pots; same with some of my culinary herbs! I certainly was NOT busy like the bee in the picture. Oh, well - next year I hope to be a bit more involved with my herbs and plants.

It is so oppressively humid again today - the cicadas are singing loudly this morning. We managed to get our long walk in before 9 am, but still, both Kylie and I are wrung out from the humidity. The woods are loving it - everything is impossibly green and moist. It's beautiful to look at, but it is uncomfortable being outside for any length of time. I used to think I could live in the tropics - not any more!

Over the last few days, I've run into people I went to school with in NJ - that's a long time ago. I've only minimally kept up with one high school friend and very few other people from this small town. I met my neighbor's mother on Friday and after talking, we discovered that we graduated from the same high school one year apart. It brought home to me that I could have a daughter the same age as my neighbor, something I cannot even imagine! And today, I saw the woman who grows the beautiful hibiscus plants and found out she lived a few doors down from me when I was growing up here!

Weird. It feels so weird.

So much of my life growing up in this small town seems like a past life memory; California is much more real to me. I wonder if that will change anytime soon?