This past weekend we drove out to our favorite blueberry farm,
Wintergreen Tree Farm, and three generations of our family picked somewhere close to 12 pounds of blueberries in about an hour and half. That's how long it took for the sun to melt our little ones into whiny exhausted tyrants. It was worth it. We brought 7.5 pounds of freshly picked blueberries into our kitchen and began rinsing, de-stemming and drying. Now we have two huge bags of blueberries lined up in the freezer that will make January not seem so dull. One bag we'll use for canning blueberry syrup and preserves the other will be nibbled on with oatmeal, cereal, and pancakes throughout the winter.
Basil is in and it is in abundance! While our little herb garden supplies us with enough to pick leaves here and there for meals, it certainly didn't provide enough to make anything wonderful like, pesto. However, my mother-in-law's herb garden is overflowing with giant basil... and she is a good sharer.
Here is my recipe for pesto:
- 1/2 cup walnuts
- 5 to 6 cloves of garlic
- 3 to 4 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- about 1 1/2 cups olive oil
- 1 cup fresh grated Parmesan
- 1/3 cup fresh chives
