A Simple Summer Dip

For my snack today, I made a quick dip filled with the flavors of summer. I ate it with cucumber slices, but it would also go well with any type of crudite (carrot sticks, peppers, squash) or with pita chips, I would think. It would probably also be an excellent salad dressing. Make sure to let it sit for an hour or two to let the flavors marry.

Tomato & Basil Dip

Please note: All measurements are approximate and should be done to taste.

Combine:

• ¾ cup sour cream
• ¼ cup plain yogurt
• 3-4 small roma tomatoes, minced
• 2-3 lg. basil leaves, sliced
• 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste

Refrigerate for an hour or two before serving.

Related articles

• Cucumbers from the Garden (simplycooking.wordpress.com)

Question: How many spiders…

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Question: How many spiders were in the last of the season’s basil that I harvested to turn into pesto cubes for freezing?

Answer. Two that I know of.

In other words, two that I found and released back into the wild.

Oh well, a little pureed spider never hurt anybody. I don’t think.

And before you ask, yes, I did wash the basil leaves.

Don’t Try This at Home: Basil Ice Cream

We haven’t been paying a lot of attention to our garden this year, being distracted by having a 5-month-old in the house, but alongside the cherry tomatoes, the basil has been flourishing. So much so that I have been using it in everything I can: salads, bruschetta, even infused olive oil. But last night I crossed the line. I made basil ice cream.

I got the recipe from a respectable source, David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. And while I feel that the recipe was sound, I don’t think that ice cream made with herbs or other savory ingredients is to my taste. Or to the taste of anyone eating dinner at my house last night, unfortunately for them.

The problem with basil ice cream is that the unexpected appearance of a savory flavor in what you have assumed to be dessert is very off-putting. The pungent quality of the basil seems to fight with the rich sweet cream in a way that is not pleasurable. And it didn’t help that I kept tasting it long after dinner was over with. It had staying power.

This is not the first time I have failed at making ice cream with a savory ingredient. My attempt to make raspberry-chile sorbet for my mother’s birthday was also a spectacular failure. The chile didn’t seem very strong when I was making the base, so I kept adding more, forgetting that the flavors intensify after freezing. The result was inedible, although my mother, to her credit, choked it down.

So I cannot recommend Lebovitz’s basil ice cream recipe. And I think this is the end of my experiments with unusual ice cream flavors. If you are coming over to dinner any time soon, you don’t have to worry — I’ll present you with a luscious chocolate or a refreshing fruit sorbet instead.

Garden Destruction and Pesto Making

It hurt, but we tore out the garden this weekend. It has been a strange growing season. Up until Tuesday of this week, we were still experiencing temperatures in the 90s and humidity that felt more like July. Despite being in “exceptional” drought for the last two months, the tomatoes must have thought we were having a second summer, because they all put out new flowers, and we even had tiny green tomatoes on some plants, too small to save.

Then, the temperature plummeted overnight 20 degrees to more fall-like weather, and nighttime lows fell into the 30s. We knew the baby tomatoes wouldn’t survive, but it was still painful to pull up all those plants in flower and toss them into the compost pile.

Still, I did manage to harvest quite a lot of basil from my three plants, despite letting them all go to flower for the past six weeks since it was so brutally hot that nothing would get me working outside. I made two batches of pesto: one regular-style for freezing, and one batch of arugula-basil pesto with ricotta and walnuts for eating this week (see recipe below).

Reading through my Cook’s Illustrated Italian Classics‘ section on pestos, I discovered two new tips for making pesto. The first recommendation was that before processing the pesto, put the basil or other herbs in a plastic bag and pound them with a rolling pin. This has the effect of bruising the leaves, producing a more authentic taste, a la Italian ladies pounding pesto with their mortar and pestles.

I decided not to adopt this technique, though, mainly because it seemed like too much trouble, and I wasn’t sure the gain in flavor would be worth it. If anyone else has tried it, I’d love to know what your results were. I just settled for treating the basil extra roughly when I pulled it off the stems and washed it.

The second recommendation was to toast the garlic cloves whole and unpeeled until spotty brown before processing with the rest of the ingredients. This, on the other hand, seemed like a great idea, and it was easy enough to toast the garlic in the same pan as I toasted the nuts. Since toasted garlic isn’t as strong as raw, I was able to use more, always a good thing, in my book.

Arugula-Basil Pesto with Ricotta and Walnuts

Process together until smooth in a food processor:

• 1 cup basil leaves
• 1 cup arugula leaves
• ¼ cup walnuts, toasted
• 3 whole garlic cloves, toasted until spotty brown and peeled
• 1/3 cup ricotta
• ¼ cup Parmesan
• 7 tbsp. olive oil
• salt to taste

Toss with hot, cooked pasta and serve.

Notes: Adapted from a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated’s Italian Classics. Pesto can be stored under a film of olive oil or with plastic wrap pressed against the surface in the refrigerator up to 3 days.

What to Do With All This Basil

My basil plants are going gangbusters this year. They really like being in the garden with the tomatoes. I guess it’s no secret that basil and tomatoes get along well together. I did a big harvest today, enough to make a good batch of pesto, and I barely made a dent. I expect I will get 3 or 4 similarly sized harvests before the summer is over.

The question is: what do I do with all this basil? I’ve been eating it on pretty much everything lately. It’s a good thing it’s my favorite herb. Today for lunch, I toasted peasant bread, spread some pesto on top and topped that with smoked trout. It was delicious, a perfect summer snack. (Thanks to Patricia Wells for the idea!)

Not just basil, but also dill and mint and thyme have been putting in overtime this summer. Today I made green iced tea with a little honey and plenty of mint — outstanding! At dinner we had dill on the salmon and mint on the squash. It’s funny that this year, when we haven’t gotten a lot of rain, the herbs are going all out.

Speaking of squash, we’re already getting plenty out of the garden. I told my husband he’d better be prepared to have squash every night for dinner. It’s true when they say that it takes absolutely no effort to grow squash. We even have squash that sprouted from seeds in the compost, with absolutely no encouragement from us. A month ago, they were tiny unidentified seedlings. Now they have turned into this:

That’s just one plant. There are several others, but this one is definitely the biggest. I’m not convinced that they are all the same kind. But this one on the corner is already putting out baby squash. What kind would you guess it is?

To me, it looks like an acorn squash (unlikely because we don’t normally eat them) or a butternut or possibly a very young pumpkin. But I know nothing of these things and am just guessing. Whatever it is, it seems clear from the number of flowers that we’re going to have a lot of them.

And that’s this week’s garden report!

How to Make Pesto

I went to the dentist today and they didn’t find anything to get concerned about, so it was a red letter day around here. My whole goal for today was to get through my dentist appointment without feeling bad about myself, and I did it. When you set your goals to be real teeny, it is amazingly easy to accomplish them.

I am celebrating by making pesto. The basil plant out back still has tons of leaves on it, even though it is almost Halloween, and so pesto fest is upon us. Pesto is a great way to take care of all the fresh herbs at the end of the summer, if you don’t mind cleaning your food processor a bunch of times.

What can you do with pesto? Well, I’m glad you asked. I like to spread it on little toasts and eat it as a snack or toss it with some hot pasta and a little ricotta cheese. I also like to freeze it in ice cube trays. Each cube holds about 1 tbsp. of pesto (magic!). They keep in the freezer all winter, and you just throw a cube or two into some soup, rice or a stew when you want to add some potent fresh herb flavor.

Typically, pesto is made with basil and pine nuts, but with the power of substitution, you can make it with any herb-nut combination. You can also leave out the nuts altogether, and the cheese, and the garlic–and just have pure preserved herbs. The formula is simple — it’s all based on two’s:

• 2 cups basil (or any other herb or a combo of herbs)
• ½ cup olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp. pine nuts, toasted (or any other nut)
• ½ cup Parmesan, grated

Puree all together until smooth.

But why stop there? Pesto makes a great dip if you throw in some additions. My personal favorite is adding a handful of rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes, but you could also try roasted mushrooms or roasted red peppers. Or maybe mix it with some soft cheese.