Sunday

Parsleypalooza!

Dried Herbs?  Bad
Fresh Herbs? GOOD
Fresh Herbs anytime other than the summer from my garden?  Outrageously expensive, and sadly subbed out with dried herbs most of the time
Solution? Yes, I have one!!

I had very high hopes with the herbs in my garden this year. 
I planted:  2 rows of basil, 1 row of dill, 1 row of cilantro, 1 row of chives, and a half a row of parsley.
I currently have:  2 rows of weeds, 1 row of dill, 1 row of overgrown gone-to-seed cilantro, 1 row of weeds, and a half a row of the most beautiful parsley you have ever seen!
(note to self- next year all herbs are getting started in the greenhouse, no more of this seed business!)

Anywho, this morning and afternoon I have ALL to myself at home, so I thought I better do something with that parsley besides watch it go to seed too.  I set out to chop it up with olive oil, kind of like pesto, and freeze it.  This way, I will always have fresh parsley, and it won't turn black and grody because I added the oil.

So, out with my scissors and my bowl, cut all my parsley.  I'm so proud of my parsley crop...this bowl is stuffed full, and my row is only about 5 or 6 feet long!
 Can I get a shout out to my first 2 ripe tomatoes??
 Lovely parsley again, all washed up, with little critters and weeds removed
 My two BFFs...olive oil from Costco, and my Cuisinart.  If I had to choose 5 things to take to a desert island, these would be 2 of them!
 My mini tartlett tray via Demarle (no they aren't paying me, yes I had to pay for this!)...this is what I used to freeze the parsley in.
 Next, I ripped off the top leaves and got rid of the excess stemmy business...no need for the extra roughage in my opinion.
 See? Who needs all that junk?
 Throw it in the Cuisinart (stuff it kind of full, or this will take a while as I found out), with maybe a 1/4 cup of oil, and use the pulse button, not the chop button, you don't want to make paste, just finely chopped.
 The pieces should be small enough that they hold together, but not so small that it is pasty like pesto can be.  And, add more olive oil if it's not holding together too well.

 Smash it in the tray, and freeze! They will pop right out, and they you can just throw them in the freezer. I figure one little tartlett is equal to about 1 tablespoon of fresh herbs.
 I can't wait to throw this in some lasagna! Fresh parsley just tastes SO much better than dried!
 Where's the maid??

Wednesday

An Exercise in Pizza

Officially, our house does not have air conditioning. Unofficially, we have 2 "whiskey tango" window ac's. If it were up to Andy, those bad boys would run 24-7 as soon as it warms up enough for him to put away his long underwear for the season. I like to use them only when it hits 90+ outside, and would prefer to just keep the windows open and enjoy the fresh air. But, I do what I can to keep the house as cool as possible, and one of those things is trying to use the oven either only in the morning, or not at all. Well, it's tough to work in one of our staple dinner rotations, pizza, when you can only cook it in the morning. So, I decided to give bbqing a homemade pizza a shot. I have done the take-n-bake kind on the bbq, but never a homemade one. A while back my friend Kelly told me that my new favorite cooking gadget, a Silpat, could withstand up to 480 degrees (she also told me broiling on them is a bad idea...bad Liz!!). Well, our bbq on high usually hits somewhere between 350 and 400, so I figured I was safe to give bbqing a pizza on a Silpat a shot. It ended up working GREAT!! No burning the bottom or the top waiting for the top or the bottom to get done, and the crust was nice and crispy, and not a bit soggy! I was unsure at first whether to cook the crust by itself and then add the toppings, but went with it all in at once, and was 100% pleased with the results! Oh, and we have a Traeger BBQ, so I'm not sure how a gas or briquette bbq would work, but I would think you would want to keep the temperature pretty low to keep the bottom from burning. Oh ya, and because I used a Silpat, all I had to do was wipe it off when I was done and that was the extent of my clean up! Happy Mom Factor for sure!! :)





YUM!