The festival of "summer's end" falls traditionally on the thirty-first of October, but the hour came early this year. We had our first freeze on Saturday, a light freeze of exactly thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit that nevertheless brought ruin to many of the herbs. In preparation we took in the last harvest from the garden that we expect; if we get one more out of this week of warmer weather, that will be nice but unexpected.
The last tomatillos and some of the jalapenos got turned into a salsa verde, while the last guajillo chiles and some more of the jalapenos became a fiery red pepper sauce. We drew up many sweet potatoes and ordinary ones as well.
What really made the day, though, was the final basil harvest. Because it was dark by the time I got to it, and I didn't want the leaves to lose any of their freshness before I made them into pesto, I substituted some ingredients. I was out of both Parmesan and Romano cheeses, but I had some very strong and crumbly three-year-old cheddar that I used instead. I was also out of pine nuts, so I substituted walnuts. The result was an exceptionally creamy pesto with a smoother flavor.
2 comments:
Mmm. I'll have to pass this along to my husband. He's the pesto maker in the family - we did our last basil harvest about 10 days ago. He used walnuts in this last batch (which he's done before) and he's also used almonds - both very good. He's never tried cheddar however so perhaps next summer.
You can make pesto with other herbs besides Basil. My wife has made both parsley and arugula pestos.
You can probably do it with just about anything, as long as you don't forget the garlic.
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