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Posts Tagged ‘garden herbs’

In my kitchen…

…is a bag of Syrian za’atar.  The gentleman in the Arabic nut and spice store convinced me that it was better than the Jordanian product I normally buy, and I couldn’t resist the artistic presentation – reminiscent of the coloured sand in glass bottles that were all the rage when I was a child…

In my kitchen…

…is a bottle of Canadian maple syrup, a gift from our friends Kevin and Carol who were over there for a holiday a couple of months ago…

In my kitchen…

…are three loaves of sourdough fruit bread, made to a new formula I’ve been playing with – a variation on the one I made last year.

The dough has 500g of fruit to the 1kg of flour (800g flour/100g rye/100g spelt) and contains a mixture of dried cranberries, Turkish figs, sultanas, currants, golden raisins and the wonderful candied peel I found at Harkola last Christmas…

The peel gives the bread a festive fruit cake touch, although I didn’t make my own like Heidi does

In my kitchen…

…is a plate of greens from the garden, including basil, Italian parsley, purslane and sorrel..

In my kitchen…

…is proof positive that my friend Marty loves me!  He spent six months sourcing this kopi luwak as a surprise for me.  The coffee beans are a rare delicacy – eaten and then shat out by civet cats, whose digestive processes ferment the beans (which come out whole), resulting in an incredibly smooth and mellow coffee…

I took a handful to Manny, the world’s best barista, and he ground  the beans and made them up for us to taste.  It was a sublime and perfect way to spend an easy afternoon…

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Tell me, what’s happening in your kitchen this month?

If you’d like to do an In My Kitchen post on your own blog, please feel free  to use this format, and to leave a comment here linking back to your post.  We’d all love to see what’s happening in your kitchen every month too!

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Traditionally made with basil, pinenuts, garlic and parmesan,  pesto is now available in a multitude of different flavour combinations.

I’ve tried it with rocket, garlic scapes and sage in place of basil, almonds instead of pinenuts, and pecorino cheese instead of parmesan.  All were delicious in their own unique way.

Our recent herb glut left us with an assortment of greens, so we decided to try a mixed herb pesto.  It was a simple process – Pete gave the oregano a haircut, and I pinched off some lemon basil, purple basil and a couple of sage leaves – all of which were de-stemmed and rinsed.

These were then pulsed in the mini food processor with a single clove of garlic, pinenuts, parmesan and a little extra virgin olive oil.    The  mix was mostly oregano, which gave the pesto a very different flavour to the usual basil version.

I’ve stored the pesto in the fridge, covered with a little oil, but you could also freeze it in small ziplock bags (make sure you squeeze out as much air as possible).   A great way to lock up a little bit of the garden for those cold winter months!

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