http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x47966Oh my.
This, from the cooking forum on Skins's island; by the way, in case anyone didn't know it, some special bonfires from Skin's island are also posted in the eats, automotive, and hobbies forums here. And so if there's any lurking primitives narcisstically looking to see if they've been mentioned, they might want to check those forums too.
yellerpup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Aug-16-08 03:24 PM
Original message
Hostess gift idea...
Our friend is having a Lunacy party in honor of tonight's eclipse of the moon. It's a potluck and I'm taking a huge layered casserole of rissoto Milanese, meatballs and chicken with one of the layers being riccota cheese and mozzarella with fresh mint. She has tons of fresh herbs in her yard, so I went by yesterday after picking up parsley & basil at the Farmer's Market and she loaded me up with more herbs: rosemary, lemon thyme, oregano, chives, and of course a ton of fresh mint. In addition to my casserole, I was inspired to make a hostess gift of the herbs from her yard. I made a basil & mint pesto with walnuts and parmesan cheese with hints of lemon thyme, lemon zest and rosemary. I've been wanting to do this for years because I really don't enjoy mint jelly with lamb chops. I've tried this Backyard Pesto on goat cheese so far and it is YUM!
Maybe next time I'll try it with pistacio nuts! Anyone else have innovative pesto recipes?
The bonfire's mostly recipes dealing with some sort of paste (?).
yellerpup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sat Aug-16-08 11:30 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. That sounds great. You are always so in-the-moment with your food!
The party was a lot of fun. We had painters, sculptors, writers, an art curator, and assorted others connected to artists or literary folk in some way. Food was delicious and the mosquitos didn't start to show up until 11:00 PM. My casserole was devoured to the last grain of rice and people wanted to hug me. Nice glow from that. I love my blue state and my liberal crowd. Hope your Saturday was a winner, too.
franksolich's adopted grandmother, the hippowife primitive:
hippywife Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Aug-17-08 07:21 AM
Response to Reply #4
7. That really does sound like a blast.
So glad your dish went over so well with folks, too. We've managed to find pockets of liberals here, too, and it is refreshing to enjoy their company at times.
I used pecans in my last round of pesto because they were what I had on hand, and it turned out wonderful, but your idea of using pistachios sounds incredible!
yellerpup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Aug-17-08 09:21 PM
Response to Reply #6
10. Thanks for the pistou tip, NJCher!
The gift you took your gardening friend is a REALLY thoughtful and beautiful gift idea. I'm sure she will treasure it always no matter what the price or what she THINKS the price is! Two years ago we went to a pretentious local Art Foundation fundraiser and bought raffle tickets for one of the three hand thrown planters that supposedly had paint matched to the original paint on a fabulous restored Victorian mansion. They made a huge deal out of it and called the potter forward to take a bow just before the band started playing. It was a semi formal, very glamorous evening. Well, we won one of the planters and it was already planted with cuttings from the garden of this famous old house. After a year, the plants needed to be repotted so we bought a new pot, took up the surviving plants and there on the bottom of the pot was a label that read: "Made In VietNam." We now call the plant Maiden. I do have a recipe for Pistou in an old cookbook but I've never made it before. You've inspired me to give it a try.