grace grits and gardening - ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

photo session with a garden hose

May 29, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

I had a photo session in the garden yesterday with my photographer/gardener friend Jerry (Jmac Images). I needed a head shot photo for various blogger events (or so I’m always told), so I bit the bullet and “posed”. Awkward for me. Just ask Jerry.

Until I put on gardening gloves and grabbed the hose. Then it was fun.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

I love the way Jerry captured the garden in the background, the Promise of Peace sign, the blue sky.

Watering my tomatoes…

It was a fun afternoon!

Plus, I discovered another ripe strawberry. Bonus.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

“Water is the driving force in nature.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

Homemade Basil Pesto

May 28, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

Since I have lots of basil growing in my garden, I decided to make homemade basil pesto last weekend. There is nothing like fresh pesto. And if you’ve never made it before, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is.

Homemade Basil Pesto

Print Recipe

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 5

Total Time 10

Servings: 1 /2 cup

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

1 cup tightly packed fresh basil
2 Tablespoons pine nuts
1 clove garlic
1 inch chopped garlic scapes optional
1/3 cup olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons freshly grated Italian Parmesan or Pecorino

Method

Mix first 5 ingredients using food processor or stick blender.
Add cheese and pulse again until blended.
Refrigerate.

Notes

I used chopped garlic scapes because I had a bunch. If you aren't familiar, scapes are the flower shoots or stems of the garlic plant. They have a mild garlicky flavor—sort of a garlic flavored scallion. Feel free to omit this from the recipe, if you prefer.

As you can see, I didn’t chop my garlic scapes. Easier to blend if you do…

While basil is in season and readily available, you may want to make a large batch and freeze for later, but freeze before adding the grated cheese.

Use as a spread on sandwiches. Mix with pasta. Be creative! Pesto is great to have on hand. HERE’s a 25 recipe roundup using pesto—all the dishes look fantastic.

On Memorial Day, we used it on John’s amazing smoked basil burgers instead of mayo or mustard. (Recipe coming to the blog soon!)

Are you a pesto fan? What’s your favorite pesto recipe?

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

“A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”
― Saint Basil

Goodbye Calendar Girl

May 27, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

via MorgueFile

May is almost over. It was an exciting month for me because (in case you somehow missed it) I was “Blogger of the Month” at Arkansas Women Bloggers. As Calendar Girl, I was given free rein and my topics ranged from that 64-pack of crayons we all remember from childhood to the decline of rural America.

Yes, a random peep into how my brain works.

My last feature post as Miss May went live yesterday. I hope you’ll check it out. I’m talking about trending topics like #WhatJayZSaidToSolange. Sort of.

If you missed any of my Miss May posts, I’ve listed each below for easy access.