After my fairly successful pesto experiment I realized that 1) I should do more with the herbs I've grown and 2) the basil and oregano in the backyard are out of control.
I was looking for recipes that would use fresh herbs and came across Kalyns Kitchen. This blogger gives instructions on how to freeze fresh herbs. Perfect! I would love to be able to use my own fresh herbs in the winter rather than buying it in the grocery store, shipped from goodness knows where, so I decided to do a little freezing experiment.
To freeze basil you apparently proceed almost like pesto - you clean and dry some fresh basil, pop it into the blender, cover it with olive oil and blend like crazy.
After that you can either put it into a container or freeze it in an ice cube tray so you have a tablespoon sized portion of fresh basil (with a little olive oil) whenever you need it. Perfect!
It actually looks a little gross in liquid form but it's going to taste delicious!
Freezing Oregano is a little more straight forward. You wash and dry fresh oregano, lay it on a cookie sheet and freeze it whole. Then you break off the individual leaves and store them in a container in the freezer for later use. Easy peasy!
Since I was on a roll I decided to roast a little garlic using a method my friend Eva recommended. You cut the top off the garlic head, pour a little oil over it and then bake it in the oven for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
The garlic then pops out of the head all warm and delicious! I had intended to pop most of this into bags for freezing and using it in soups in the fall, but it was so good I ate a bunch of it, warm out of the oven spread on bread instead. So yummy!
Despite my little foray into herb freezing I did have time to finish up the potholder that has been half done for years and years:
Doesn't look too bad and I needed some additional hot pads. But while looking through my scrap fabric - I found this:
ANOTHER half done potholder?? I spoke to Lianne last night and asked her if we really took two potholder classes when we were starting our quilting. It seems a little sad that we actually needed to take two potholder classes and that we didn't finish either one in the class - but I think that's the case. So, one more potholder to finish and then on to some other crafting! I've started to plan out some Christmas gifts. I realized that I'm actually behind if I want to get things done by December. How crazy is that? I'll update with my non-Christmas gift crafts (can't spoil Christmas!) as I finish stuff. Meanwhile - have a great weekend everyone!