Thanks to Oddmonster at Hooray for Dogs!
The worst part about being broke, for me, has always been when you feel broke. When you let the bank balance and bare cupboards get you down, to the point where you start to feel like that wee one digit before the decimal point's some kind of judgment on your eternal sooooooooooooooul.
What can I say? When I get down, I get dramatic.
So I try to find some small indulgence I can give myself until things get better. It's gotta be small and it's gotta be worthy of the splurge, and let's face it, I am hella food-motivated. It's gotta be edible. For me, every time, basil does the trick. Fresh basil, in the summertime, is spectacular. It's fragrant and vivid and tastes amazing. As I have a black thumb, though, I have to buy it at the shop. If you're lucky enough to be able to grow it, it can still be an indulgence, and a clever one at that. Let me introduce: Frankenpesto!
(I feel like he should have some music or something)
The canonical ingredients of pesto are as follows: fresh basil, sweetest most virgin olive oil, aged parmesan, pine nuts picked by hand by retired left-handed nuns, and garlic.
Now, some of those things are perilously expensive, and are not, more importantly, threatening to expire in my fridge.
(Sidenote: it's true, I am possibly over-thrifty in using up everything in my fridge. This is genetic; my grandmother lived through The War, and we've caught her scraping mold off things that she really shouldn't have way too many times. On the other side of the coin, though, CHEESE IS ALREADY MOLD. Sigh. Where was I? Oh! My fridge.)
So, having gotten, out of the blue, a very large bunch of basil that needed to be used up before the heat got it, I canvassed the fridge, and found absolutely none of the above ingredients. Except I did have:
--cheddar
--suspect heel of cambozola
--spinach attempting wiltiness
--plain old canola oil
--cashews and almonds
Seriously, cooking should be fun, and I really can't taste the difference between my pesto and the store-bought pine-nutted version. Right! If you've never made pesto before, it's dead simple. Wash your basil leaves. I personally swear by my salad spinner, which I found at a garage sale for $1. Why? Because every single garage sale ever has a salad spinner. Don't believe me? Hit the pavement this weekend and check for yourself. They're super-useful little critters.
Wash your basil, and assemble the food processor. Or if you're cheap and broke, your blender, the same one your husband mixes margaritas in. Tequila forgives a multitude of sins.
Puree your basil in small batches, while adding tiny (tiny!) splashes of oil to keep things moving. Once you've got a nice base going, toss in some salt and some minced garlic. Puree puree. More basil. Puree. Now some shredded cheese (puree) or some roughly sliced cambozola (purrrrrree). Maybe a dash more oil and another thick handful of basil. Puree. I added spinach too, for undetectable bulk. Puree. Once you have a nice goopy base. Toss in your nuts.
(Now now, peanut gallery)
Puree. Thunkathunkathunka puree-under-protest. Puree.
Keep going until it tastes right. Seriously that's the whole process right there. Then you can freeze some, or mix some with pasta, or you can be me and suck it out of the blender with crackers before your husband detaches from You!Tube and wanders in looking for dinner.
Do not puree. That's punishable with a jail sentence. Instead, simply sit on the back stoop in the sun and have another cracker loaded down with garlicky, cheesy basil goodness, and feel like at least for the moment, you might be the richest person in the world.
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Kid's party treats - a sweet and affordable idea!
Banana-Choc Icebergs
The original recipe from littlies.co.nz can be found over here, but my method is cheaper and just as tasty!
Chop a banana into 1 - 2 inch long rounds. Into the base of each, push an iceblock stick** (don't poke all the way thru!). Lay on a foil-covered tray (You can also use an empty icecream container), not touching, and freeze for 15 mins.
Make butter-free chocolate frosting (I'll bring you the recipe in a few days - basically, it's icing sugar, cocoa and a little hot water.) You *can* use butter icing if you prefer here, but it's not necessary, and the creaminess in the taste is lost in the freezing, so it's a good opportunity to save a few pennies!
Dip each semifrozen banana in the icing, and top with hundreds and thousands. Pop a chocolate button or similar on at least one side of the icing - this is to "rest" on on the tray so the icing doesn't get smooshed!
Place back on the tray, button-side down, and pop back in the freezer, still not touching.
They'll store for a week nicely in the freezer, and once they are frozen, you can lift them off the tray and pop them in a container in the freezer - as long as they're frozen, they wont stick to each other.
**TOP TIP: When we were little, my mum used to use skewers for this. It meant she didn't have to go out and buy single-use iceblock sticks specially!
The original recipe from littlies.co.nz can be found over here, but my method is cheaper and just as tasty!
Chop a banana into 1 - 2 inch long rounds. Into the base of each, push an iceblock stick** (don't poke all the way thru!). Lay on a foil-covered tray (You can also use an empty icecream container), not touching, and freeze for 15 mins.
Make butter-free chocolate frosting (I'll bring you the recipe in a few days - basically, it's icing sugar, cocoa and a little hot water.) You *can* use butter icing if you prefer here, but it's not necessary, and the creaminess in the taste is lost in the freezing, so it's a good opportunity to save a few pennies!
Dip each semifrozen banana in the icing, and top with hundreds and thousands. Pop a chocolate button or similar on at least one side of the icing - this is to "rest" on on the tray so the icing doesn't get smooshed!
Place back on the tray, button-side down, and pop back in the freezer, still not touching.
They'll store for a week nicely in the freezer, and once they are frozen, you can lift them off the tray and pop them in a container in the freezer - as long as they're frozen, they wont stick to each other.
**TOP TIP: When we were little, my mum used to use skewers for this. It meant she didn't have to go out and buy single-use iceblock sticks specially!
