Wacky Wednesday

The Pretty Girl made dinner for Mom last night. Mom said it was really nice to have somebody cook for her. PG made Mondo Bizarro Sauce for pasta. PG was pretty secretive about the recipe, but Mom found it in the original Moosewood Cookbook. PG had been teasing Mom that HER pesto recipe was better than Mom's, so she was eager to prove it.

Mom said it was delicious and she will make it again, even though I think it is yukky green.

I did let PG pet me and give me scritches.

Silly Sunday

I am doing what any normal, intelligent Cat would do on a perfect summer Sunday (or any other day, come to that) which is, not much.Mom, however, went outside and started cutting leaves off her Basil plants.
When her giant colander was completely full...
she brought them inside, put them in the food destruction gizmo, add some other junk, and then put it in jars.She says it's called Pesto. Her friends call it "green gold" and practically faint if she gives them a jar of the stuff.

Have I told you lately how glad I am to be a cat?

Basilico

Mom got up yesterday, and went outside and picked this bowlful of Basil. (I think Fiona Bun will faint when she sees this.) There's Thai Basil, Genovese Basil, Spicy Saber Basil and Basil Green Ruffles and Purple Ruffled Basil.

She brought it inside, washed it and then made three batches of Pesto out of it.

Yech.

Formerly Feral Friday

Mom and I watched the International Space Station and the Shuttle Atlantis fly overhead the other night. I thought it was mildly interesting but Mom was all in a tizzy about it. I certainly wouldn't have known about that in my formerly feral life.

I got a package from Monty Q this week, but it turns out it was from Monty Q's Mom to my Mom. It's OK. Monty Q teleported over yesterday and we spent the day napping in the sun in the cat hammock after having a little bit of a nip fest. After that I tried to find Jasmine to pester her, but she was sleeping in Mom's closet. That's a No-Millie Zone.

I told you all that Mr Karate got tatted last week. His Mimmay went with him, and they didn't even tell Mom. I know some of you want to see it, but I don't have a picture. It is quite nice, for a tat, very simple and elegant. It is some kind of symbol for his Karate. He said if he was gonna put anything on the outside of his body permanently, it was going to be something that was already on the inside that he believed in.

Bounce Lucy and Trixie wondered if I would bat the pesto cubes all over the house. I dunno, they were pretty stinky before Mom put them in the bag. She likes gah-lic, but I sure don't. If I had managed to get them off the counter, and rip the bag open and spread the cubes on the floor, that would have been good enough for me.

My Secret Paw package is almost ready. It will go out on Monday.

I told Mom to get her own blog and leave mine alone. Sheesh, I'm tired of all this quilt business. So she posted about the Holiday Gizzys in progress over at the Bizzy for Gizzy blog. Check it out here. Don't expect any details about them though. That information will be posted on July 1, 2007 on both blogs.

Hey, speaking of quilts, there's a nice slideshow of quilts over there, but we still haven't received pictures of many of the Cats with their quilts. Mom would like to make a slideshow of those, so if you haven't sent your picture of you with your quilt, tell your bean to get going.

Thursday Thirteen

Mom is hijacking my blog. She still has pesto on the brain. Here are 13 things you can do with Basil Pesto:

1. Use it as a Sauce on Pasta (you may need to add a little of the pasta water)
   
2. Add to mayonnaise in a chicken salad (you can add cherry tomatoes too)
3. Mix it in with Mashed Potatoes
4. Add to tomato sauce for a flavor kick
5. Mix with mayo and dijon mustard as a spread for a roast beast sandwich
6. Add to a cauliflower vegie soup for a flavor punch
7. As a bruschetta topping
8. Add to tomato soup to make it less boring
9. Spread on a tortilla, then topped with vegies and feta cheese and cooked as a thin, quick, pizza
10. Mixed with mayo and egg yolks for a stuffed egg filling
11. Use some pesto on your next baked potato
12. Spread it on some grilled chicken
13. Put it on grilled swordfish

And I bet you don't need 13 guesses to know what - I - would do with the stuff.

Got 'Nip? Not Mom

Looky! I got 'Nip! Doesn't it look nice? Three pots of my very own Nip! Mom says it's doing very well and it has grown a lot in the last week, and it's getting bigger. She says she will have to move the plants in the smaller pots to a bigger one this weekend.

Of course her Basil is BIGGER!
She bought it already planted though, and kept it in the side hallway until it stopped frosting. Then she put it in a big pot outside, so naturally it is lots bigger. She has lots and lots of little basil plants in lots of other pots. You can see something she calls Jenn-o-vay-zee Basil in the reddish pot on the right.

So anyways, after she watered all her pots tonight (and she has a lot of them), and after she took these pictures she says "Hmm, that looks like enough Basil for a batch of Pesto."

Oh oh. Here we go. So she goes outside and picks all the big leaves off that Basil plant. (I bet it looks naked.)Then she washes and dries them. (Sheesh, they're leaves for goodness' sake!)

Then she puts some pine nuts in a pan and sticks them in the hot-as-hell box to toast. (We have a toaster, why can't she use that?)Then she puts four (count 'em - FOUR) cloves of garlic, some salt and some red pepper flakes in the machine she calls the squeezin-art. (With that blade it ought to be a cutting-art)

Then she went back outside to pick some Parsley, and washed that. (Oh yeah, this looks real appetizing, I can tell you right now. ... Not!)

And she grated up some of her special Parmezhjan cheese. (Ok, this stuff is good!)
Then she put all that stuff, plus some Lemon Juice (Yech, yech, yech) in that squeezingart thing and poured something she called X-vee-oh-oh in and ran that sucker (excuse me, cutter) and this is what happened:
Does this not look like THE most disgusting stuff in the whole planet? She called it Green Gold (ah, no, gold isn't green, it's Gold!) and then she put all over her dinner. I thought I was gonna hurl.

After that she put the yikkey green stuff (Now she calls it Pest-oh) in ice cube trays, covered it with sticky plastic wrap and stuck it in the freezing winter box.

Good. I hope it dies in that thing. What can I say? I have a very strange Mom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mom likes Tyler Florence's recipe for Pesto, which you can find here.
She says it stays bright green because of the parsley.

And check out the Bizzy for Gizzy blog.
Mu Shue Pooh has posted pictures of himself and his Gizzy quilt.

After all the Pesto business, Mom went into the sewing room and cut up
some more Holiday fabric for the Holiday Gizzys.
(Information about those coming July 1, 2007)

Another Dirty Day!

Check this out:
Three of these are supposed to be Red Rubin Basil.
Three of these are supposed to be Purple Ruffles Basil.
Three of these are supposed to be Sweet Basil.
Three of these are supposed to be Green Ruffles Basil.
Three of these are supposed to be Thai 'Siam Queen' Basil.
Three of these are supposed to be Spicy Saber Basil.

Six of these are supposed to be Genovese Basil.
Three are supposed to be Peppermint, three others are supposed to be Marjoram.

To me, they're all just DIRT! I just don't understand it. Mom gets 24 dirt pots of Basil and I get two measly dirt pots of 'Nip.

I mean, I know Mom likes Pesto, but this is ridiculous.


I'm just sayin'.