Hostess gift idea...

[yellerpup]

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?

[eleny]

1. Your pesto sounds better than mint jelly on lamb

Seems like it makes more sense than the jelly for having with lamb since it isn't sweet. :thumbsup:

[yellerpup]

3. Exactly! Smearing candy on meat does nothing for me.

Especially when the lamb is marinated with herbs and garlic and grilled onover charcoal... Now, I need to go find some nice lanb chops. :hi:

[hippywife]

2. Sounds really good, yeller.

And a nice little twist. I'm sure she'll enjoy the gift.

I mixed some of my pesto with the goat cheese today for that edamame salad I posted in the other thread. It was pretty good. I left the cream out of the dressing, tho, and added a little lemon juice and some baby greens.

Have fun at the party! :hi:

[yellerpup]

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. :hug:

[hippywife]

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]

8. Pecans sound delicious, too.

Can't get too nutty for me! (in food, that is)

[Hekate]

5. I have all those herbs in my own back yard, and now I really want to try making some!

God it sounds gooooood. :9 :9 :9 :9 :9 :9

The Lunacy Party sound good too!

Hekate

[yellerpup]

9. That's what I miss most about living in an apartment.

No way to garden--I can't even have a window box. Luckily, I have friends! You'll enjoy making your own pesto, it's easy to make and easy to customize. The party was fun and the Moon was beautiful last night!

[NJCher]

6. Make pistou with your herbs

Yellerpup, your casserole sounds divine and what you did with the herbs was both thoughtful and creative. One other thing you can do with herbs is to make what's called pistou. That's a mixture of herbs that goes in soup. Here's what Wikipedia says about it (and there's a nice pic, too):

"But it is most often associated with the Provencal dish Soupe au Pistou, a minestrone like summer soup that includes white beans, green beans, tomatoes, summer squash, potatoes, and vermicelli."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistou

There are a couple links to recipes using pistou at the above link.

We went to a party tonight, too, and for a hostess gift I took a 3-tiered planter that I bought at a home and garden gift shop. It is made of metal and was painted cream color and it had green stripes on it. In the middle of each level was a tole-painted rose and other white flowers.

The idea behind the gift was for the hostess, who is a garden friend, to be able to choose just whatever is interesting and growing in the garden and put it on display. Now, after I did the arrangement, I could see what a cool thing this 3-tiered planter was because it creates the effect of greenery with height. The planter is about 18" tall. I wished I had gotten one for myself.

I filled each level with clipped pachysandra and mixed in flowers that tied to tole-painted flowers in the design. In other words, mimicked the design.

Now, here's the problem. Once I got the design all done and showed it to my friend, with whom I went to the party, she said, "Did you remember to take the price sticker off? " I gasped, "No!" The price sticker was on the bottom and we didn't have time to disassemble the arrangement and turn the planter upside down to remove the sticker.

So unfortunately the gift has the price on it and I'm embarrassed--the sticker says $159.95 for the price but I did not pay that. And our hostess will know we didn't, either!

:blush:



Cher

[yellerpup]

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. Thanks! :hi:

[NJCher]

11. funny story!

at least it wasn't made in China. :)