Eating Green Stuff

Sunday I canned the plum sauce -- I ended up with:

PLUM SAUCE:
2 - 12 oz
7 - 8 oz

I also made up a batch of cilantro pesto using three cilantro plants that bolted in James garden. It was a lot of work pulling off the little lacy tendrils (fortunately my friend Jon was here to help) -- it resulted in amazing. I ended up with about 2 cups of cilantro, added about 8 sun dried tomato halves (soft, not oil packed and not crunchy dried), pumpkinseed oil, olive oil, raw almonds, garlic, salt, pepper -- it came out incredibly delicious.

My friend Eric brought a bottle of wine and a head of cauliflower over while I was picking arugula and chard in the garden. We started planning dinner and were picking leaves off stems when James arrived. Our dinner was really delicious --

• Acme green olive bread with pesto I made earlier in the day
  
• Salad - red leaf lettuce (CSA), arugula (garden), mint (garden), yellow broccoli rab flowers (garden), heirloom tomatos (CSA) and avocado (store) with a gorgeous mustard dressing that Eric whipped up
• Cauliflower (Eric's CSA box) with broccoli rab greens and chard (both my garden), capers, garlic and other yummy stuff.
• Figs (CSA) and strawberries (garden) drizzled with saba

Eric and I were talking about combinations of pesto - he suggested I try chard-mint pesto. I've got about a pound of clean, dried arugula in the fridge, so tonight will be pesto night. I'll make up a few batches of pesto and freeze in ice cube trays. I still have a gallon of plum juice to make into jelly -- that might be tomorrow night's project.

I can't seem to pass up seed stands -- I bought some quinoa seeds at Whole Foods last year (and killed all the sprouts by forgetting to shut off the soaker hose) but can't locate any this year. I need to plant some more stuff after work: garlic (sprouted cloves), dill, oregano, and some seeds I just got -- spinach, micro greens, lovage and fennel.

The garden is doing really great -- the new arugula sprouts are coming up and the parsley is finally looking like parsley. I have a ton of chard and am probably going to plant more chard seeds in a week or two before I head out of town on vacation. The broccoli rab is continuing to send out shoots but they almost instantly turn to flowers -- the greens are still awesome delicious, so I am going to plant some more seeds on a tray and start a few more broccoli rab plants.

And, in the interest of equal time - the kitties are very pleased with the garden. Carmine and George like to sit inside the canopy of tomato plants where they can guard against the landlord's dog, Fred, who has done a few laps through the garden (EEK! No! Fred!).