Monthly Archives: July 2011

What I Did with a Whole Bunch of Basil

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Basil

I got a massive amount of basil from the CSA this week. Here, in fact, is a self portrait taken with the basil in hand for scale. I think you will agree that this is a lot of herb, dude:

How do I keep basil fresh for as long as possible? This is how much I got this week from my CSA.

After quickly polling the internet on how to keep it fresh for as long as possible, I wound up trimming the ends and putting it in a vase of water as if it were a bouquet of flowers. I then put a plastic grocery bag loosely over the top. Almost a week later and the few stems that remain still have fresh, green leaves.

[207/365] Tomatoes and Basil

Over the week I added the basil to tons of salads, especially combined with the wonderful tomatoes I also received from the farm. Add a little olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper and you have yourself a treat. (Fresh mozzarella is optional of course, if you eat dairy, but totally not necessary, AHEM.)

Of course, you had to figure a bunch of pesto was also in order. And you were correct. That’s exactly what I made today. The last time I had made pesto, I thought the raw garlic was a little too, well, raw-garlicky, so this time I roasted it first. That was sort of a problem — I liked the flavor it brought, but I should have waited for it to cool down thoroughly before adding it to the mix. It was too warm and therefore caused the basil to wilt a bit, turning the mix a very dark green instead of the spring-like fresh green I desired. It tasted good, of course, but lesson learned!

[188/365] Pesto

(This photo is from my previous batch with the raw garlic — I didn’t photograph today’s batch because the color made me sad.)

Here’s how I do a vegan pesto (amounts are approximate):

1/3 cup olive oil
1/3-1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
all the fresh basil you have
1-5 cloves of cooled down roasted garlic (to taste)
1-2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (optional — adds a salty/cheese-like flavor)

Blend all the above in your cheapo walmart belnder and don’t worry. It will blend up just fine.

Here’s what I made with it for dinner:

Whole Grain Rotini with Pesto

Whole grain rotini
portobello mushrooms
Field Roast vegan sausage
fresh roma tomatoes from the farm
pesto
some fresh basil leaves

I cooked the mushrooms and crumbled vegan sausage in a pan with a little olive oil, deglazed it with a splash of white wine from my glass, and tossed in the chopped tomatoes just to warm them up at the end. I added this to the cooked pasta and put a couple big globs of pesto in there and stirred it around. As you can see by now, this is a highly technical recipe. I hope you are paying attention there in the back row.

This dish was so good and satsfying that I literally exclaimed aloud to my empty apartment about it. Go forth and try!

Seven Links

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Hello, friends! It’s been quiet around these parts lately because while the teaching-heavy part of my summer is over I am now finding my time totally consumed with the process of moving. I am moving across town into a bigger, better apartment this weekend, and it’s been a rush to get a moving date set and to get packed and organized. I’ll fill you in on all of that plus other bits of news soon, I promise.

For right now, though, I am stopping by to participate in a little meme that has been going around the blogs I read lately — it’s called Seven Links. It looked like plenty of fun and I was thinking about joining in even though no one had tagged me, but lo and behold Chrissy tagged me this morning, just like it was FATE. So here we go: I am going to choose a past blog post from each of these categories, and in the end I am supposed to tag five other bloggers to participate.

[345/365] Finish Line in Sight

1. My Most Beautiful Post This is a tie. I first thought of my marathon recap, because for me, completing that race was the culmination of a lot of beautiful things in life. Not just four months of training, but years of working on my own health, fitness, and confidence. Also, it wasn’t just about me but about the amazing support I received from so many friends (including you).

[6/365] Dave

I then thought of this post about photography and my forays into Project 365, where I document the year with one photo a day. I have learned through all of this that I won’t necessarily take a beautiful photograph every day, but the effort to seek beauty in the everyday is a beautiful enough thing in itself.

2. My Most Popular Post By far, the post that gets the most hits through google is my satirical post about “How to Gain 100 Pounds,” receiving dozens of hits a day. I highly doubt that the tongue-in-cheek advice I give in that post is helpful for anyone in anything other than a comedic or therapeutic sense, though. It’s a bit ironic, too, that this post receives the most hits, because I remember when I first posted it, I felt so anxiety-ridden that almost no one commented on it, which we all discussed in the follow-up.

[267/365] The Theatah

3. My Most Controversial Post I don’t tend to write much of anything controversial around here, but I think this post, “Wrong with Me,” in which I explore the mental issues that cause me to score extremely high on the autism spectrum test, certainly allowed people to choose which “side” they were on, and some interesting comments followed. My favorite question there is the museum vs theater debate. Which one are you?

[2/365] Dough

4. My Most Helpful Post I’m not sure, but I think I’m going to go with my pizza crust how-to post. I now know several friends who have brought this pizza recipe into their lives and are the better for it. I made some just the other day in fact, and I highly recommend it!

5. A Post Whose Success Surprised Me One day I got the idea in mind to talk about nicknames and aliases. I think I just felt weird at some point about going by a blog nickname that almost no one in real life uses for me. I wound up nattering on a bit about all of the nicknames I have had in life, and a surprising number of people joined in the conversation. Names are always a fun topic, though, I think, so this shouldn’t have surprised me.

6. A Post I Feel Didn’t Get the Attention it Deserved It’s not that I think my post about the wisdom of Miyagi-Do karate was necessarily great writing on a timely subject, but I thought it was good enough. I really do think “come back tomorrow” is some of the best advice in any situation. Just keep trying; keep doing. I’m mostly surprised, though, that more people didn’t share my love for The Karate Kid, one of the greatest sports movies of our time. C’mon, guys, that crane kick will live on forever! Why doesn’t anyone else love The Karate Kid as much as I (and Sho) do?

7. The Post I am Most Proud Of I don’t know what it is about this post, but it’s one I really liked at the time of writing and that I still like (and occasionally re-read — guilty!) today. I wrote about some of my history with body image, specifically about the “thunder thighs” I was told I had as a kid, and how running and other sports have changed my view of myself. Plus, this post has that great list of terms for the quads from the Myoplex ad that I just love beyond reason: The Moneymakers, Four on the Floor, The Jackhammers, The Quad Squad, The Tree Trunks, The Gravity Killers! I think I’m mostly proud that I actually felt this way and proceeded to write it.

So anyway, feel free to peruse these posts from the archive if you need something to read at work today, and I will hopefully be back soon with an update on my new apartment and other such fun.

Here are the five bloggers I nominate to participate and post seven links of their own, if they so choose:

Emma from A Century of Nerve
S. from Simply Bike
Holly from Holly Would if She Could
Liz from InnerTeub
KerriAnne from (of course) KerriAnne

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Wedding Weekend, Harry Potter Party, Back to Life.

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After a busy wedding weekend, some fourth of July festivities, and a week of work and recovery, I am finally back to a somewhat normal routine again. The amazing wedding + holiday weekend was worth all the ensuing exhaustion, let me tell you.

I was there all day snapping photographs as the couple got ready in their separate hotel rooms, the families posed for pictures in and around the chapel, vows and rings were exchanged, and then we all ate, drank, toasted, and danced — and a few of us may have gotten something in our eyes at various points, in particular during the vows (which they wrote themselves) and the toasts. It was a long day, but a great one — one of those times when you can tell you are surrounded by a bunch of genuinely happy people.

Below are a few of my favorite pictures from the day:

Getting Ready

Douglas Adams

Reception

Reception

Today I spent the day with a few friends over to watch the last three Harry Potter movies, marathon style. We saw Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince, and The Deathly Hallows Part I. Next week: the big finale! Oh boy. Any HP fans out there? Are any of you going to a midnight premiere? All of ours are sold out, so it’s going to be an after-work Friday matinee for us here.

This coming week I have to get back to triathlon training as much as possible (and as much as my tight/strain-prone hip flexors will allow), get in some strength training (to hopefully counterbalance the above-mentioned hip problem), and get back to some clean eating. Weddings and parties are fabulous, but one cannot exist on cupcakes and wine alone. Not even cupcakes and wine with the addition of potato-heavy hangover breakfasts. Take it from me. Time to start eating more greens.

Midsummer, Keep Snapping

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As I sit down to write this post, it is Friday. Not just any Friday, oh no, but the last Friday — the last day — of my crazy overlapping class schedule. After today, I’ll only be teaching one summer class, three times a week. In the afternoon. As someone said to me the other day, my office will not even need to exist for me until noon. I am breathing a huge sigh of relief that this crazy-busy part of the summer has passed and I’ve survived.

I’ve got a lot of good things to look forward to in the next month and a half before fall semester begins. In addition to my one remaining class, I plan to do some work on an article I’m writing and continue training for the triathlon. On that front, workouts have been fewer and less intense than I would have wanted, due to a recurring, nagging, GDMFing hip-flexor issue I have. I am taking care of that and just hoping it resolves. The triathlon is coming up August 7th and then I’ve signed up for the Savannah Half Marathon on November 5th. I might also be doing a marathon relay in Atlanta the week before that, but we haven’t officially figured out the team(s) and signed up yet. I am looking forward to continuing the summer of tri training and a fall of running. Wheee!

This weekend, I’ve been saying, is like the turning point in my summer. It marks the end of the crazy schedule and the beginning of feeling like a normal human again. And, AND! This also the wedding weekend of my good friend Golightly and her guy, P. Their wedding is this Saturday, and guess what? I am photographing it! Yes, ME, a wedding photographer!

[82/365] Old School

I am an amateur at photgraphy and have NEVER done anything of the kind before, so this is both exciting and a little daunting. Obviously, I love photography and I love the chance to take pictures of my friends (as opposed to just my food, drinks, and dog), but I’m also just hoping I do justice to the event, the couple, and all the guests. If the food or music at a wedding is bad, people will soon forget about it, but if the photos are bad? Those are sticking around for a while. Like, as in FOREVER. Ulp.

Anyway, I am just going to be there, with my camera, all up in people’s faces and snapping away the entire time. The more snaps, the better the chance there will be enough good snaps. This is a lesson I reluctantly learned from my dad (also a photographer) back in the days of expensive 35mm film, when to keep relentlessly snapping was a fairly pricey philosophy to espouse. He always says, “isn’t it worth it, to capture the best photos? Just take lots and lots of pictures.” This advice is a lot easier to follow in the digital age, where memory cards are huge and digital space is practically free.

So anyway, wish me luck on this one! I’m not sure if I’ll be sharing any of the pics publicly (it’s up to the couple’s approval of course), but I’ll definitely let you know how it goes.