Home grown. Home made.

 

On Saturday I attended a demonstration for Basil Pesto. The co-ordinator of the group: Simple Living, Margy, is organizing some very lovely learning skills on simple living and each workshop and demonstration is to learn a skill for those who are looking to live a simple way.

The group and more about their workshops can be found here: Simple Living Toowoomba.

 

 

The demonstration for Saturday was to show how easy it is to make Basil Pesto. Fresh organic basil was brought in and the aroma was beautiful.

 

We were then given a recipe for the Basil Pesto as we watched Margy and David show us make the Pesto. They used both a small food processor and a bullet blender. Each processor gave a very distinctive finish to the Basil Pesto. The food processor gave a grainy finish, while the bullet blender gave a very paste like appearance.

To make you will need ¼ cup of pine nuts. 11/2 cups of fresh basil leaves. 2 small garlic cloves halved. ½ cup shredded parmesan and about 7 tbs of olive oil.

Toast your pine nuts until lightly golden. Combine nuts, basil, garlic, oil and parmesan in the bowl of a food processor and finely chop. Serve into a small bowl.

 

After the recipe was made we dined on the finish product with crackers and cheese.

 

When the demonstration was over we all had a cuppa and then we had a look at was was available on the take home trade table. If you brought in five items you could trade for five items. I brought in five items and went home with a generous handful.

 

 

My trade, the rosemary and parsley and my take home trade. The popcorn was delicious.

One of the flowers I brought home and planted with dad’s help. He knows about these types of plants. They don’t like full garden soil, they like mulchy soil and dappled shade. This Bromeliad is planted with some others from the same family.

 

It was a very nice time to be had for the day and I look forward to learning all I can from the group and their generosity.