Garden fresh

So last month brought me another year closer to thirty -- yikes! I got several awesome presents to mark the occasion this year, and today I'm highlighting one of them. My tita Malou (tita is Tagalog for auntie) planted me a wonderful mini herb garden with Manoa lettuce, parsley, dill, green onions, and rosemary. Tita Malou is a gardening genius . . . she has enough herbs in her homegrown garden to start a little farmers market. But I am happy to report that my mini garden is doing quite well a month later. I'm very proud of it! Let's take a closer look . . .

You can't miss the flourishing Manoa lettuce and parsley. They grow very nicely in the hot, humid, sunny environment.



And here you can see the hardy rosemary, delicate dill, and lovely green onions. The dill seems to agree the least with the sunny environment and has scorched in some places. I'm thinking it might be better off in its own pot in some shadier area.



I've been snipping pieces here and there to use in my cooking, but hadn't gotten around to trying the dill. Although I was excited to use it, I wasn't very familiar with what to use it for. With the current frazzled state it's in, I thought it best to use as soon as possible. Looking at what I had in the fridge, I decided on a BLT sandwich with herb mayonnaise. Here goes . . .

1. Toast bread and wash herbs thoroughly.
2. Take out and prepare other ingredients. I had cherry tomatoes on hand, but regular tomatoes probably would have been easier to eat on a sandwich.



3. Cut up the herbs (I used dill and green onion) and toss into the mayo. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and some pepper to taste.



4. Assemble sandwich and dig in!



Very yummy and fresh. There is something so satisfying about eating food that was just plucked from the earth. The addition of herbs adds so much flavor to a simple, everyday sandwich. I feel satisfied, but not overly full . . . the perfect disposition to finish with some Ben & Jerry's peanut butter cup ice cream!

Dinner and a Movie: Mostly Martha

On the recommendation of a friend, I rented Mostly Martha, a German movie about food and love. My kind of movie! Mostly Martha was very sweet and beautiful, but I didn't expect it to be so educational! I learned a few things from watching it. First, in Italy, basil is called basilico. I think it sounds so much nicer like that. And second, boiling a lobster is the worst way to kill it. I am truly sorry for the torture my friends and I inflicted on that tasty crustacean back in the college days. We didn't know! Apparently, you're supposed to deliver a precisely-placed stab to its neck. Now I know, but I think I'll leave the preparation of lobster to the professionals in the future.



There's a scene in it where the Italian chef Mario is eating a simple pasta dish, which served as my inspiration. It basically looked like noodles in a thin layer of tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. But the idea behind it is to use only a handful of quality ingredients, and really let them sing and shine together. So, I present this Roman dish, Pomodoro E Basilico.



If you find yourself with a healthy arsenal of basil as I did this weekend, this would be a good dish to unload it on. The use of such few ingredients really made me stop and savor their combination together . . . the acidic, tangy tomato . . . the nutty, pungent, earthy parmesan . . . and the star of it all, sweet basilico! I had to restrain myself from adding even pepper and garlic to the dish. It struck me as a bit odd that there was no garlic in the recipe. I will have to add it next time, because garlic makes everything better! For tonight, however, I did as the Romans do (well, as Fabrizzio Favale of Mediterraneo does, that is).

Result? Delizioso!