Monthly Archives: June 2010

Infusions

I have a lot of herbs. I planted 3 types of basil (I only count one maybe two that have survived. tip: don’t use popsicle sticks as markers) and I don’t use a lot of basil. In fact, I don’t know of anyone outside of the country of Italy that would use this much basil. So I decided I had to do something. I made Lime-cello last Christmas (went over quite well) and I heard I could do the same with herbs. Herbs have a far shorter infusion time (36 hours instead of 6 month for fresh fruit). So. Here I am. Veritable small hills of basil, mint, and lemon verbena (the hell do you do with verbena??) and a Spec’s nearby. 100 proof vodka and Everclear in hand, I made up some infusions. So far:

  • 1 12oz jar of Everclear + Lemon Verbena (it turned green in 4 hours)
  • 1 12 oz jar of Basil + Everclear (again, green in 4 hours)
  • 1 12 oz of Basil + vodka (not as vibrant green in a day)

This was done Sunday. I still have not strained out the herbs. why? LAZY. I will do it tonight and probably won’t sweeten it until it’s aged up a bit. I dunno. Sugar is cheap.

Jams!

Cherries were on sale a couple of weeks ago. I made 4 12oz and 5 1oz jars of nice cherry jam! No pictures. Of course. Because this is the poor neglected bastard blog.

That week I also made 3 quart jars of pickles from cucumbers I got at the farmers’ market. Two jars were kosher dills from a recipe I found online (using fresh dill and a bit of basil from my garden) and one was kosher dill with a bit of curry powder. We’ll see how those turn out