Rubbishy Cookery

  Wow—today is not only the 50th rubbishy post, but also the Winter Solstice, and where I live, the first winter storm (a nor’ easter, no less!) of the year! Let’s get cosy and make a warm pot of Tuscan soup! Ingredients: What you’ll notice in the photo above is the great deal on ground turkey—enjoy today, 50% off! What a deal! What you may not notice in the photo above is that the fresh kale was harvested from my backyard garden just hours before the storm started.  Imagine—a December harvest of kale! And half price ground turkey! I feel hashtag blessed. Directions: Start by mixing ingredients for the turkey meatballs: ground turkey, a generous handful or two of quick cook rolled oats, 1-2 tablespoons-ish each of garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme, dried basil, not pictured but assumed S&P, and a really good amount of finely grated Parmesan cheese. Mix it all up with your hands and add more oats if necessary to get a good texture, i.e., one in which to form meatball...

  Of course I did not invent pesto. I started my independent culinary life buying pre-made pesto to use as a sauce, a dip, a topping. I graduated to using official pesto recipes, buying and measuring and mixing ingredients to make pesto. And I evolved to finally making large batches of improv pesto.  Improv pesto sometimes means pesto with surprises. Some surprises are better than others, as we shall see. Ingredients: Note: the pine nuts can be replaced with walnuts, and the fresh basil with other herbs. Cilantro or arugula make surprisingly good substitutes for some or all of the basil. Note #2: improv pesto means not measuring anything but adding amounts as the spirit moves you. This almost always works out fine. Note #3: I literally, as I am typing up this blog post, just noticed I forgot garlic. Garlic is a very important ingredient in pesto. This is a big omission. Directions: Wash and spin dry the basil (or alternate) and stuff it into the food processor (hopefully you h...