Early August in the Garden

Even with our tomato disaster, we've still enjoyed several side dishes from the garden. I dug up 2-3 hills of Kennebec potatoes. Some of them had been eaten on already. I thought about moles first, but after some reading and more digging I think slugs are doing some snacking. One of our favorite ways to fix potatoes is cut them into chunks and boil until slightly soft. Then we rub them with olive oil, add salt and pepper, and cover with lots of chopped rosemary and oregano, finally roast in the oven for about 30 min.
Our yellow pear tomato plant survived enough to give us a few treats. We're also getting a few from the sweet 100 plant and I found one decent roma. The other two bigger tomatoes came from a friend.
Clay's mom harvested about 40 ears of corn while we were gone. Clay and I harvested 34 ears, and yesterday I worked on preparing some for the freezer.
After shucking the corn and cleaning off the silks, which is one sticky mess, I brought the corn inside. Clay's mom let me borrow a great steamer. I steamed a few ears at a time for about 3.5 min. then placed them in an ice-bath for just a few seconds and laid them out to dry for a couple of hours. Then I just cut off the corn and vacuum sealed it. I ended up with seven bags that have about 4 ears of corn each.
I also made some pesto yesterday. I didn't take a picture of the final product, but the process is pretty simple. From the batch below I pulled off the best looking leaves. I washed the basil, gently in a strainer, because is bruises and turns black easily. I laid the leaves out on a towel to dry some. While the basil was drying a prepared the other ingredients:
3 cloves garlic - minced
3 Tbls pine nuts, or walnuts
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup olive oil
(You need at least 2 cps, basil, tightly packed)

Then in a food proccessor I add 3/4 cup, tightly packed basil and whip for a few seconds, and then add 1/3 of each item above and blend. I had to fix it in smaller batches because my food processor is small, and it gives you a better consistency. Then I put the pesto in an ice-cube try, so that it can be frozen in smaller portions for future meals. After it freezes in the trays, I slide the cubes out with a knife and store in freezer bags.

I added some pesto to a buffalo burger that Clay made, and learned that a little goes a long way, it was yummy, but you don't need a lot, or I just need to use less garlic when I make it.

I'm going to continue digging up the potatoes, since some of them are being eaten, and hopefully store them in my mom's basement. Our basement holds too much moisture. So although it is probably cooler than my parent's, I think they would mold easily in ours.