Earlier this month I changed my cafe meal plan to the 90 meal option. This was mostly because David Beck and Will Tanner were not only going to, but they were excited about doing it. For a while I was super nervous, I wondered how difficult it would be. For the first time in my life I would be responsible for providing the majority of my meals.
Then, this last week while I was working at the STOGROW farm, I got really excited about the idea of cooking for myself. I’m not sure what changed exactly, but I decided I wanted to make the most of what’s to come. So, yesterday I picked 4-5 pounds of basil and Abby Benson (a fellow farmer) helped me make pesto with it. I’ll put the pesto recipe I used below.
This morning I went out and picked 7 ½ pounds of strawberries from Lorence’s Berry Farm. I then sliced the strawberries, sprinkled a little sugar on them and threw them in the freezer next to the pesto. Frozen strawberries are excellent on ice cream and in smoothies.
Once STOGROW tomatoes start coming in, I hope to sun dry, can, and make some tomato sauces for next year too. I’ll post again in early September on the results.

Pesto
Ingredients:
1 Cup (packed down) of fresh basil
Anywhere between ¼ to 1 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
1-2 garlic cloves
1 lemon slice
A handful of Pine nuts
6-8 tablespoons of olive oil

Directions:
Using a food processor of blender (preferably a food processor) dump the basil, olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese, pine nuts into the food processor. Then squeeze the lemon over everything. Run the food processor until you get the texture you want. If you want freeze the pesto, pour the pesto into an airtight bag or Tupperware container then pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil on top of all the pesto and seal the container.