My basil waiting to be turned into pesto - perhaps this weekend

ohhhhhhh lovely, if my daughter saw this she would be moving in with you lol

Woo Hoo!
Made some just this past weekend. Great on sandwiches! You will love it.

mmmm I can almost smell it!! Do you find pinenuts locally?

Yes, I go often into the pinewoods in the grounds of a monastery near where I live. It takes a year and day to crack them all open tho' as they are rather fiddly and very hard - but so tasty.

that must be part of the reason why they are so killer expensive...!

Yes and because you get back ache as you fiddle amongst the pine needles and get all dusty with the brown powder they're covered in, as sometimes they're still lodged under each of the "leaves" of the cone. Great fun tho'.

By the way, the big pine cones are great for burning in a log fire as they give off this lovely smell of resin.

I sure hope those pines are protected... we are paying an extremely high price for them.. I love to use them in baking...I put them in buttertarts. mmmmmm ... found a recipe of Marcella Hazan's for torte de aranchetta alla Anconetana...and I added pine nuts to the orange sauce...

Yes Lori, the pine trees are well loved and looked after, in fact some of them are so old and creeky that branches sometimes snap off in the wind, they are so brittle. I promise I only burn the pine cones that I collect from the ground and rummage through the springy carpet of needles to find the nuts.... you must send me the recipe !!! sound good

no problem...will have to look it up though...I collect recipes and my filing system needs work! lol.