Tuesday, August 19, 2008

For the Bounty of the Earth

We live in such a beautiful world! Last Thursday, I picked up two bundles of basil from the farmers' market (Oh, how long I have waited for this day!) and picked at least a bundle's worth from a pot in our garden. That night, we had pesto for dinner, and even better than that, made seven more batches of pesto to put into our freezer for the winter.

While Hubby worked on the pesto, I took a large bowl out behind our building with a stepstool and got to work picking blackberries. Since they hadn't been picked since before I left on our vacation, there were tons of super ripe berries just falling off into my hands. I ended up with twelve cups of blackberries and about half that much in juice and puree after I had seeded them, just enough for two batches of freezer jam.

The whole time that we were working on making pesto and picking blackberries, I couldn't help but be grateful for the bounty that the Lord puts on this earth and for the desire that I had to take advantage of it. Once again, we won't have to buy jam for another year (especially since I've made another batch since and have enough juice for one more) and I certainly won't be tempted to buy pesto, or even basil, from the grocery store. We'll certainly be making more pesto while the market still has basil and with the jam and pesto, we'll be eating summer all year long.

4 comments:

Delirious said...

You know, I pay my tithing, and I believe the scriptures that say that my vines won't cast their fruit before their time, but what am I doing wrong that the fruit doesn't grow well in the first place? :) I love to garden, but this year's garden was a dismal failure. I want some pesto!!!

Marianne said...

You inspire me, Sarah! I have TONS of basil and even the recipe for the pesto sitting on my desk so I seriously need to just make it up. And even though I HATE gardening, I've been very pleased and feel very blessed with the bounty from my garden. It is a definite gift from God.

Fromagette said...

I have to admit that the basil from our "garden" was already well started when we got it. My sister-in-law brought it from Utah to give to my mother-in-law, who offered it to us once my sister-in-law went back home. We had very cold weather until mid-June/July, so the rest of our garden got a rather slow start.

Jeanerbee said...

Could you PLEASE post the recipes for the Jam and Pesto??? Pretty please?!