End of Summer

I hate the end of summer. It's the end of the growing season. And we're facing a frost tonight, so I had to deal with it head-on.

All my green tomatoes.....



And the cherry tomatoes...




And my basil. My basil kinda went neglected this year because of the stinkin' Japanese beetles. They were everywhere... and my basil plant, being something green with leaves, had some stubborn beetles on it that would not go away for awhile, like anything green with leaves in the 100-mile area this year. Sigh... this was all that I could get out of non-damaged leaves....



But... it will live on. First up, some basil butter. Basil and softened butter into the mini food processor....




Mmmm... basil butter.



It's in the freezer right now, waiting for me to make some fish or something.

I also wanted to try something I read on the web awhile back about layering cut basil between layers of shredded parm. I liked the idea of that and wanted to try it. I lucked out, parm was on sale at the produce/deli mart and I said to give me about an "inch slice". I love the guys there, they usually do very good work, but I will never ask them again to slice some parm for me. I do not know what they did, but they pretty much ruined the integrity of the entire hunk o' parm. As soon as I tried to grate it, it fell to pieces.....


Guess it looks like I'll be doing "hunks of parm" in a bowl on my cheese tray if we have the folks over on Christmas again, because ALL that parm did as I tried to grate it was crumble. Oh well.


In the end, I got about a cup of shredded parm that I did not exactly layer, just kinda mixed it all together. If it works to give me a nice sprinkle of parm & basil on red sauce come January, I'll be happy.