Saturday, April 16, 2011

aglio e olio, Aerogarden basil



This is the dish that all Italians are born knowing how to cook. ← Possible exaggeration. It is easy as boiling water. ← Another exaggeration. It uses no seasonal ingredients or any other ingredient that any normal household would ever be without. ← Lie. 

*  olive oil
*  garlic
*  spaghetti
*  Parmigiano Reggiano, and if you do not have this on hand always, then I just do not know what to say to you.
*  fresh parsley.

Here basil is substituted for parsley. That was the thing that inspired it tonight, if you can call a regular go-to comfort meal inspired. This is the dish one makes when one come home from a night on the town. It is the equivalent of a cheese sandwich. 

You see, the basil in the new Aerogarden kit is outpacing the other herbs in their pods. When the plants reach the lamps they will burn. Better to trim them now and equalize the height of all seven plants. I sense I will be doing this again before the lamps are adjusted upward. Check it out, Checkitouters. 


The front row is three types of basil, lemon, globe and Genovese. It is the lemon basil and the Genovese basil that is outgrowing the four in the back. I know from experience that eventually the four in the back will predominate by height, but they are slower to start off. The four in back include oregano, mint, dill, and thyme.

Here's what the unit looks like on top of the refrigerator. 


That was before ↑ the lemon basil and Genovese basil were trimmed. This is after ↓ the two basils were trimmed. 

This seed kit was planted January 26, 2011. Now is April 16, 2011. So that's two months and a week plus or minus a day or so. Maybe I should feed it some more even though the lights on the united haven't indicated to. Sometimes we indoor gardeners have to use our own judgement and not rely on electronic indicators. Because you never know, it could be a dastardly plot to erode confidence in American technological knowhow. 




No comments:

Post a Comment