Liquore al Basilico - Homemade Basil Moonshine

basil-liquor-liquore-drink-basilcello-recipeLiquore al basilico - the original recipe and our batch, Day 3We came back from our honeymoon and not even 24 hours after our return we were already craving, well, EVERYTHING we’d been consuming for the past two weeks. In the morning we longed for a fluffy mound of sheep’s milk ricotta and homemade jam on our toast, lunch just wasn’t the same without just-picked, still hot from the sun tomatoes and a bottle of Primativo (especially without the Primitivo), and Dinner… let’s not even get in to that! I might cry.

A quirky local treat we enjoyed to no end were the house made Liquore’s served as a digestive after dinner. The style varied depending on the region and town
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Got Heart - Eating The Offal


pig-pork-heart-cleaned-freshPig Heart - freshly cut on the right, cleaned on the left

That's right - Heart! Another offal nutritional superstar, heart is rich in iron, niacin, pantothenic acid, phosphorous, riboflavin, selenium, thiamin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and zinc. You can check out heart's nutritional information here. Handling and cleaning the actual muscle was interesting - more like theater than cooking!  I really wanted to stage a shoot of me pretending to rip the pig heart out of Scrapple's chest, Indiana Jones style, but then decided it might be best to wait until AFTER we were legally married to broach the subject of acting out strange mock ritual reenactments. Maybe next time?  

When contemplating how to make the tastiest first attempt at cooking this noble muscle, we asked the dudes behind the butchers counter at The Meat Hook for their advice. The general consensus was

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Sweet & Savory Summertime Treat - Fresh Blackberry Basil Honey Jam With Feta

Blackberry-Basil-Honey-Jam-Little-Seed-Farmfresh honey blackberry basil jam with feta
Just a quick “thank-you-for-coming-back-alive”  treat I cooked up for Scrapple when he came home last weekend (we had our bachelor/ette parties). Nothing like a little positive reinforcement! We had a gorgeous half pint of blackberries in our CSA share - looking like gigantic gems ready to burst. I almost just gobbled them all fresh but had been wanting to try a berry basil combo of some sort and boy am I glad I did! I'm a huge fan of sweet-savory combos and this one did not disappoint.
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