Pasta and pesto, with a twist

Yesterday's lunch was pasta and pesto, as you can see in these pictures. You might wonder where we get fresh basil at this time of year. Well, we don't. We make pesto using radish leaves. You may have noticed that we eat a lot of radishes in springtime, when they are at their best. When the "tops" (leaves) are pretty, we wash them, and then blitz them with some olive oil using a stick blender. Into the freezer they go. Are radishes sold with their leaves still attached in the U.S.?

I almost forgot to mention that I bought another smoked chicken at the supermarket a day or two ago. We had some of the smoked chicken breast meat as a side dish with the pasta and pesto.

When we decide to eat some radish-leaf pesto, we let the ground-up leaves thaw, add grated Parmesan cheese along with some pine nuts or powdered hazelnuts or almonds (plus a pressed garlic clove or two) and stir that all up. We put a good "puddle" of pesto at the bottom of a big bowl and add pasta lifted right out of the water it has boiled in, and stir it again. The cheese melts. If the pesto is too thick add a few tablespoons of the hot pasta water to thin it to the desired consistency.

Confinement

We are confined not to quarters but to our property, unless there is a compelling reason to leave it. Blame the weather. One chore I would really like to get done is emptying the greenhouse. All the plants and especially all the junk needs to go outdoors so that I can clean the inside. But there is still a risk of frost and some plants might not survive outdoors. On top of that, most of the plants that have spent the winter outside need to be repotted.

The primrose bloom in our yard and hamlet is nearing its peak right now. I can't stop taking pictures of them because the colors are good for my eyes and my morale.

The grass really needs to be mowed, but the ground is still squishy and soft. With the rain predicted for this week, we'll still have plenty left to do when April comes.

The plant above is one that my mother had growing in her back yard in North Carolina until she sold the house in 2005. Back then, I took some cuttings and brought them to Saint-Aignan, where I put them in a pot. The plant comes back every year but now really needs a bigger pot. On the left, our cars won't be getting much of a workout this spring. Blame the weather. Mostly they get short trips to one of our two nearby supermarkets.

Soupe de poulet aux nouilles

This is what I did with the leftover diced chicken meat after I made that Morbiflette the other day. I made chicken-noodle soup. I had taken all the meat off the chicken carcass and then boiled the carcass with carrots, leeks, bay leaves, a turnip, etc. With that broth and the vegetables I made the soup, using yellow Asian wheat noodles.

Foggy views of the Renaudière hamlet and vineyard

We've had a couple of days of sunny weather. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be even nicer. Then we're in for a week of rainy, stormy weather, with mild temperatures. That's what the weather woman on TéléMatin just told us. On verra... ce qu'on verra.