Ye Olde Garden

Red basil, mint blooms and ripe chilis

The Red Rubin basil never did stay red for me. These days the leaves emerge green with red veining, but never fully color out. They have remained this way ever since I transferred them into starter soil, then placed outside during late spring. Could it have been stress-induced reversion? After reading some internet literature, I found out that the purple color in basil tends to be unstable and reversion back to green is typical. However, it still retains its characteristic basil scent when one draws close enough for a sniff.

7/7/2011 Closeup of reverted Red Rubin Basil 7/7/2011 Red Rubin Basil reversion

The pineapple mint specimens are all blooming like crazy. I need to cut them back again…I’m concerned they might reseed heavily, like the coral nymph salvia which has jumped into the lawn.

7/7/2011 Blooming Pineapple Mint 7/7/2011 Blooming Pineapple Mint

Finally, the Thai chili peppers are ripening. The scarlet and orange chili fruit are very eye-catching. K reported that these were some spicy-hot chilis; he harvested one a couple of weeks ago from a specimen I gifted him.

7/7/2011 Ripe Thai chili peppers 7/7/2011 Ripe Thai chili peppers

Ye Olde Garden

Butterfly sightings

I’d like to think that our summer flowers are bringing in the welcome garden guests. At least I’ve seen a half dozen honeybees working the gaura in the courtyard every morning. I’m hoping one of these days, the hummers will stop by the garden for a drink. But, in the meantime, the man and I were surprised by a couple of butterfly sightings. I caught my first sight of a black tiger swallowtail (a black and  blue-spotted butterfly) fluttering around in the courtyard on one day. Then, the honey showed me a yellow one of the same size perched in the photinia the other day. I suspect it is the male version of the tiger swallowtail, but because I didn’t glimpse any distinctive stripes, it could have been anything. In any case, I’ve put the honey on alert–capture a photograph of those butterflies at all costs.

Dining, Recipes

Brisket accomplished

7/3/2011 Brisket BBQ perfectedI got up later than planned on Saturday, around 8am. Which set me back on time to do the brisket bbq. I needed to stop by Home Depot to pick up a temperature gauge for our trusty old Weber kettle…and it was a purchase that paid off.

Initially, we were out of smaller options of untrimmed whole brisket at the supermarket, so the honey brought home a 14lb slab of beef. He seasoned it the previous night; I sliced it apart the next morning and reseasoned it. At 10:30am I put the point end (about 7 to 9lbs of fatty brisket) over some hot hickory coals and began barbecuing.

It wasn’t really until after 11am that I achieved desired temperature. The coals had burned too high (from 450F down to 350F) at the start and since I was frustrated with the process of going out in the midday heat every 10 minutes to check on the temps, I finally killed one of the banks. That got me below the 300F degree mark sometime after 12 noon and we were finally on our way.

The intent was to keep ambient temps in the grill between 200F to 250F. We worked out a system to refill with coals about every hour for about 10.5 hours. We watched movies all afternoon to keep us occupied while we waited on the brisket to finish, snacking on grilled sausages and potato salad in the mean time. Internal temps stayed around 160F in the later part of the day until I decided to add a small amount coals to the second bank to generate some heat and help speed up the bark-making process. At 9:30pm at 175F-180F we pulled the brisket off the grill and let it sit for another half hour. The honey grilled up some super sweet corn; then we sat down to eat.

It was truly the most sublime piece of meat that I had ever barbecued. Silky soft slabs of glistening beef fell apart as I sliced it. The slow cooking process achieved what we wanted; a rendering process that broke down the channels of fat in the meat to moisten and tenderize it. The honey declared it the best brisket we ever bbq’d–better even than Rudy’s.

And that’s how 2011 July 2 became the date of brisket accomplished.