Walk enough trade show floors and you begin to appreciate not just the novel booths touting applications or gizmos to help your organization succeed–but those displayes that are relevant to other aspects of your life.
At the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, amid spectacular booths, filled with digital gadgets, I found flying pigs your kids can play with on a rainy day (thanks Microsoft, the irony was also welcome), a York Peppermint Pattie to give you a sugar-filled boost for the packed afternoon (thanks Traction Software), a smartphone stand to keep you both connected and hands free (thanks Cisco).
The booth giveaway that impressed me most this year was from NewsGator. They were distributing basil plant starter kits with these tips to cultivate your community:
Select at least one community gardener to nurture and shape the community.
Plot out a community objective with a clearly defined purpose stating why users would want to join.
Seed your community with appropriate content to encourage participation.
Harvest and publicly recognize valuable contributions in order to reinforce behaviors and drive engagement.
For those of you who planted those seeds and are looking forward to a green bounty, I offer my trusted pesto recipe in the hope you will make it and offer your variations. While this recipe makes a larger batch than a small plant will provide, it can easily be cut back based on the amount of basil you have or you can get more basil from a local market.
Pesto Ingredients
2 cups of basil leaves and seed buds firmly packed
1 clove of garlic (optional. This recipe is very good without any garlic, too.)
1/2 cup walnuts, almonds or a mix of both
1/3 cup fresh parsley firmly packed, OR 2/3 cup dried parsley
1/3 cup fresh-grated Parmesan, OR 2/3 cup packaged Parmesan without filler
1 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)
Combine everything in a food processor and pulse for 2 minutes or until everything becomes a smooth paste.
Toss with more olive oil and pasta or use as a flavorful dip for vegetables or meat.
If you have more than you can use within a few days, fill a couple 8oz jelly-jars half way, seal tightly–then freeze for up to two years. During the year I put a jar in the refrigerator to thaw and then spoon out as much as I need for meals. Each jar lasts several weeks in the fridge. As soon as the pesto defrosts I fill the rest of the jar with olive oil and then blend. The taste changes a bit from the freezing but it’s still fabulous!! I know there is debate whether you should freeze pesto with the cheese in it, yet I know if I didn’t add it at the time I made it, I wouldn’t do it later and then the pesto could never be as good.
Each 2-cup turn of basil yields me 2 8oz jelly-jars & at least 1 smaller container. I make several dozen 8oz jar fulls and another handful or smaller jars to give as gifts. Before I discovered jelly-jars are the right quantity for our family, I filled several ice cube trays with pesto then froze them. Once hard, I dropped the cubes into ziptop freezer bags so I could thaw a cube or two at a time.
If you make this recipe or have variations worth trying, please let us know in the comments below. Yum.
[photo credit: Marcia Conner]