Tonight I made one of the simplest pasta sauces going and it tasted wonderful.
I grabbed a big bunch of Basil from the garden as it is starting to go to seed. I picked off all of the leaves, washed and dried them in the salad spinner.
There was about 4 cup fulls of leaves, and I put all of it into the food processor with 4 cloves of chopped garlic and 4 tablespoons of pine nuts that we had in stockpile. I chopped it up until roughly cut, then added a cup of extra virgin olive oil and processed it till smooth.
I grated half a cup of my Pyrenees with green peppercorn cheese and gave it a quick pulse till mixed through. Then pepper and sea salt to taste and hey presto, we have pesto. It was a taste sensation!
I cooked some fettuccine, served into bowls, then put about 3 tablespoons of pesto on top and sprinkled a little more of my home made grated cheese. We then stirred it through in the bowl and each ate it up with gusto. Kim, Ben and I finished off the pasta in no time flat, and both of them complemented me on a fantastic meal.
I didn’t realise that pesto was so easy to make, and that it has so much flavour when you make it yourself! I highly recommend it if you have lots of basil growing in the garden. I still have three more bushes growing, and I know that all I have to do is blend them and put it in the freezer until it is needed for another great pasta meal.
Happy days.
Yum! I bought a largish basil from the farmer’s market and have been wondering what to do with the excess. I’ll try this tomorrow, thanks!
Hey Gav,
so we will call that a 100% home grown producy then eh.
Keep up the good work
Phil
Love pesto! I had way too much basil in the garden last year and was able to freeze a ton of pesto and basil. Love it!
We love pesto in this house. Although we make ours sans the pine nuts (allergy) and it is always good. Great uses for left over pesto (we always seem to make to much) are as a pizza sauce (pizza is our favorite use of the little bits we have left over each week) but also on the Double Duty rolls posted by one of the writers at the co-op. I also like pesto in a baked pasta dishes. We always have left over lasagna noodles (cooked) so I freeze them, then thaw them rough chop them and toss them with pesto, alfredo (whatever left over sauce I have) add some spinach (fresh preferred but frozen works too), and some cheese, add some chopped up meats (left overs again) and toss the whole jumble in the over to bake to bubbly goodness.
Another pesto to try is guacamole pesto, use cilantro, onions, jalepenos and olive oil. Wonderful mix of flavors. Toss over cooked pasta or server over cold pasta sliced veggies. MMMMMM
Hi Gav,
Pesto is so delicious when you have home grown basil and garlic on hand.
Instead of pine nuts, you can use almonds, macadanian or pistachio nuts if you have these in your larder.
Freezing pesto in jars is the ultimate fast food to have on hand. It’s also a little taste of summer preserved for a wintery day. The french call it “pistou” and you put a dollop on top of a lovely vegetable soup not unlike minestrone.
Longing for cold weather (that’s after the tomatoes have finished!!!)
Cheers
Anita
Homemade pesto to jars of bought, is like fresh asparagus compared to tinned, or fresh corn cobs compared to frozen… sure, you can eat the other stuff, but you can get high of the fresh stuff!!! (I love it, BTW, LOL. Going to make some more this week for myself!).
Yum, I love pesto. A friend gave us some lemon basil plants recently, and I’m looking forward to them growing a bit and seeing how they go in pesto.
Mmmm, homemade pesto is way superior to any you can buy. Another variation is to use rocket leaves.
Thanks everyone for the tips and encouragement. It is the tastiest pesto I have ever tried. Far superior to the store bought gunk!
Gav
Aaah homemade pesto!
Last September (I live in Europe, so that’s summer time here) I made Pesto with homegrown basil, walnuts and garlic and store-bought parmesan cheese and olive oil.
Served the pasta with pesto to my sceptical looking husband… after finishing his pasta he asked “why don’t we eat this just every day?”
Love reading your blog!
Bettina