4 cups fresh basil
1 cup raw walnuts
1 bulb garlic (the entire head)
1 cup olive oil
1/2 - 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese, or a combination (I like less cheese)
a liberal amount of coarse ground black pepper (24 turns at least)
coarse sea salt to taste (taste pesto after adding cheese, then add salt; otherwise, you may over-salt your creation)
In a food processor, grind basil, garlic, and walnuts; slowly add olive oil with motor running; add cheese and pepper, and mix quickly; taste, add salt, adjust. Yep, it's that simple to make pesto.
The Almost Perfect Bite: pesto and tomato
OK. The only damn thing growing like hell won't have it in my garden this year is basil. Been making lots of pesto. Love. It.
ReplyDeleteDo this with all your extra basil: process 4 cups fresh basil leaves with 1 cup and a little more olive oil. Spoon the mix into ice cube trays, freeze for a day, then pop into freezer containers for winter use. These little basil cubes pump up the jam on soup. You can also thaw out the basil cubes and add all the other ingredients for a stellar batch of summer flavor in the middle of a cold, hard winter.
ReplyDeleteThree weeks ago, my basil got a major buzz cut. After a couple of hours separating 16 packed cups worth of leaves from stems, turned into a 1/2 gallon of pesto in little containers in the freezer. Rampant growth, repeat haircut, etc. now have another 1/2 gallon of little containers in the freezer. I've found pesto keeps very well in the freezer for a year, until you make more the following summer. Yum all year!
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