July 26th, 2007 - Presto Pesto!
Presto! is not the right word for my marathon pesto making session last night. From heading out to pick the basil to final cleanup, it took me about 3 hours. ::whew::
I made 4 double batches of pesto (recipe below). Maggie helped with the leaf stripping for a while. She loves being my helper. Unfortunately, it didn’t hold her interest for very long so she kept coming and going. And she got in trouble when she decided to try a basil leaf, then tried to spit it out into the bowl! You can try foods, just don’t spit them out into the clean food! LOL
I don’t think this is enough to last me all winter. If I figured correctly, this batch along with the double batch I made two weeks ago will give us one pesto meal a week until next July. That’s not much! And that’s if Maggie continues to use just one cube and I use 2. I actually prefer 3. (I freeze it in ice cube trays for the most part. And if you are thinking of canning it, as I did, it isn’t recommended since it’s an uncooked food.)
My recipe is adapted from one Dad sent me a few years ago:
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 cups basil
1/2 tsp salt
5 twists of a pepper grinder (1/4 tsp in original recipe)
1/2 c olive oil
1/2 c freshly shredded parmasan cheese
Put the garlic in the blender first. You may wish to chop it up a bit to help. I sometimes put in even more, as I like garlic. Then put in the basil. I pack it down a bit, because I love basil. Then put in the salt and pepper, and cover with the olive oil. Process on lo/grind (my blender has lo/hi plus about 8 speeds; grind is 3/4s up) for 5 seconds, stop, scrape down and around, process again, repeat about 5 times until the leaves get crushed up. You don’t want liquid, but you don’t want whole leaves. This part always drives me nuts because at first, nothing but the bottom inch or so gets ground up. But every single time, it eventually works! Mix in the cheese with spatula.
The original recipe also included parsley and pine nuts. I don’t have any parsley in the garden (maybe next year) so don’t bother. Don’t grow pine nuts either and am not terribly impressed with them nor their price, so don’t bother either.
It will keep for a couple weeks in the fridge. Otherwise, freeze in small amounts. I use ice cube trays. Freeze for at least 24 hours, then pop out and put in freezer bags. Best to get out the day before you want to use them, but I usually don’t know. Will thaw in microwave in about 20 seconds for 3 cubes. Sometimes, they don’t pop out very easily and I end up with chunks. The trays are also VERY oily when done, but clean up nicely in the dishwasher.
Except for the salt and olive oil, I’m not particular about the measurements. Even on the olive oil, you needn’t be. One bottle ran out at 3/4c (double batch remember) so I just used that. Seemed fine. Another batch seemed a bit on the oily side with the full amount. Who knows? And garlic–I usually put in at least 5 regular or large cloves then one or two small ones, too.
Oh, yeah, the garlic came from the garden, too. Now, to make pasta this weekend?
August 4th, 2008 at 2:48 pm EDT
[…] The timings great as I just made my first batch of pesto for the year. I’ve been putting it off, although there’s been plenty of basil and we got the cheese a couple weeks ago. Last year, I did it all at once, taking 3 hours! I just didn’t want to spend 3 hours making pesto just now. Then it occurred to me (aren’t I just brilliant today?) that I didn’t have to do it all, I could just make one double batch. A cinch to complete, and I have about 1.5 cups of pesto in the freezer. (The other 1/2c is in the fridge awaiting pasta.) […]
September 4th, 2008 at 9:34 am EDT
[…] I just learned that I don’t make pesto, I make pistou. What’s the difference? Pistou doesn’t have nuts, and sure enough, I never put nuts in my pesto…I mean my pistou. […]