Making Pesto With Friends

Four of us got together yesterday to make pesto.  My friend grew it from seed and had massive amounts.  Grand pots full of that wonderful smelling herb are all over her porch and deck.  She harvested and we got busy with the rest of the necessary ingredients and chopped, minced and whirred until we had  batches and batches of fresh pesto for our freezers.  We tried different olive oils for different menu ideas and now we’re set…until the next harvest.

                                                                                  Freshly picked and rinsed basil

 

               

            Freshly toasted pine nuts                                                              Chopped Parmesan and Romano cheese and garlic

                                                         Everything in the food processor, ready for mixing

 

                       Adding olive oil and pulsing until everything is well mixed and blended into a beautiful green paste

 

                                                                      All spooned up into our small freezer containers (1/2 cup)

 

Here’s the basic recipe but you can really just go with your feelings

4 cups basil leaves

1/2 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese

1/3 cup toasted pine nuts

4 garlic cloves

salt

1/2 cup olive oil

Stuff basil into food processor with cheese, pine nuts, garlic and salt.  Pulse, then run while drizzling olive oil.  Continue until mixtures resembles a thick, coarse paste. As the leaves break down to form the pesto, we continued to add another batch on top of this one, re-adding more basil, cheese, etc. until we had two batches in our food processor.

Spoon into small containers or ice cube tray. Layer a thin film of olive oil on top. Cover with lid, slide into freezer bags and place in freezer.  For thawing, remove to refrigerator overnight. Will last several days in fridge; 1 year in the freezer.

We all enjoyed trying different varieties of flavored olive oils.  The lime oil (our favorite) was delicious and we all considered menu suggestions like shrimp or chicken pasta to really appreciate the freshness that the lime added. The Romano cheese was saltier and made a more pungent pesto, and we found our choice of how much salt to add varied among us.  We chose not to over salt, realizing we can always add salt to our pesto upon serving.

 

Basil the dog, who thought we were talking about him all day as we declared the Basil perfect and amazing.

                                                                                                          He is too!