I had an abundance of basil this year (we love our basil!) and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I do have plans to freeze some for winter use, but I wanted to use up some of the fresh basil too. Enter the idea of pesto. Pulled out some cookbooks just to read what goes into a basic pesto, and came up with my own variation. Simple, basic. Some of the recipes called for pine nuts, but with a nut allergy in the house and a baby who hasn't been exposed to many nuts, I opted to leave those out. And especially since I fed my allergic husband alder smoked salmon and apparently he is allergic to alder...I'm on heightened awareness. Yikes...bad wife. Though in my defense, I didn't know about alder trees, I only knew about birch trees!
Onto the pesto...
2 cups basil3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, fresh & grated
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/3 cup olive oil
In your handy-dandy food processor, throw in your basil and parsley. Chop away! Crush your garlic and add it to the processor. Add in the cheese. In a measuring cup, measure out your olive oil and lemon juice, stir to mix, and slowly add to the processing basil/parsley/garlic/parmesan, until a nice "paste" forms.
Just like that...easy. it takes longer to wash the food processor than to actually make the pesto!
VERDICT:
Easy and tasty! If I knew then what I know now...we would have been making pesto for ages! So good! And I'm already thinking about what kinds of variations I could try! And what a beautiful, fresh looking green! Not bad for an unedited iPhone picture!
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