Pesto

We have a ton of basil right outside the backdoor. Last year, we had just as much, but I was bad about using it, so it ended up overgrown. I felt guilty. This summer, I'm on a mission to use it. I put it on pizzas, in pasta sauce, in marinades, and as of yesterday, in homemade pesto. Why have I never made pesto before? Because I can buy it in a jar, and I used to love things in a jar. But not so much anymore. Homemade is better. WHAT is happening to me!? Pesto is easy though, and worth the 5 minutes of effort!

I used Pioneer Woman's recent recipe. I didn't actually make the whole recipe because it has heavy cream in it (ahhhhh!) but just the pesto part. Here's the how-to:

Pesto
¾ cups Fresh Basil Leaves
½ cups Grated Parmesan Cheese
3 Tablespoons Pine Nuts
2 cloves Garlic, Peeled
Salt And Pepper, to taste
⅓ cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil

*I also squeezed in a little lemon juice to keep the basil looking bright green.

Add basil leaves, 1/2 cup Parmesan, pine nuts, and salt and pepper to a food processor or blender. Turn machine on, then drizzle in olive oil while it mixes. Continue blending until combined, adding additional olive oil if needed.


This pesto is so good, you definitely don't need the heavy cream to turn this into dinner. Instead, cook some noodles (they need to be some kind that have nooks and crannies for the pesto to squeeze into. Yum!), drain them, melt 2 Tbs. butter in the noodles, then add 3/4 of the pesto to the noodles and toss. You could probably leave the butter out too, but I didn't. Grill some chicken in olive oil, salt and pepper, lemon juice, and the other 1/4 of the pesto. Stop there, or also make a batch of 5-minute tomato sauce to add one more layer of flavor.