Friday, July 15, 2011

Pesto!

I finally have time to post some meals that I eat in the summer. My apologies for waiting so long to post again, but my husband and I have tons of adventures and activities planned for our summers off (teachers rock!) and it's hard to find time to sit still long enough to post recipes.

Anywho, for those that know me, I am obsessed with basil. I love it so much. So I might have gone a "bit" crazy this year and planted 8 plants of basil...okay, actually 10 or 12. Suddenly I find myself with tons and tons of basil so I decided to make my first ever batch of pesto.

I have always enjoyed the taste of pesto, but I cringe at the price of a small jar of pesto at the store. Homemade tastes better and is WAY cheaper! All of the ingredients for pesto should already be in the cupboards of anyone who bakes and cooks. All you need in addition to common ingredients is basil and pine nuts. When I went to the store, I almost decided against making pesto when I noticed that 4 ounces of pine nuts cost 4 bucks! But then I realized that you get a huge quantity of pesto (see picture above) from only 2 ounces of pesto, so it ended up costing me 2 dollars for a huge dish of homemade deliciousness. If you do not have enough basil growing in your garden for this recipe, simply go to your local greenhouse and buy more basil. Around Milwaukee, basil plants cost between 1 and 3 dollars. No biggie. Do NOT buy basil from the grocery store produce aisle! The stores around me, at least, have terrible tasting basil leaves that are majorly overpriced. It's way better to just buy another plant.

Enough jabbering from me. I promise to post plenty of recipes that use pesto. We have eaten four meals this week that used only part of this container of pesto, and I just made another batch and put it in the freezer. It stays good in the fridge for 2-ish weeks and for 4-ish months if you freeze it.

Ingredients:
*3/4 cup olive oil
*3 cups of basil (can include some stems...I just cut of the top third of each basil plant and put it right in the  food processor)
*1/2 cup of parmesan
*4 garlic cloves
*1/4 cup (2 oz.) pine nuts
*1 tsp. lemon juice


Directions:
1) Place all of the ingredients in a food processor. Blend to perfection. Taste and add additional items if necessary. Enjoy!

Comments:
*If you put it in the freezer, add a little layer of olive oil before putting on the cover. I don't remember why, but it had something to do with helping keep it fresh longer (I read it somewhere)

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