Pesto

If you have never made pesto, you should try it out.  Lucy and I made it the other day.  Well, I did most of the work.  But Lucy watched.



Remember how I started a small garden?  I said that it would be worth the effort if I even got to cook with my own fresh herbs once.



Well, check that off the list, b/c the other day I made pesto with basil from my garden! 
Here's what you need:  fresh basil, pine nuts (toasted, if you like.  I used raw), olive oil, salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese, and garlic.  I forgot to put the cheese into the picture below. 

One of the things I love about making pesto is that you don't really measure anything.  Start by putting a handful of pine nuts into your food processor.

Dice up a clove of garlic.

And add that in with the pine nuts.

Fill the processor up with fresh basil leaves (make sure you separate the leaves from the stems first).

See?  You want to put a lot of basil in there.  Full to the top.

Now pulse the processor a few times to begin chopping up all the goodness.

Add a pinch of salt.

And add a few shakes of ground pepper.

Next you want to stream in some olive oil. 

Keep the food processor on while you add enough olive oil through the top to make this texture:

Now taste it to see what it's missing.  Mine was missing garlic. 

So I added some more in there.

Process a little more so that all the garlic pieces are finely diced and not crunch-able.  Crunch-able garlic in your pesto is not a good thing.

Okay now at this point, you want to grate some Parmesan cheese.

  
And fold it into the pesto.   



What to do with pesto:
1 - Serve atop cheese toast with sliced tomatoes for yummy open-faced sandwiches.
2 - Toss with pasta and fresh tomatoes for an easy summer lunch.
3 - Spread over baked chicken for chicken a la pesto.  (Don't cook the pesto though--just spread it over the chicken once it's finished baking)
4 - Eat it from a spoon.  Yum.



Go buy some basil and make this.  It is delicious! 



Enjoy!