September 30, 2016
Fabulous Friday Flavour: Presto Pesto!
The pot of overgrown basil plant in our backyard was screaming and begging to get trimmed. And used.
With a whole load in excess of fresh, very green and healthy looking leaves, Silver Bullet decided to do something about it. He cut them off and presto! There was (green) pesto.
It has been a while since we had a home-made one and having a pesto jar handy is always delightful. All done within minutes with a food processor. THAT easy!
- A bunch of fresh basil
- 1 cup grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese
- Half cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/3 cup pine nuts
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- Salt and ground black pepper to taste
- Pulse basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic and cheese in a food processor
- As the processor is running, slowly add in the olive oil - this technique helps keep the olive oil from separating
- Mix salt and ground pepper
- Presto! All done in a jiffy.
- Transfer in a container to be used for pasta or keep it in containers and freeze for use as and when you need it.
- For a variation of taste, add a handful or rockets or spinach to your mixture,
Storage is easy too. Keep it in a tight jar or plastic container that’s airtight. Fresh pesto is able to last in the fridge for about a week, give or take. Or you can always freeze in little containers for later use. Just don’t forget to layer it with olive oil before sealing.
This is nothing daunting and too good not to share so I’m bringing a few jars with me over to #FiestaFriday!
Since pine nuts are usually quite expensive, I tend to mix them with toasted cashew nuts or even normal peanuts. Cashews are a common substitute but I found that the peanuts gave a very rich flavor to the pesto.
I love pesto, but recently after making a batch and using it in a pasta dish and eating it of course (it was yum!) I had this bitter after taste for days!! I googled it and found out about pine nuts syndrome. Never heard of it before and never had it before either. So weird, right? I think I’ll use cashews instead next time 😃
Oh? I never knew that either! Perhaps it was a case of too much pine nuts? Bitter taste for days must have been so weird!!! Thanks for sharing that, Angie. Now we know! Another good reason to use cashews with all things considered! 🙂
I love pesto!
😀 You just cannot not like pesto!
Freshly made pesto! Yum! Thanks so much for sharing it with us at Fiesta Friday!
Thank you for stopping by Sandhya! 🙂