Basil Pesto

One of the things I love about summer is the harvesting of my garden.  I plant basil every year, lots of it, and one of my favorite things to use it in is pesto.  Oh how I love pesto.  I realize not everyone likes it - it's one of those things where if you like it, then you LOVE it, but if you don't care for it you probably never will.  I look forward to making my own pesto every summer, in fact, I make enough of it so it will last until the next summer! 

Both my son and husband are on the fence when it comes to pesto.  My husband says he likes it, but yet he doesn't seem to ever want me to cook with it.....he claims it gives him heartburn.  Uh, I guess I'll let that one slide.  My son says it's "OK I guess" which pretty much means he'll eat it if he has to.  There is one way I use it though that they both really like....but I'll blog about that another day.

So you might be scratching your head wondering how I "store" all that pesto.  I freeze it of course!  All you do is scoop it into an ice cube try, drizzle a little olive oil over each cube and place the try in the freezer for a couple of hours until it's frozen.  Super easy right?  Once it's frozen you pop each cube out with a little knife and place them into a freezer bag and then back into the freezer it goes....all ready for you to use when ever you need it!  To defrost you can take out what you need and place it in a bowl and let it set on the counter until it thaws, or you can pop it in the microwave for 15-25 seconds (how long depends on the power of your microwave, but it doesn't take long).

Basil Pesto

½ cup pine nuts

8 cloves of garlic

4-5 cups basil, packed

1 tsp salt

½ pepper

1 ¼ cups good olive oil

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

 

Add nuts and garlic to bowl of food processor, and process about 30 seconds.  Add basil, salt & pepper.  With processor running, slowly add the olive oil until finely pureed. Add Parmesan cheese and puree another minute.