Pesto -- Universal Love

The people in my family have an almost universal love of pesto. Every year I plant numerous basil plants - know to us as, pesto precursors. I just got them in this weekend. Happily, the plants were rather leggy. I was able to cut them down enough to make one batch of pesto. The first batch of many more to come, if the season co-operates. Last year was a bad basil year, having little sun and too much wet.
I really did not expect to be making pesto so soon and was lucky to have all of the ingredients. I usually have them on hand, but you never know -- Parmesean cheese, olive oil, garlic and walnuts. I use walnuts instead of the traditional pine nuts, we just like it better. My kitchen was full of the wonder scent of the basi leaves, which intestified as I started adding more ingredients and mixing them in the food processor. My hands smelled simply delicious, down to the green under my fingernails.

This recipe is adapted form one of my first cook books, Jane Brodies, Good Food Book, 1985 edition. I am guessing it is out of print by now. Pesto freezes well. I use a small cookie dough scoop to make pesto balls, lay the balls on a cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap and freeze overnight. The balls then go into quart size freezer bags with as much air as possible sucked out. This way I can grab out the number of balls I need and put the rest back in the freezer.

Pesto

3 cloves garlic, chopped, about 1 tbsp
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups firmly packed basil leaves
1/4 cup walnuts (can use pine nuts )
1/2 cup grated parmesean- use good parmesan not the shelf stable stuff (can use veggie parmesan
if wanting vegan sauce)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until desired consistency. Scrape down sides of bowl occasionally to get the consistency even.

I like to serve this over pasta with chopped sundried tomatoes.