In food processor, put
2 cups pine nuts
2 cups grated parmesan cheese
4 to 6 cloves of garlic, squished
Puree for about a minute, adding a little bit of
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups olive oil
Add the leaves from
1/2 pound of basil
Alternate basil leaves and olive oil, pureeing until as smooth as you want it to be.
Spoon the pesto into a silicone muffin tin.
Freeze overnight. Pop them out the next day
and put in a Ziploc bag. Back into the freezer and on to the next batch.
Each portion is a scant half cup.
There is always a little left over, so you can have fresh pesto on the day.
Cook's tips:
*Don't go cheap on the parmesan. I use the best I can get in Alaska, Costco's Kirkland brand Parmigiano Reggiano.
*I can't be more specific on the amount of garlic. I know when the smell hits my nose. So will you.
*There is enough salt in the cheese. I don't add more.
*I like my pesto a little gritty, so I stop adding olive oil and processing the basil before it's completely smooth. Your choice. Also an excuse to taste the batch multiple times.
If you stir the grated cheese in at the end instead of processing it, the pesto will have more texture. We also use some walnuts along with the pine nuts as we like the combined taste better. Next weekend is basil harvesting/pesto making at our house. Mmmmm!
ReplyDeleteI have already frozen so many little snack bags of pesto that I am thinking we need to have a whole lot of parties around here before next season's crop comes in. The basil is the only herb that seems to just shrug off this drought. I have fooled around with it a bit - added some cranberries to some, blueberries to some. Now, I am reduced to leaving bunches of basil on neighbor's porches in the middle of the night!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! Now I have an excuse to get the silicone muffin tin. I am in the process of "farming" basil in every corner of our city garden. I'll be doing the same in a month or two!
ReplyDeleteI can tell you are a woman after my own heart....Don't do much freezing, but then Costco is just down the road apiece. And Whole Foods, too....altho I can only press my nose to the glass there.
ReplyDeleteI found my first Kate Shugak on BN/Nook and have been hooked ever since....and will be until I or my money run out. (Should be a dead heat...I'm 73)
Gawd I love Pesto!! I wish all of you were in MY neighborhood & you could drop the Basil off in person!! Never thought about using the silicone muffin pan before - now I have to get me one.
ReplyDeleteHaven't been around for a while, just saw your comments. Sharon, I hope you got your muffin pan and started making pesto. I'll have to post my sun-dried tomato pesto recipe, it is to die for.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I'd die a happy woman if they'd open a Whole Foods in Alaska. Or even a Costco on the Kenai Peninsula.
Bad Blood was great but the ending left me, umm.. unsure? Poor Mutt. Again! She better be ok. Please? And Kate, of course. :-)
ReplyDeleteThis pesto recipe great! What a nice idea. ANd how great to use silicone, then no metallic taste.
I have a question for you about Corinna Chapman's lemon cordial. You mentioned it in some post recently. Or some post I read recently.
How do you preserve this cordial (she mentions just pouring it into a bottle), how long does it last, and how do you store it? I am dying to make it but don't want to give myself a food born illness. I have looked and looked for making lemon cordial preserves but cannot find definitive info (also on how to hot seal the bottles).
My email address is crittervillaatyahoodotcom. I would LOVE a response. Or even a FB post about it.