Basil Pesto

If you've been reading this site for a bit now, you know that our yard has very little sun and we have had no success growing vegetables at home.  That is what led me to embark on our far away gardening project.  One year, though, our children's babysitter, Rosalyn, gave me a few basil plants.  Given our track record, I was pessimistic, but I planted them in different sites, hoping one of them would grow.  By late August, they were enormous.   It turned out that the best spot is right along the road in front of our house, a spot now shared by a basketball pole.  We ate basil with tomatoes that summer, and we also made a lot of pesto. 

So much pesto that I froze a few batches.  It was wonderful to take some of that pesto out of the freezer in the dead of winter and have a meal that tasted of summer.  Now one of our end-of-summer traditions is to make several batches of pesto for the freezer.  We use them for pasta, of course, but it also delicious on pizza, sandwiches, or stirred into soup.  Of course, if you don't have basil in your garden, you can pick some up at the farmers' market or the grocery store.

 

This recipe makes a traditional Genovese basil pesto.  It is adapted from the recipe of one of our favorite cookbooks, Biba Caggiano's Trattoria Cooking.  Every recipe we have made from this book has been excellent, and I think this pesto has the perfect balance of garlic and basil.  Most recently, we tossed the pesto with whole wheat fettucine and slow-roasted tomatoes made with Smitten Kitchen's recipe, which added little bursts of sweetness.  Delicious!

Basil Pesto

Adapted from Biba Caggiano's Trattoria Cooking

If you are making pesto to freeze, don't add the parmigiano at this point; add it after the frozen pesto has thawed.  I freeze this pesto in individual batches in quart-size freezer bags.  To thaw it, set the bag in a bowl of hot water.  As the water cools, replace the hot water a few times.  It should take no more than 15 minutes to defrost. 

Makes approximately 3/4 cup, enough for 1 pound of pasta
20 minutes preparation time 

3 cups basil leaves
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup grated parmigiano (omit if freezing)

Put all of the ingredients except the parmigiano in the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse until the mixture is well-incorporated, but still a bit chunky.  Pour into a bowl and stir in the parmigiano.  Taste, and add more salt if you like (the pesto should be fairly salty, especially if you are tossing it with pasta). 

Comments

[Andrea]

That's good to know a decent way of thawing out pesto. Kevin always likes to put it in a saucepan, but that doesn't work. I mean, it really doesn't work.

[Cheryl]

God, your basil is gorgeous. I didn't plant any this year due to travel but even last year when I did plant some many of my leaves were riddled with holes.

My 8-year-old loves pesto so we always have a stash. I, too, have always read that you're not supposed to freeze it with the cheese, just as you say, but I have to admit that I always do anyway and it tastes just great!

[Margy]

Cheryl,

Even with the holes, I'm sure the basil is delcious, and mashed into pesto, they'll never know! I think my challenge with freezing it with cheese has been in the defrosting. With my hot water bath, it tends to get lumpy. But if I have time to let it defrost more slowly, I agree that the cheese would freeze well.

[Sharon Hammond]

Margy, can you please consider hosting a Mother & Daughter cooking class on a Saturday. I'd be willing to pay.