Psychedelic Pesto

When you have a plethora of basil, it's time to make pesto. Nothing says it's summer like some beautiful green pesto.

In my last post, I bragged about my basil plants. In all the years I've gardened, I've never had this much basil this early in the season. Now I must brag about my beautiful pesto. Look at how bright green and fresh it is - the picture doesn't do justice the the almost lime green color.

And the taste . . . ahh. I base my pesto on a recipe in the original The Silver Palate cookbook. It calls for the usual basil, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, but instead of pine nuts it calls for walnuts. The walnuts add a nice, rich taste, and they're a lot less expensive than pine nuts. I pretty much follow the proportions in the recipe except for the olive oil - I tend to use a lot less than the recipe calls for.

From this very large batch, I made one big pot of pasta with pesto, then froze the rest. I spoon the pesto into ice cube trays, freeze, then transfer the frozen cubes into a Ziploc freezer bag.

Comments

[Kathi]

Looks great! I love pesto.

[carisoprodol]

I love pesto also..