Molly Cookie

Best Pesto Ever

Aug 3, 2009 Pastas and Sauces

Today was Sunday, and on Sundays I like to cook. It’s a day that is wide open to whatever it is that I want to do, and generally I gravitate towards cooking or baking something fun. Whether it’s a nice dinner, a fun new recipe, or a loaf of bread, Sundays can always bring tasty treats around my house.

So this morning on my way to church I started brainstorming all of the possible things I could cook up. I wanted to make a dessert, but there was some fresh basil in my refrigerator that I got from my parent’s lasagna garden that I was needing to use up. My parents practically have basil overflowing their back yard. They started a lasagna garden this spring that was contained to one 8 x 5 box at first that ended up doubling, then tripling in size because they loved it so much and decided to build more. Then, out of no where, basil plants started to spring up all over the yard in various spots. Now they have at least 6 very vibrant basil plants that are producing more basil than any of us can consume. So, every time I go to their house my dad will go outside and start cutting… and cutting… until I have more basil than I know what to do with.

Now there are tons of things that you can make with basil, but there are less things you can make with tons of basil. The one thing that came to my mind as I sitting in the passenger seat on the way to church was pesto. Pesto has lots of basil, and I like pesto, so why not make that? Simple enough, right?

So after church and after an afternoon of going to target and various other places around town, I came home and looked at different pesto recipes online. The last time I made pesto it was… bad. I don’t really know how you can mess pesto up but it just wasn’t very good. Maybe the basil wasn’t sweet enough or maybe I didn’t use enough parmesean, but something about it was wrong. I read through several recipes and finally came across one that looked good. It seemed to have good proportions of basil, garlic, and cheese, and this recipe, unlike others, had fresh parsley in it (which I happened to have). It was fate really. The pesto was going to be wonderful. The only problem was that it used 4 different kinds of basil, and I only had one… but of the one I had PLENTY. I made a few minor changes and it turned out to be great.

In my reading I saw a suggestion that if you make the pesto in a blender instead of a food processor that it will be smoother. I loved that idea. I put the ingredients in just like the recipe told me and when I turned on the blender…. nothing happened. the ingredients were too dry and nothing blended. If this works I couldn’t figure out how. So, I dumped everything into my food processor and turned it on, and in seconds I was looking at creamy pesto. It was plenty smooth and extremely tasty. I recommend using a food processor unless you want your pesto to look like this when it’s “done”:

I would say that this pesto was pretty amazing. I have had pesto before and liked it, but not as much as I liked this. Maybe it was the perfect, fresh cut basil from my parent’s lasagna garden, or maybe it was just the relaxing and wonderful day, but whatever it was, I loved it. On Friday night Brian and I are hosting my 5th Annual Wine Party. Every year there is a different theme, and this year we are taking portraits of ourselves. The rules of the party are that everyone who comes has to bring their favorite bottle of wine and then also participate in the theme. So, this Friday my friends will come over dressed for portraits. My job is to come up with great appetizers, and I believe this pesto will come in handy for that.

Best Pesto Ever

4 garlic cloves
3/4 cup pine nuts
2 cups freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano
5 cups of fresh basil leaves
2 cups of fresh parsley
6 tablespoons olive oil

Throw the garlic cloves in a food processor and pulse until chopped. Then add the pine nuts, cheese, and a handful of greens and run the food processor until it’s all finely chopped. Keep adding the basil and parsley, one handful at a time, until it’s all chopped up and tiny. Next add the oil while the food processor is running until the pesto is the consistency you want it. We left ours pretty thick because we were going to use it for several different recipes. When you use pesto with pasta, cook the pasta and reserve 1/3 cup of water to add to 3/4 cup of pesto before mixing it with the pasta. This will get the pasta coated evenly.

I loved this pasta. We used whole wheat linguine, and before i tossed the pasta with the pesto I sautéed some minced garlic and cut sun dried tomatoes for about 30 second and threw those on top of the pasta. The sun dried tomatoes added a wonderful sweetness that went really well with the pesto. I hope you enjoy it!

Tags: basil, basil pesto, Pesto