I love pesto. I have a hard time justifying buying it at the store though because it is so expensive for such a little bottle! This summer I set out with a goal in mind: grow enough basil to make my own pesto. Well, I am happy to say that the time finally came when I had enough and now I have lots of homemade pesto for a fraction of the price I would have paid to buy it all.
My inspiration for this recipe comes from Food Network's Ina Garten and can be found here.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup walnuts
3 tbsp minced garlic
5 cups packed, fresh basil
1 1/2 cups olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
Step one: lightly toast your walnuts over medium heat for 4-5 minutes.
Once your walnuts are toasted, add them to a food processor along with your garlic, basil, salt, and pepper. Run food processor on high for about a minute to get everything nice and broken up. Once a nice puree is starting to form, slowing add your olive oil - really slowly, almost drop by drop - and continue to process until it is all added in.
Once everything is nice and blended, add in your parmesan.
Pulse just enough to mix the cheese in. At this point your pesto should look something like this:
Pour into clean canning jars and enjoy! I am the only one in my house that eats pesto so I am freezing two of my jars and slowly working on the other. In order to freeze successfully make sure that you put about 1/4 inch of olive oil over the top so that no air can come in contact with the pesto.
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