Pesto

yum.

Pesto is up there with avocado as one of my absolute favorite foods.

My love of pesto is simple.  But, my relationship with it has taken time.

In the beginning, I only ate it restaurants.  When my infatuation turned to love, I began asking for it at restaurants if I didn't see it on the menu (I can't remember a time when the kitchen couldn't oblige me my request).

This continued for years until one day I realized I could buy pesto at the supermarket.  This was back in the days when I didn't cook much other than scrambled eggs.  I was perpetually dissatisfied with the pesto from the supermarket.  It never had the depth of flavor of the pesto I'd be served when eating out.

Because I didn't love it, I would toss the container into the freezer and then forget about it.  It was wasteful in more ways than one.

During the supermarket pesto years, which continued through a few years ago, I went through periods of not being able to eat it because I was off of dairy and store bought pesto inevitably had cheese in it.

While I was living in Sacramento, I gave myself a Mother's Day present one year.  The gift of three books.  I spent a leisurely and lovely afternoon in (the now defunct) Tower Books.  I bought Peter Berley's The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen that day, in large part because it had two pesto recipes in it that caught my eye: neither called for cheese.  (The other two books were Case Histories by Kate Atkinson which I loved and led to my reading and loving some of her other books, and The Stones of Summer, which I have yet to read, but still sits on a shelf here in NJ.)

You know, when it comes to ideas and thoughts, I am someone who finds it very easy to think outside the box.  But, when it comes to approaching something fairly finitely prescribed, like a cooking recipe or knitting pattern, I become very focused on the box and it doesn't occur to me to take even a glance outside of it.  (I think this has changed somewhat with growing age and experience, yes development and learning continues to happen for us grown ups!)

So, crazy as it sounds, it never occurred to me that pesto could taste like pesto without the cheese.

Wow, this post has gotten long.  So, fast forward this last bit.  When Vanessa arrived in mid-January, I had a rare off-season pesto in the fridge.  (I considered my homemade vegan pesto a summer seasonal treat to be made with my homegrown basil.)  Spaghetti is a staple meal in our home and we make it with a marinara sauce using ground dark meat turkey.  I was in a non-meat phase and so had made the pesto to have with my pasta.

As it turned out, Vanessa loves pesto, too.  And as I quickly fell in love with her, I made more pesto whenever we ran out.  She and I had a lot of pesto during her month with us.  And since she left, I have found myself continuing to make it.  It reminds me of her.

At this point in my relationship with pesto, I don't follow a written recipe.  My feeling is that I can't go wrong with fresh basil, fresh garlic, pine nuts, salt, pepper, and olive oil.  If you've never made it before, I'll give you my rough amounts, but you may also want to google a recipe and mix and match (for example, you can use walnuts or almonds rather than pine nuts).  But, trust me when I say you don't need the cheese.  You absolutely don't.

3 generous handfuls of rinsed and dried fresh basil leaves

1/3 cup pine nuts (store your pine nuts in a tightly sealed container in the fridge to keep fresh)

5 cloves of garlic (I love garlic, use your judgment for yourself)

salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup olive oil

makes about 1 1/2 cups of pesto, I think (I didn't measure it)

Place all ingredients into food processor (I use my mini-food processor which I bought expressly for making pesto though it comes in handy for making flax meal, too.)  Process till smooth.  Taste and add seasoning as desired.

Store in a container with a tight seal.  Drizzle the top with olive oil to prevent discoloration (the lovely green will turn a murky dark color.)

My pesto usually keeps in the fridge for about a week.  I put it on pasta, eggs, and sandwiches (it's great with mayo :-)  I often eat it every day when I have it and it's gone in a week. 

If you will not be using it as frequently as me, then you may want to store it in smaller containers and freeze it.  Some people like to freeze them in ice cube trays.  Once they are frozen you can store them in a freezer bag in the freezer to free your ice cube tray up.

Spreadin' the pesto love, one blog post at a time :-)