FRESH BASIL PESTO

With the basil plants growing madly in this hot weather, I needed to trim the plants so that they would not start to produce flowers.  I picked a lot of leaves one night after work and ended up with 8 cups of fresh basil leaves.  Using my vitamix blender I went to work and quickly made this pesto.  I did not have enough pine nuts so I used pecans instead.  I never used pecans before to make pesto.  Because I made such a large batch I froze the pesto in ice cube trays and several very small containers.  Besides using the pesto with pasta, I also add it to soups.  A friend of mine told me that she adds pesto to cooked rice.  I am going to try that in the future with cooked rice.

This Eating Well recipe is available on the internet but I actually have an eight year old printed copy from the actual magazine.  The magazine did a whole series of recipes making pesto with different herbs and some vegetables.  Besides the basil pesto, the recipes include a chile pesto, tarragon pesto, goat cheese pesto using oregano, mint pesto, and a sun-dried tomato pesto.

Making pesto in the vitamix.

Freezing pesto in ice cubes.

Extra containers found to freeze presto.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves

1/4 cup walnut pieces, pine nuts or pecans toasted

1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 tbsp water

1 large clove garlic, quartered

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Place all of the ingredients in a food processor and process for a few minutes until it is fairly smooth.  Makes about one cup.

You can freeze unused pesto in ice cube trays.  Once frozen, transfer the cubes to a freezer bag.

Adapted from Eating Well, Aug/Sept 2005