Recipes From the Porch: DIY Basil Pesto

This year, my garden's saving grace has been the bumper crop of basil that I have been harvesting. Today, I pruned the plant back in hopes that it will continue to grow and to produce leaves right up until the end of summer. The pruning resulted in a shit ton of basil.

Of course, when you cut that much basil, you have to do something with it, so, I decided to whip up a batch of pesto.


The recipe is really pretty simple and most of the ingredients are things that I keep on hand; the only exception to that is pine nuts, because I have never found another use for them. Not that there aren't other uses for them, just that I have yet to find one, personally.

The recipe is simple to make and doesn't require a lot of time, in fact, the most time consuming part of the recipe for me was digging around in my kitchen cabinets in search of my food processor (behind the bread machine! Who would have thought?).


First: Pulse six cloves of garlic in the food processor until finely diced.

It helps if you have a furry cooking assistant in the kitchen; if you don't have one, I've got an extra that I am happy to loan out (just kidding, Hugh).

Second: Gradually add four cups of packed basil leaves to garlic, pulsing until well blended.

Third: Add 2/3 cups pine nuts, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. pepper, and one cup Parmesean cheese.


I know, right now you are thinking "Pepper? Parmesean cheese? Bitch didn't say nothing about no pepper or Parmesean cheese", and, you would be correct; I totally forgot the Parmesean and cracked pepper in the photo of the ingredients. My bad.


Here,

Happy now?


Geez, some people's kids.


Anyway....pulse that all together until the mixture resembles green glue (mmmm, appetizing!)

Fourth: Turn processor on. Slowly drizzle a cup of olive oil  through the processor's food chute, combining until mixture looks like, well, like pesto.

Fifth: Observe the horrific mess that you have made of your kitchen. What? You didn't make a mess? You better back up and start over because one of us is doing it wrong and, this is my recipe, so it can't be me.

 Sixth: Spoon pesto into a small containers and drizzle with additional olive oil. This will keep in the fridge for about a week.

If there is no way that you can possibly use all that pesto in a week (I can't), spoon some into ice cube trays, drizzle with olive oil, and freeze until firm. Then, pop the cubes out of the tray and store in the freezer in plastic bags. This is a handy way to measure pesto for recipes, too.

Seventh: Clean up that kitchen, you slacker.