StoneGable: Summer Recipe

PESTO!

This post was done the very first week I started blogging~ on September 15, 2009. I surely learned a lot since then!I know that the basil in many gardens is ready to be picked and made into pesto. This is a fabulous recipe! Pesto is a StoneGable staple! If you have never made pesto please give it a try! You will be glad you did.

As summer’s heat gives way to crisp autumn mornings, my garden is having its last hurrah. My veggies are quietly diminishing while my marigolds are riotous! And the pumpkins that grow in my compost bin, because they refuse to grow in my garden, are turning orange.

Tomatoes and peppers are presenting their late harvest offerings. My basil, the great summer standard of my garden, is full of flowery spikes and woody stalks telling me that I need to pick it today if I want to salvage it for pesto. I have really let it go too long. Ignoring it and only picking it when I needed it for culinary purposes. I did not pinch off it’s budding tops regularly, so that it would not flower. I did not make pesto like I have in years and years past as the summer goes along and the basil grows.

Now I am left with “bushes” of basil…with a lot of flowers. But I think I can redeem this green gold, as I like
to call it, and make a pesto to freeze so I can enjoy a taste of summer all year round.

I have made this recipe for many years. I love it! I use pesto liberally and often. I no longer measure, I can just eyeball it.

Pesto:

2 ½ c. fresh basil leaves, packed

¼ c. toasted pine nuts

½ c. parmesan cheese, chunked

or grated

½ c. Locatelli cheese, chunked or

grated.

¾ c. light olive oil

3 cloves garlic

2 TBS butter

dash of fresh ground pepper

In a dry pan, add pine nuts and toast over low heat. Be very careful, they easily burn. Put in food processor.

Wash and dry basil leaves and add to food processor. Put in all other ingredients with the pine nuts and basil and process until blended.

Refrigerate or freeze until you are ready to use it.

I freeze pesto in ice cube trays and then pop the pesto cubes out into a plastic container. Take it out of freezer 1 hr before use, or on low microwave it in 10 sec. intervals, stirring. Do not overheat!

Enjoy the summer yumminess!

Printable Recipe

I am participating in Foodie Friday at Designs By Gollum. Thanks for hosting Michael Lee. This is a huge recipe book of a party!

I am participating in in Vegetarian Foodie Friday at Breastfeeding Mom's Unite for the first time.

I am joining my dear friend, The Tablescaper, for Summer Sunday's. Find the best of Summer here!