Pesto!

 

Pesto is the most wonderful thing. At my house, it is the taste of summer. I can’t wait to plant basil plants every spring and start making this. I make it all summer long and put it in the freezer, so that we can have it all year. If you grow your own basil (which is not hard to do), then it’s not terribly expensive. Well, except for pine nuts – but you can buy those in bulk and they aren’t too bad. I make containers of this and give it to friends as well. It is great on pasta, pizza, veggies, chicken, sandwiches and more. It’s fresh and healthy and so good. Please try this super easy recipe!

 

3 c loosely packed basil

¾ c extra virgin olive oil

3 cloves of freshly minced garlic

¼ c pine nuts

1 t salt

½ c parmesan cheese

 

So, are you ready for how difficult this recipe is? Put it all in the blender and push the button. I’m not kidding. That’s it.  The result is this wonderful bright green sauce that is just beyond delicious.  You can keep it in the fridge for awhile or, as I said, you can freeze it and it lasts a long time.  A cool way to freeze it is to put it in an ice cube tray and put the tray in a large ziploc bag.  Then you can just pop out however many cubes you think you might need!

 

If you serve it with pasta, here’s what I do. Put a blob of it into a bowl (excuse my extremely sophisticated technical terms). Cook whatever pasta you want. I usually do either linguine or butterfly pasta, but you can really use any shape you want. While the pasta is cooking, take a ladle of the boiling pasta water and put it on top of the pesto and mix it around. This just breaks it up a bit and makes it easier to coat the pasta. When the pasta is ready, drain it and dump it in the bowl and just stir until the pasta is coated. It should look pretty green. If it’s not, add some more pesto and just keep mixing. Sometimes I find that you need to add a little more salt at this point, and of course, more cheese.

 

If you want to serve this with chicken, try this recipe. Spread a thin layer of pesto on the bottom of a glass baking dish. Lay some chicken tenders or breasts on top of the pesto and then spread another thin layer on top of the chicken. Top it with sliced tomatoes (or sundried tomatoes if you prefer), then sprinkle with parmesan, cover and bake at 400 for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove cover, sprinkle with shredded mozzarella and bake another 10 minutes or so. If it doesn’t look golden brown on top, just turn on your broiler for a minute or two. Be careful at this point, because the cheese can burn quickly. You can also serve this chicken with mashed potatoes instead of pasta. The juices that are left in the pan on top of mashed potatoes are pretty spectacular.