Friday, July 17, 2009

The best pesto you will ever eat in your life

I have a brilliant plan for this week. I'm going to make the following pesto sauce, and then we're going to eat it all week:
Monday: pasta with pesto sauce, broccoli, grilled or baked fish (tilapia I got on sale)
Tuesday: grilled cheese sandwiches with pesto spread on 1 of the slices of bread, carrot sticks
Wednesday: leftovers from ... last week...
Thursday: hamburgers with the neighbors before they move
Friday: grilled chicken sandwiches with pesto, lettuce, tomato, and onion
Saturday: pesto pizza (spread pesto on the pizza dough, then add red onion, feta cheese, whatever else you want, and mozzarella cheese), salad

So this pesto recipe is from my friend Rena. It is TO DIE FOR; you will hear angels singing when you eat this stuff:
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 cup pine nuts
3 Tbsp pressed garlic (9 cloves)
5 cups fresh basil leaves, packed (washed and dried thoroughly)
2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 cups olive oil
a food processor
1 cup freshly grated parmesan (the Kraft kind is not good enough for this recipe)
To clean basil, remove the leaves, swirl them in a bowl of water, and then spin very dry in a salad spinner. Place walnuts, pine nuts, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for 15 seconds. Add basil leaves, salt, and pepper. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed. Add the parmesan and puree for a minute. Use right away or store in the fridge or freezer with a thin film of olive oil on top.

1 comment:

Jackie said...

I forgot to ask the other day how this all worked out. I'd love to know, 'cause this would be great for our family to do!