Pesto

My neighbor Georgia has a huge basil bush in her front yard and she always tells me to come over and cut some. It was getting plenty of sun and rain this spring/summer and was growing out of control. In fact it got so big it overpowered her thyme bush and almost suffocated it to death. The other day she decided it was time to cut most of the basil and to make her yard weed free. She ended up sharing a whole bunch with me and our other neighbor.

I plucked all the leaves, threw out the stems, washed and stored it in the fridge. Since basil is quite delicate it can’t be stored for that long. I had so much I didn’t know what to do with it. One can only use that much basil.

I’m telling you, it was quite a lot! This is the bowl I use for mixing dough and I had enough basil to fill it all to the rim.

What do with all these freshly plucked leaves? What else then to make pesto! So pesto it is…only one problem…I don’t have a food processor. Up to now I haven’t been missing it…but at times…it can be darn handy. I didn’t feel like grinding it by hand so I decided to use my stick blender. Not the best choice, but it was better then nothing.

I used one garlic head. Well it wasn’t actually a head it was more like a bulb. Have you ever seen these? They’ve been selling then here just for the last couple of years. It’s like one giant garlic glove. Very easy to peal and just as good as “normal” gloves.  

I toasted about 50 gram of pine seeds till they were nice and brown and threw that with the basil. Then I added about half a small cup of olive oil, some salt, pepper and about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. I didn’t have any parmesan cheese and I’m ok with that. Not much of a cheese fan, but feel free to add as much as you like.

It took quite some time to blend it all together and it was splattering every where! Little green spots all over my kitchen *sigh*. So only use a stick blender if you don’t have a choice.

It was enough to fill 2 cups and I have to say...it tasted soooo good! I now need to find some recipes to use all that nice pesto. Idea’s anyone?


Ps:

This morning I noticed that the pesto has turned slightly brown on top. It’s reacting on the oxygen. I poured a layer of olive oil on top hoping that it would help a bit.

Also I read that to keep the nice green color you need to blanch the basil first before you blend everything together. I just don’t remember where so I can’t give credit.