Anyone can be the King of Pesto.
And I mean King in a gender neutral sense, in part because I'm reading Jayne County's Man Enough to Be A Woman right now and I truly feel that ANYONE can be the King of Pesto.
I am presently the King of Pesto, however.
Several factors entered into this. Chief among them were two: Ang received a food processor from my folks for her birthday (belatedly) on Friday. A week ago, Ang was saying that we should really get a food processor and roughly ten minutes later my mom emailed me and said, "Do you think Angie would like a food processor as a birthday gift?" Before we had a blender, but the oiliness of the pesto tended to make it leak like a mofo. The advent of a food processor made pesto a distinct possibility (pestobility?).
Also, we have a gigantic balcony garden going this year. It's almost entirely Ang's doing, but I'm finally learning how to do all this stuff. Three big things of mixed lettuce greens that have gone so far off the hook that we've had to have salad as a major-if-not-central part of every dinner for about the last two weeks. Also, we have too many things of Swiss Chard going just now, but Angie likes it so that's her business. We have three gigantic tomato plants (not grown from seed) plus two smaller green pepper plants, one of which seems a bit ill. They're on their way to bearing fruit but aren't there yet. Then there are the herbs, of which we have zillions-- oregano, thyme, lavender, cilantro (hisss! Angie eats the vile stuff, though), dill, rosemary, sage, and finally all kinds of basil, which is my responsibility. I planted it and made it live myself, which is pretty rad. This exists chiefly in the form of Basil World, a large tub with red basil, green basil (revived from a plant I bought from the grocery store then mostly killed), and an utterly monstrous Thai Mother Basil plant that's taking the fuck over.
Thus: food processor, Basil World: ergo Pesto sum! Not to mention we got male garlic (single giant garlic bulbs) from the Jean Talon market.
But like I said, anyone can be the King of Pesto, provided one has access to a food processor and a HELL of a lot of basil. I pretty much literally decimated Basil World (taking easily one in ten leaves from all the plants)-- it took a surprisingly long time to get two loosely packed cups of basil leaves. But once that's done, basically you just put the ingredients into a food processor:
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan
1 clove of garlic (or one giant male garlic if you wish to share this joy with your friends)
2 tablespoons pine nuts
Then you turn the food processor on, and you too are the King of Pesto.
Interesting thing about this recipe, beyond its being more delicious than any pesto ever, is that the high concentration of pine nuts (which have an appetite supressant in their oil) make it very difficult to eat a lot of it. Ang and I each had standard servings of linguini with this last night and neither of us could get through more than half of our plates. We both loved it, but were stuffed by halfway in. This ends in my favour, since I had some for lunch today and will bring the rest for lunch tomorrow.
Next time, we're going to try roasting the garlic, and I'm thinking about adding some oregano or rosemary to see how it changes it. But first, I need to let the basil grow back a while.
I am presently the King of Pesto, however.
Several factors entered into this. Chief among them were two: Ang received a food processor from my folks for her birthday (belatedly) on Friday. A week ago, Ang was saying that we should really get a food processor and roughly ten minutes later my mom emailed me and said, "Do you think Angie would like a food processor as a birthday gift?" Before we had a blender, but the oiliness of the pesto tended to make it leak like a mofo. The advent of a food processor made pesto a distinct possibility (pestobility?).
Also, we have a gigantic balcony garden going this year. It's almost entirely Ang's doing, but I'm finally learning how to do all this stuff. Three big things of mixed lettuce greens that have gone so far off the hook that we've had to have salad as a major-if-not-central part of every dinner for about the last two weeks. Also, we have too many things of Swiss Chard going just now, but Angie likes it so that's her business. We have three gigantic tomato plants (not grown from seed) plus two smaller green pepper plants, one of which seems a bit ill. They're on their way to bearing fruit but aren't there yet. Then there are the herbs, of which we have zillions-- oregano, thyme, lavender, cilantro (hisss! Angie eats the vile stuff, though), dill, rosemary, sage, and finally all kinds of basil, which is my responsibility. I planted it and made it live myself, which is pretty rad. This exists chiefly in the form of Basil World, a large tub with red basil, green basil (revived from a plant I bought from the grocery store then mostly killed), and an utterly monstrous Thai Mother Basil plant that's taking the fuck over.
Thus: food processor, Basil World: ergo Pesto sum! Not to mention we got male garlic (single giant garlic bulbs) from the Jean Talon market.
But like I said, anyone can be the King of Pesto, provided one has access to a food processor and a HELL of a lot of basil. I pretty much literally decimated Basil World (taking easily one in ten leaves from all the plants)-- it took a surprisingly long time to get two loosely packed cups of basil leaves. But once that's done, basically you just put the ingredients into a food processor:
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan
1 clove of garlic (or one giant male garlic if you wish to share this joy with your friends)
2 tablespoons pine nuts
Then you turn the food processor on, and you too are the King of Pesto.
Interesting thing about this recipe, beyond its being more delicious than any pesto ever, is that the high concentration of pine nuts (which have an appetite supressant in their oil) make it very difficult to eat a lot of it. Ang and I each had standard servings of linguini with this last night and neither of us could get through more than half of our plates. We both loved it, but were stuffed by halfway in. This ends in my favour, since I had some for lunch today and will bring the rest for lunch tomorrow.
Next time, we're going to try roasting the garlic, and I'm thinking about adding some oregano or rosemary to see how it changes it. But first, I need to let the basil grow back a while.