PESTO! [part 2]
PESTO! [part 2]
Saturday, October 3, 2009
STEP 1: buy fresh basil from the farmers market. $1 a bundle grown locally sure beats the $2.49 container (that doesn’t contain nearly as much )from Trader Joes. You need to de-stem all of the leaves. So sit down, set the laptop up, watch some Jon Stewart and pick the leaves off.
STEP 2: get out your food processor. yes, this is a must. however, you could try to use a blender. (Now this is where it gets tricky because I don’t have a recipe). Put about 3 cups of basil into the processor with 2 cloves of garlic, 2 tsp of salt, 1/4 cup pine nuts and about 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil. blend until it looks like pesto--you may need to add more oil.
STEP 3: add about 1/4 cup of parmasean cheese and about 1/4 cup of romano cheese (what is the difference? i don’t know. feel free to enlighten me). AND THEN, here is the kicker--add about 1/2 a stick of butter--cut into small cubes (yuck, i know...but this is how this recipe is different than others). Throw all of that into the processor--don’t over blend it. The butter shouldn’t be fully incorporated.
STEP 4: the pesto is now done. taste test it to see if it tastes as delicious as it smells. Now is the fun part--figure out what you are going to do with it. I suggest making this recipe in bulk and freezing it in separate jars. I choose to use some for dinner that evening, freeze some, and then make this cute package with cooked italian sausage (from costco) in a jar for my coworker. Next time I would display it a bit cleaner with the layers--but this was a good first attempt.