Make it Yourself Monday: Pesto

My favorite farmer at the market gave me a giant bag of basil for $5 last week because I came near the end of the day and it needed to be used. I froze some for later (basil loses some of its flavor when dried) and used the rest to make up three big batches of pesto (I’m freezing two in glass jars – leave an inch or so). Pesto is a great way to use up extra herbs from the garden and is an impressive addition to dinner when entertaining. There are endless possibilities to tweaking this recipe, but here are the basics:

Ingredients
2 cups fresh basil leaves
3-4 cloves of garlic, peeled (or 2 tsp pre-minced garlic)
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup olive oil
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1 tsp sea salt
black pepper to taste

Directions
Rinse and dry your basil leaves (if you are picking your own, I hear its best to pick them in the cool of the morning as they lose flavor throughout the day). I’m lazy, so I combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and process until almost smooth. Taste, and add more of whatever you think it needs. Since the word pesto comes from “pestle,” you could also do this by hand if you don’t have a food processor. Or, you could try your blender. 

Substitutions
We rarely eat cheese, so we exclude parmesan from our pesto, though traditionally you’d cut back on the salt in the above recipe and add a 1/2 cup or more of grated parmesan or even feta cheese. You can also substitute pine nuts for walnuts or hazelnuts (if you experiment further, let me know!!) and you can replace all or part of your basil with fresh parsley or spinach. You can also omit the lemon juice if you don’t have it, or replace it with lime juice. The citric acid helps it maintain it’s green color and the lemon flavor adds a nice touch.

Serving suggestions
We ate chicken sandwiches with pesto on a ciabatta roll last night. Would have been heavenly with a slice of tomato. Pesto is most commonly used as a pasta sauce, but it can be used as a garnish on any meat (especially chicken breast and pork chops), an ad-in for soups, a dip for veggies, or my favorite – a spread on crusty italian bread. Pesto will stay fresh in the refrigerator for a week or longer, and will freeze for a few months.

How do you use pesto? What else do you usually make from scratch instead of buying pre-made? Link up below!