Basil to Pesto

In March of this year we posted our involvement in a local spring garden festival. At the spring fest we were selling vegetable and herb seedlings. An abundance of herb seedlings remained after the show and instead of throwing them in the compost pile we decided this would be the "Year of the Herb" and planted all of the herbs in the garden. The sage, parsley, oregano and basil established themselves and stretched toward the sky.

Initially the lower leaves of the herbs were clipped, wash and laid out to dry to be used later in the year once the plants had faded. As the basil reached eighteen inches it began to flower. It's productivity was prolonged by trimming out the flower heads but action was needed to capture the succulent flavor. After scouring canning cookbooks and multiple websites it was disappointing to learn that herbs are best preserved by freezing and the National Center for Home Food Preservation does not recommend home canning of herbs.

How much frozen basil can one family use? Ready made pesto however is a completely different story. It can be spread on garlic bread and grilled cheese sandwiches, rubbed on meats before cooking, added to pasta and seafood or stirred into salad dressings.


Pesto it is! The leaves were removed from twenty basil plants which was a whopping 72 cups once it was cleaned of all stems and washed three times.

Recipes were scouted for the basic ingredient requirements at http://judyskitchen.blogspot.com and http://thesaucycoq.com for Basil Pecan Pesto and combined with personal modifications. The Pecan pesto recipe was chosen instead of traditional pine nut recipes due to the expense of the Pine nuts and volume of basil that was available. With the modifications and combination of ingredients the final recipe was as follows:

• 4 cups Basil
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan and Romano cheese (equal parts)
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• handful toasted pecans
• 3 cloves fresh garlic
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  
• kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
• snack size zip lock bags

1. Wash and remove stems from basil.
2. Spray cast iron skillet with spray olive oil. Toast pecans on medium heat until fragrant. Remove and set aside
   
3. Grate equal amounts Romano and Parmesan cheese
4. Juice limes (1-2)
   
5. Remove skins from garlic cloves
   
6. In food processor coarsely chop basil, garlic and pecans.
7. Add cheese, olive oil, lime juice, vinegar, salt and pepper. Pulse briefly to blend.
8. Scoop from processing bowl with 1/3 cup measuring cup into snack sized zip lock bag.

Makes 1 cup finished pesto. Place bags flat in freezer defrost whole bag or break off small pieces of frozen pesto to defrost and use as needed.

Vegan pesto was made as first and second batch without adding cheese. All other ingredients were the same. Variation number 2: add spicy hot pepper flakes (habenero and purple Peruvian hot peppers). Variation number 3: add 3 additional tablespoons of coarsely chopped peppercorns to pesto just before last pulse.

72 cups of basil= 18 cups of pesto (vegan, regular, peppercorn and spicy varieties). Plenty to share with the five households in our family. To give as gifts, defrost, stir and transfer to small jar. Top with fresh olive oil to cover in order to prevent oxidation and bitterness. The pesto will store in the refrigerator for two weeks. The process from the start of trimming leaves to packing the zip lock bags into the freezer was six hours in total. The final price is about $1.25 per cup versus $4-10 dollars for a store bought jar. Our friends and family will not need to buy pesto for at least a year!