Pesto

This year I wanted to make more pesto than I saved for last year. Mostly because I want to give it as gifts. Plus I under valued it's greens in winter potential and didn't make enough. I get the magazine organic gardening, they had a contest about pesto reciepes. Send in the reciepe and Maria at Maria's Farm Country Kitchen, will test them and decide a clear winner.

She devised that the secret to great green pesto is blanching the basil. Last year I didn't do this and my pesto did turn brown. It still tasted fine but I wanted it to stay perfect summer green. So this year I tried blanching it. Some leaves turned brown all though those may have been the ones I couldn't get out of the boiling water so fast. Regardless, it is a bright beautiful green. I packaged it in 1/3 cup and 1/2 cup sizes inside ziplock bags. I flattened the bags like I did with the veggie soup stock to save more room in the freezer. Now I have small very flat baggies of pesto for gifts and winter greens.

The Pesto Recipe

2 c. (packed) blanched basil
1/2. c. parmesan or favorite hard white cheese
1/2 c. olive oil
1/3 c. nuts (I used walnuts but pine, almond, cashews... whatever works you may toast them if you like)
3 medium garlic cloves (however hot you want them... some asian varieties get very spicy!)
dash of salt/pepper
dash of fruit fresh

I layered all ingredients in my food processor basil, everything else, basil. Then I processed it for about 1 minute. Scooped it out into level 1/3 or 1/2 bags then into the freezer. I decided this amount would be perfect for meal sizes. I didn't want to just freeze the whole thing and then chip off pesto from the large block when needed as some websites suggested. Voila!

I still have 3 basil plants in the garden 1-2 is for dried basil and the other is for pasta sauce when the tomatoes start rolling us over.