Week 19: Pesto!

I had never made pesto before, and Abby had never been successful at making it before, so it seemed like a good choice for this week.

I don't have a food processor, so I just looked up a recipe for "blender pesto." It actually worked really well, and was very smooth and creamy!

Basically there's nothing to dislike about pesto. I was pretty much drooling over all of the ingredients individually. Fresh basil...garlic...good, strong, smelly cheese...pine nuts... Delicious.

We put the pesto on some quinoa. It wasn't beautiful, but enjoyable nonetheless!

INGREDIENTS
2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

DIRECTIONS

Put the basil, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic cloves, and salt in the blender and mix at high speed. Stop from time to time to scrape the ingredients down toward the bottom with a rubber spatula. Add the Parmesan cheese and blend together. Before spooning the pesto over the pasta add to it a tablespoon or so of the hot water in which the pasta has been cooked. (Ooops! Didn't do that last step. I wonder if it was important...)