John Keats has some useful tips on growing your own basil in his Isabella (particularly stanzas LII-LIV).

Stir into mashed white beans for an awesome dip/bread topping! Add a little lemon juice if you like.

anyone made a smashingly good pesto lately? what'd you include, or whose recipe do you recommend?

There's a good one called Classic Pesto recipe on Epicurious.com. The comments/reviews on this site are also very helpful to fine tune the recipe to your taste.

While not pesto I recently made a dish called Eggplant Rollatini which contains a lot of fresh chopped basil. The wife and I both loved it and will be making it again soon as seing that eggplant is in season now. Recipe by Asian at Home at http://seonkyounglongest.com/eggplant-rollatini/
I made more of the filling and used a lot more sauce than the recipe calls for and served it with a little angel hair pasta. Give it try you'll love it.

Less is usually more...

I've completely changed the way I do pesto. It does not keep well as it turns black and is unpleasant in my book so I don't like to keep and preserve. Nuts which I love, and cheese makes it gummy. I don't really use a recipe any more.

What I do is to take a bunch of fresh pesto leaves and take most of the hard stems off. I put them in a blender or I use the magic bullet and put garlic cloves to taste in there. Peeled of course. Then I add some good olive oil. I only make it right when the pasta is boiling so its fresh fresh fresh. Then once the pasta is done, I wiz the pesto in the blender and I pour on the drained pasta and toss until uniformly distributed. I also add a couple of tbsp. of butter for richness. Its not traditional but I love it. I grate or add grated parmesan cheese on only then and I garnish with toasted crushed pine nuts. If I don't have pine nuts I use walnuts or pistachio nuts. This way everything is green and fresh and nothing gets gummy.

toria wrote:I've completely changed the way I do pesto. It does not keep well as it turns black and is unpleasant in my book so I don't like to keep and preserve. Nuts which I love, and cheese makes it gummy. I don't really use a recipe any more.

Your pesto sounds very good. I keep any leftover pesto in a closed jar in the fridge by pouring a layer of olive oil over the top before putting on a lid. The oil keeps it from turning black, but the pesto must be covered completely.

good idea

toria and EvA,

To make basil pesto that will not oxidize, after picking the basil leaves, blanch them in a good quantity of boiling water and then immediately shock the leaves in ice water. When the basil has chilled, squeeze every drop of moisture from the basil between your hands until completely dry. Then proceed with your recipe. Your pesto will not oxidize.

I make big batches every year or two and freeze immediately in 6 oz Glad containers, pulling as needed throughout the winter. Since we freeze most of it right away, we don't mess with the blanching.

I'm scheduled for a Sleeve Gastrectomy this coming Monday, and on day 9 of a 14 day pre surgery high protein-very low carb diet designed to shrink my liver somewhat.

Since starches aren't allowed, I've gone a little crazy with low carb yet filling vegetable options, and this is one of my more successful go to dishes of the moment, at Donna's suggestion. 3rd time I've made them this week. Just spoon or schmear the pesto into mushroom caps and bake for about 30 minutes. I topped them with extra pine nuts and Brittany sea salt.

Now I need to make more pesto soon.

Thanks, Ronnie, and the best of luck with your procedure!

Thank you, EvA!

EvA wrote:I keep any leftover pesto in a closed jar in the fridge by pouring a layer of olive oil over the top before putting on a lid. The oil keeps it from turning black, but the pesto must be covered completely.

Yep - I do the very same thing and it keeps beautifully.

good luck Ronnie. For another low carb treat, slice zuchini rounds on a cookie sheet. Put a dab of tomato or pizza sauce on (you could use pesto too) then cheese and a round of Pepperoni. bake in oven at 400 degrees until cheese melts. I put mine on non stick foil for easy cleanup. Voila mini carb free "pizza". Also there are lots of recipes around now for grain free stuff and low carb things made with cauliflower including a pizza crust. There is a pizza crust made with just cheese and cream cheese and eggs. There is a lasagna recipe made with egg crepes instead of pasta that is supposed to be good and low carb.

Thanks, Toria!

Thanks very much, Ronnie, for sharing your expert advice about blanching and freezing. Just what I needed. I'm enjoying this thread quite a bit and look forward to see more pesto-related ideas.

I wish you the best of luck with your surgery and going forward.

I also freeze my pesto soon after making it. I use the grinder attachment for our Kitchen-Aid mixer. I like the texture better than that which often results when using the food processor. We've got quite a bit of basil which is ripe for harvesting at this point. I need to find a good source of inexpensive pine nuts.

bean wrote:I also freeze my pesto soon after making it. I use the grinder attachment for our Kitchen-Aid mixer. I like the texture better than that which often results when using the food processor. We've got quite a bit of basil which is ripe for harvesting at this point. I need to find a good source of inexpensive pine nuts.

The following is what I wrote in a different thread, and my opinion is still the same today:

BR wrote:I can't get enough pine nuts -- salads, pizzas, pastas, desserts . . . I've recently purchase pine nuts from four different places: Eataly, Whole Foods, Costco and Harvestime.

Eataly's were easily the best (and most expensive), and you can tell that they're the Mediterranean ones. That's because they're noticeably longer and less round.

Costco's and Whole Foods' were just fine. I'm guessing they're Chinese or Korean, but they were fine for most uses. I didn't detect off flavors, though they just didn't have the same wonderful taste or aroma as did the ones from Eataly.

Then there were the ones from Harvestime. These were awful. When I opened the container and smelled the pine nuts, there was a noticeable ammonia odor that never really dissipated. I toasted some and though the ammonia flavor disappeared a bit, it never really went away completely and the nuts were just not very flavorful. Also, they were noticeably smaller than even the ones from Costco and Whole Foods.

In sum, I would absolutely avoid the pine nuts from Harvestime. Costco/Whole Foods would be just fine (though Costco's are less expensive). But if you want the best, Eataly.

Note: I'd be shocked if some of the better Italian shops around (e.g., Graziano) don't have them, but I haven't checked of late.

As an alternative--*not* a replacement!--for pine nuts, I've found that sunflower seeds make an interesting pesto. I buy the already toasted kind, and then toast a bit more. Very tasty.

Geo

I have also had good luck this year with using garlic scapes in pesto -- a little goes a long way but makes a nice alternative that's good on whole wheat pasta.

I made garlic scape pesto a year or two ago and loved! it.

Today I'm about to try another variation. I found I don't have as much basil as I thought I did so I'm adding a bit of mustard greens (at least that's what I think they are--from the micro green salad box). I figure I'll use the food processor as there's still not quite enough quantity to justify breaking out the Kitchen-Aide.

bean wrote:I also freeze my pesto soon after making it. I use the grinder attachment for our Kitchen-Aid mixer. I like the texture better than that which often results when using the food processor.

::perk:: Just to clarify, do you mean the meat grinder attachment or the slicer/shredder attachment? I'm intrigued, but I picture the basil getting wrapped around the axle, so to speak, of the grinder attachment. I could have been making pesto with the Kitchen-Aid this whole time? Tell me more!

While we're on the grinder/cusinart/etc discussion, I confess that ever since I read a Kenji Lopez Alt piece about the absolute superiority of mortar and pestle I've been reluctant to make pesto; all that elbow grease seems so intimidating! (I use the cuisinart.) Thoughts?

Katie wrote:

bean wrote:I also freeze my pesto soon after making it. I use the grinder attachment for our Kitchen-Aid mixer. I like the texture better than that which often results when using the food processor.

::perk:: Just to clarify, do you mean the meat grinder attachment or the slicer/shredder attachment? I'm intrigued, but I picture the basil getting wrapped around the axle, so to speak, of the grinder attachment. I could have been making pesto with the Kitchen-Aid this whole time? Tell me more!

I use the meat grinder attachment with the smallest holed die. The basil does not get wrapped around the axle. There's a bit of residue at the end when I take the mechanism apart. I tend to add more solid ingredients towards the end (pine nuts, parmesan, garlic) so that I can more easily clean out this area and add the residue to the batch if need be.

Today's variation with mustard greens came out quite well. The mustard greens added an interesting spiciness to the finished product. I was careful to not add too much so that they would not overpower the basil. Success!

bean said:

"I use the meat grinder attachment with the smallest holed die. The basil does not get wrapped around the axle. There's a bit of residue at the end when I take the mechanism apart. I tend to add more solid ingredients towards the end (pine nuts, parmesan, garlic) so that I can more easily clean out this area and add the residue to the batch if need be."

bean...next time you grind a batch of anything in your attachment, try this trick in order to get close to 100% yield: Roll up a walnut sized ball of plastic film wrap, and run this wad of plastic through your grinder after all the food has been processed. It will push almost every speck of food out of the grinder mechanism and flatten itself on the inner side of the dye. Take grinder apart as usual, throwing the flattened plastic away. Don't worry. It will stop at the dye and not get ground up.

annak...I agree that the mortar/pestle would make a better aioli, pesto, etc....but I just don't have the time.

I have a fairly peculiar method of making pesto. First, I process the garlic and olive oil. Next, I add the Parmesan cheese. Finally, the basil and pine nuts go in, and by using this method, I reduce both the time that the basil spins in the Cuisinart, as well as any chance of oxidization from long processing by the heat of the blade.

I then correct the seasoning and olive oil ratio. Last step is adding more pine nuts and pulsing a few times, which leaves nice chunks of pine nut for texture.