I love making my own pesto and summer time is a good time for it because you can buy inexpensive basil at the Farmers Market. Of course my preferred method for eating pesto is with pasta. Since I am a nutrition conscious I made my pesto with whole wheat pasta. See the recipe below.
Ingredients:
1 (8 oz) package of whole wheat pasta (I use PCC made fresh pasta)
2 cups of fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup of pine nuts
2 cloves of garlic
2 oz of Parmesan cheese
1/4 -1/3 cup of olive oil
Salt to taste
For serving: pine nuts, cherry tomatoes and pecorino cheese
Preparation:
1. In a blender chop together garlic, parmesan and nuts. Start adding basil leaves and olive oil – a little bit at a time and chop well until all ingredients are blended well together before adding more
leaves. Continue until all leaves are gone. At this point I usually taste pesto for salt and add more if needed. Transfer pesto into a separate bowl. The color is amazing; however, it starts to darken
pretty quickly. Some people add acid to prevent this but I don’t. I usually make more pesto than needed and keep it in an air-tight container in a fridge and use it later on sandwiches or pizza.
2. Boil pasta following instructions on a box – since I use fresh pasta I only cook it for 4 minutes. I drain pasta and mix it with 3 big tablespoons of pesto in a bowl.
3. To serve I add about 1 cup of pasta to a plate, then sprinkle it with pine nuts and grated pecorino cheese and add few cherry tomatoes sliced in half. This makes for a very easy dinner and great leftovers. I served this pasta with fresh cucumbers and tomatoes grown in my garden.
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