A Well Informed Guide to Making Pesto

(Full Recipe at Bottom)

When our children were younger and we were deep into youth sports running from practices to school to games we didn’t always eat dinner as a family during the week. 

But on most Sunday nights we sat down, all six of us, at the kitchen table and ate dinner.  It was a noisy event.  As anyone who knows the Herrnation will tell you, conversation at our house has always been a contact sport.  

There were at least two conversations at once, sometimes more, and everyone had a point of view and those views were  never shared softly.   Sometimes, when we had a particularly exhausting weekend — 10 games in two days wasn’t unusual — that meal was pizza from Conte’s Pizza.

Great pizza but the family favorite for a Sunday night was steak and pesto.  When I first started making this meal I bought my pesto ready made, but I always added extra garlic and Parmesan.   

Then I started my garden and the first year I grew basil  and I started making my own pesto.  Pesto always tastes of summer even in the depths of winter.  

I developed my own recipe, so the recipe I’m sharing with you is my own.   I found that most recipes used more olive oil than I liked and not enough garlic.   

You don’t need your own garden because a lot of grocery stores carry fresh basil.  

Here’s what you do.

Pull the leaves from the basil and discard the stems.  Peel your garlic cloves.  While you’re doing that,  toast whatever kind of nuts you want to use. I used to use pine nuts, but they’ve gotten pricy so this time out, I used walnuts.

You do need to use a food processor.   This is mine — it was a wedding present in 1988 and it was well worth the investment. It’s still chopping 37 years later.

The recipe calls for two cups packed.   This is what mine looked like:

It’s an imperfect measurement, but pesto doesn't require perfect measurements.  I put the nuts in first and pulse for 30 seconds. Then add the basil leaves, garlic, pepper, salt and olive oil.  Pulse until smooth.

A word on olive oil.   It’s important to buy good olive oil.   I always make sure to buy extra virgin and first press.  It definitely tastes different and better.

If I’m not using immediately, I stop here and don’t add cheese.  I freeze pesto in these small storage containers.  Some recommend freezing in ice cube trays, but that, for me, just seemed to result in oily ice cube trays and blobs of pesto.

Here is the pesto I made today ready to freeze.  This is from about 12 cups of basil.  Pesto without the cheese is a great topping for meat or fish or dabbed on fresh tomatoes.  The pesto keeps in the freezer for up to a year.

To make pesto pasta:

Grate fresh Parmesan.   Again, it’s important to buy real imported Parmesan.  Domestic just doesn’t melt the same way.  Bring a pot of water to boil and add one tablespoon of salt.   Add your pasta and cook to al dente.  I used spaghetti, but any shape works.  Before you drain your pasta, set aside a cup of the cooking water.

After you drain the past return the pasta to the pot and add the pesto:

Add a couple tablespoons of the reserved cooking water and stir.   Once the pesto is evenly distributed add the Parmesan:

Stir the cheese in and add enough more of the cooking water for it to all blend together.  It will look like this.

Enjoy!

Recipe

Pesto

2 cups basil packed

3-4 cloves of fresh garlic

½ cup nuts(walnuts or pine nuts)

⅓ cup of olive oil

½ tsp salt

20 grinds of fresh pepper 

To make pasta

11/2 cups grated Parmesan 

1 tbs salt for water

Just as a side note, if you don’t have time to make fresh pesto, you can jazz up purchased pesto.  I usually add an additional cup of grated Parmesan and a couple cloves of minced garlic.   Then use the technique of adding reserved cooking liquid to mix with the pasta.