Sheppy Stories

I have a confession to make. I am a… PROCRASTINATOR. Like, really a lot. Even for things I want to do, I put them off until the last minute and often decide to not do them at all. What do I do instead? Who knows.

So anyways, for the last few weeks, I’m been saying I’m going to make pesto with the plethora of basil I grew in my garden. You didn’t know I had a garden this year? Well, I did. It was amazing, but a little shorter lived than most gardens since I gave up on the outdoors at the beginning of August. (Long story short, too many mosquitoes and not enough bug spray in the world to keep them away.)

Ok, back to the basil. I finally picked it yesterday and got two large bowls full. I can’t even begin to estimate how much that would have cost in the grocery store, but I would have never made pesto if I would have had to buy the basil fresh.

First step: clean the basil. I just soaked it in some water and rinsed a few times to get all the dirt and possible bugs off it.

I then whirled it through the salad spinner to dry it quickly. Seriously, this is one of the best inventions and one of my most time-saving kitchen gadgets.

Then all the ingredients into the food processor and another minute or two of whirling.

After a few batches, the prep area becomes quite messy. I like to freeze the pesto in freezer bags. To make this fulling-of-the-bag process the least messy, I like to put the bag around a cup (as seen in the yellow cup) and fill with the pesto. This technique also prevents pesto from getting in the seal of the bag or on the outside of the bag.

And the final product!

I used this recipe to make the pesto, but cut the oil in half, subbed walnuts for the pine nuts (I’m not made of money!) and cut the salt way down as well. Pesto is a recipe that can be made a bunch of different ways depending on your taste. Experiment and find out what you like best!

There are also lots of recipes out there that don’t use any oil, but I’ve never tried any of them with success yet. Since most of this pesto is going to my brother (for some reason, he totally fell in love with it when I made it two years ago and has been asking for more ever since), I stuck with a recipe I knew would be good.