Teleidoscope

Mon, Jul 30, 2007

Pesto

Posted at 10:46 pm MDT to Technology

Nanette raises and sells a lot of basil. As well as dill and mint: a customer last Saturday told me we have the best smelling booth at the Farmers' Market. And that day we didn't have the mint on sale, and only three kinds of basil: standard sweet basil, lemon basil and cinnamon basil. Other weeks this year we have had spicy globe basil and holy basil on sale as well, but the Thai basil didn't come up this year.

Purple basil is more of an ornamental (though it makes ugly pesto). I think Nanette and Chuck raised it one year, but it never sold well for culinary use. (I think the flavor is off, too.)

Pesto is not something that I ate growing up: I never had any until I started selling basil.

Living near Costco is handy for making pesto, too: they sell large bags of nuts at reasonable prices, and serious quantities of grated cheese.

The first batch of pesto I ever made, years ago, was sweet basil and walnuts and Parmesan and garlic and olive oil. Over the years I have decided that pine nuts go better with sweet basil and walnuts go better with lemon basil.

I made a lot of lemon basil/walnut pesto yesterday: three batches in my food processor. Two batches went directly into the freezer: one batch was divided into a plastic-wrap-lined icecube tray, and the second was smooshed thin in a ziplock bag with as much air squeezed out as possible. I'm hoping to be able to break off chunks...

The third batch is in the fridge in a sealed plastic container, with a layer of extra-virgin olive oil poured over the top and a layer of plastic wrap pressed into the oil to keep out oxygen. This is another storage experiment. It seems to be working so far: I scooped out some pesto for a sandwich this noon and poured on another thin layer of oil before I replaced the plastic. The extra layer of oil doesn't make the top of the pesto too oily, just thins it out a little. My pesto comes out of the processor very thick (it's mostly basil, nuts and cheese, with just enough oil added to make it ball up in the food processor) and really needs more oil added to make it spread easier and adhere to pasta better. So I think this storage method may work out well.

My lunch sandwich was just two pieces of toast with a thick layer of the oiled but otherwise undiluted pesto between them. I think tomorrow I will try creamcheese and pesto, to make a nice texture contrast. I had pesto on pasta for supper yesterday, but that gets old.

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