I promise you,… if you make this pesto once, you will never eat store bought pesto ever again. I. promise. you.  This is the pesto I used, as an addition, to the homemade pasta that I posted about a few months ago.  Its divine and glorious and SO easy to make.  All you need is a food processor. Or, if you don’t have that, you could use one of these. It may take just a bit more time, but it is well worth it.  Or, you could also do it the old fashioned way and use a knife,…but that may take a bit longer. But like I said, it is well worth it.  I. promise. you.   To start out, you’ll need Olive Oil, Fresh Basil, Pine Nuts, Garlic Cloves, Parmesan and/or Romano Cheese, Butter,  and some Salt.    Throw about 2 packed cups of fresh basil, washed and dried, into your food processor. Along with the basil, add 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, a 1/2 cup of olive oil, 3 heaping tbsp. of pine nuts, and a pinch or so of salt.   As you process it, it will start to look like this. See how it is mostly chopped up, but not all the way chopped up? Just keep chopping it up in the food processor until it is finely, finely processed and looks something like this.   After it is nicely sliced, diced, and finely processed, take the pesto mixture out of the food processor and transfer it to a bowl.  Your bowl doesn’t have to be green like mine is, but it is a nice touch, don’t you think?  After you have transfered the pesto mixture to your bowl, mix in a 1/2 cup of finely grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese and 2 tbsp. of finely grated romano cheese.  However, if all you have is parmigiano cheese on hand and no romano, you can use just the parmigiano. Just use 1/2 cup and 2 tbsp. instead. Mix in the cheese til it looks close to this.   Then, add 3 tbsp. of softened butter to the almost finished pesto. The  butter is what gives the pesto that creamy, delicious texture.  Yummmmm,… buttttter.    Then, grab a piece of bread and taste test it,… this is the most crucial and important part. It would be terrible if it wasn’t good…make sure it tastes REALLY good before you hand it over to your family and friends.  So be very, very sure it tastes super, super good. Do you understand what I am saying?   And then, after you taste it, you may not want to share it with anyone… just warning you.

-adapted from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan

Tags: basil, cooking, italian, pesto

This entry was posted on January 5, 2008 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Lydia's Food and Feasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.