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| This year's basil walnut pesto about to go in the freezer. |
It's not even Fall officially yet, and I am already mourning the missing solar radiation. What we lack in light and heat though, is easily made up by the bounty of the summer we are now harvesting.
Earlier this week we harvested our basil before first frost came, which it did a couple of days later. And when the basil is in, it is time to make pesto.
Our Basil Walnut Recipe
4 cups (packed) fresh basil
1 cup toasted walnuts
4 large cloves garlic
1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
I put all ingredients into our 1970s Osterizer blender, saving the oil for last. I pulsed the blender, and used my wooden spoon to push everything down between pulses.
When nicely mixed, I put it all into ice cube trays to be frozen and used over the next few months. This is a very convenient way to preserve and dispense this yummy fresh food.
Usually we use our pesto on pasta. Recently we were thrilled to discover how to use it on pizza as an alternative to tomato based pizza sauce.
We make a pesto and kale pizza that is a total taste sensation, that is made with our pesto, our dough, our kale, and mozzarella (we don't make that... yet).
Tomorrow will be pizza day as we now have lots of pesto, and our kale is going gangbusters due to the cooler weather we have been having lately.
And what gardener doesn't like discovering new ways of using kale?
Happy harvest to all the gardeners (and eaters) out there. Enjoy your celebration of good food, good friends, and good times.
What a great way to freeze small quantities of pesto. We are in Spring here, and have only just finished the pumpkins and homemade passata sauce from the Summer! It is so joyful to eat something you carefully grew and preserved many months ago.
ReplyDeleteWe still have enough garlic frozen to last us until the next harvest. I use the best of it fresh, and peel and freeze the rest on baking parchment on a tray so that it doesn't stick together, then I transfer it into a jar.
Madeleine
Yum yum yum yum yum! I love pesto!!! Wish I could make your recipe... Unfortunately one of our daughters has a random anaphylactic reaction to walnuts :( but I do make pesto sometimes with cashews or almonds and that's nice too. I haven't grown kale yet but I do grow silverbeet and spinach. Yesterday harvested some for a delicious spinach and feta pie. Always a very firm favourite in our home and there's something amazing about eating straight from the garden. I love hearing how others are doing the same :)
ReplyDeleteYou should definitely try your hand at making mozzarella! It is actually one of the easier cheeses to make.
ReplyDelete