Well, not really. I had some trouble thinking of a new pun for this recipe, it's been a real pest-o (I wasted my good material last week—please forgive me). I love this recipe—like so many of my other recipes—because it’s extremely easy to make. I really don’t understand why anyone would buy pesto premade because it’s never any good. I’m generally underwhelmed by the jars of pesto sauce you can buy at the store. I have only one word for them: bland. I’m unsure how any company or person can take foods as flavorful as basil and garlic and make something so tasteless! (Not giving any names—they know who they are) It seems like it would be more difficult to make bad pesto than good pesto. That’s a true testament to how easy it is to make.
You can put pesto on anything—I mean it! The only thing limiting you is your imagination, my friend. (The following may or may not remind you of a certain 90’s blockbuster.) You can make pesto chicken, pesto pasta, pesto tilapia, pesto pizza, pesto mashed potatoes, pesto salad dressing, pesto risotto, pesto grilled cheese, pesto, tomato and mozzarella paninis (see what I did there?). Anyway, if you want to explore more of the vast possibilities of pesto, you can look at the article, "50 Things to Make with Pesto".
I have it on good authority (and by that, I mean I have consulted with the wise people at Wikipedia) that pesto’s etymology comes from the Italian verb pesta, which means to pound or crush. I guess that means anything pounded or crushed is pesto to Italians? But I’m not here to have a debate about what is and isn’t traditional Italian pesto. As you will see, this recipe isn’t traditional because I use walnuts instead of pine nuts. I realize that might upset some of the pesto purists out there (and it might affect the aforementioned Italian citizenship), but walnuts are cheaper, and (IMO) they taste better than pine nuts, too.
Speaking of better taste, that’s what Chloe loves most about this pesto recipe because she’s a big walnut fan. She's also a big basil fan—it’s her favorite herb, besides catnip of course. We’ll go ahead and give the pesto a 10/10 for her attempt to hijack it when I wasn’t looking.
My dad doesn’t follow a recipe when he makes this. His method is more like a handful of this and a pinch of that, so I had to watch him very closely to get some portions for you all.
As I mentioned in my last recipe, my dad has an impressive garden, and for this recipe we stripped bare our basil plant and got a LOT of pesto from it. You don’t need to make as much as we did, and you definitely don’t need this much basil. Just make as much pesto as your little heart desires.
Not pictured, lemon. (Sorry lemon, I still love you!)
Recipe Notes:
I don’t have many notes for this one. I would like to clarify that this recipe’s portion sizes are more of a suggestion than an absolute fact. If you like your pesto runny then add more olive oil. If you like it spicy, then add more red pepper flakes. Your heart will tell you what’s right.
Pesto
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Yield: ~ 3 cups sauce
Ingredients:
3-4 cups fresh basil leaves
1 cup walnuts
4-5 cloves garlic
1 – 1 1/2 cups olive oil
2 tsp red pepper flakes
Juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Place basil, walnuts and garlic into a food processor and pulse the ingredients until you have a grainy paste.
Add in the olive oil, red pepper flakes, lemon juice, and parmesan and pulse until reaching your desired consistency.
Add salt and pepper, then taste and adjust as needed.
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