This year was a good basil year. I planted two varieties from seed -- large and small leaf -- and both grew well. Basil made its way into salads, onto grilled pizza, and was chopped and mixed with softened butter to slather on corn on the cob.
But now it's time for pesto.
Over the years I've collected lots of tips and techniques. One, from Cook's Illustrated magazine, advised toasting the garlic used to make pesto for a few minutes to take the bite out of it, which works well.
Basil tends to darken when cut and frozen, so some recipes call for adding a little bit of parsley or spinach to give the pesto a vibrant green color.
Another tip is to toast the nuts. This intensifies their flavor so you can use fewer of them. In most recipes, you can cut the amount in half by toasting first. Pine nuts are generally used to make pesto, but they are pretty pricey right now, about $25 a pound, because of a shortage. You can use walnuts or almonds in place of pine nuts.
The pesto in today's recipe makes a little more than 3/4 cup. Use about half a cup in this simple pasta dish and freeze the remainder. (You can use it all if you want.)
To freeze pesto, spoon it into ice
If you want to use the pesto within a few days, you can put it in a container in the refrigerator. Drizzle a thin layer of olive oil over the top, and cover with plastic wrap and the lid.
If you're not making pesto and want to save some of that basil for later use, you can freeze it (as well as most herbs) by itself. To freeze herbs, rinse the leaves or wipe them with a damp paper towel. Chop or tear them and put them in ice
Another method for freezing herbs is to coarsely chop them, drizzle them with olive oil and freeze them in mounds on a tray. Once frozen, place the mounds in freezer bags.
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