Red and green
2004-08-02 @ 8:40 p.m.
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Red hair! My hair is red, and I love it! I colored it Friday night.
Sunday I made pesto - 4 different kinds. Actually, I think pesto is technically a blend of basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese, garlic and pine nuts. But now we are calling just about anything pur�ed into a sauce pesto. I thought it was just anything with herbs and olive oil, but it's branched even beyond that.
So I made standard pesto:
2 cups basil leaves
1 cup olive oil
3 tbsps toasted pine nuts
2 tsps minced garlic
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Put everything in the food processor except the olive oil. Pour in the oil while everything else is getting pur�ed. Voila. I put it in the smallest Gladware or Ziplock cartons and freeze most of it.
I made two batches of this, then on the second batch I added a chopped jalapeno pepper to the last third of the mixture. It's very spicy, and I like it.
Then I made basil/sage pesto using the same recipe but using a cup of basil and a cup of sage leaves. It makes an earthier style of sauce.
For olive/basil pesto I left out the parmesan cheese and added about 1/2 to 3/4 cup green olives and the same amount of black olives and about a half cup of chickpeas with the same 2 cups of basil and everything else the same.
Sometimes I use pesto as a sauce for pasta and whatever else I want to add to it. Sunday evening for dinner I made a cold chicken pasta salad with 3 or 4 spoons of the olive/basil mix, a cup or two of cooked orzo pasta, chopped cucumbers, sliced black olives, capers, cut and blanched green beans and chickpeas. It was very good. The Viogner I had went with it well, as, I assume, did the ros� Jake had.
Other times I use pesto as a flavoring in other sauces or soups. I like to add a spoon or two to my spaghetti sauce. It's handy to have around, and the basil is doing very well in the garden this year, as usual. There is always more than I can use. This year I only planted one basil plant, but I have 8 or 10 volunteers. I'll still have more than we can all use.
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