What's a girl to do when a coworker brings her a bucketful of basil? Make pesto!! I've been wanting to try a pesto recipe my friend Neva gave me awhile back. Neva has all types of food allergies, one of them being nuts, but this girl loves her some pesto... as long as she's the one making it :) I'll leave it to her own words on how to make it:
I have no clue what our recipe is! It's a true family-style one, where we just keep adding some of this and a little of that until it tastes right. My guess is it's one of those big bunches of basil from the public market, a bunch of garlic (we're usually heavy-handed with garlic, but I'd guess most people would like 3-4 cloves, since it's not cooked), grated parmasian (maybe 1/4-1/2 cups?), and then tahini (let's go with a 1/4 cup). Oh, and olive oil, salt, and pepper. There's a bunch of oil involved, I recall. We usually put the basil leaves in a food processor, along with the garlic and tahini, turn it on, and add oil as needed to make it into a paste. We stir in the cheese after that (I guess you could blend that in too - I can't think of why not), and add salt and pepper to taste. And then add all the other ingredients to taste again too! Is there maybe lemon in there also? Why not? Let's say there's juice from 1/2 lemon too, because it's always good to add a little acid to things. And, voila, there's my very accurate pesto recipe! lol
I made up a batch and spread it on some bread, and then grilled it up with some mozzarella, spinach, and mushrooms. SO GOOD! Yeah and that whole smearing some more on the plate to use for dipping sauce... way harder than they make it look on the food network! haha