I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, but all the traveling and jet lag over the last few days has gotten the best of me. (I am currently writing this post at 5 am because I'm wide awake and why not?) I am home in Virginia Beach after a 30 hour day filled with travel, and I have been cooking up a storm, as my family can attest to. I have also seen the beautiful beach that I missed incredibly, and the weather here has been great so far this week. Even the heat is more bearable because there is AC in America – I never thought I would miss it so much, but after a heat wave through a continent that seemingly has prohibited them, I have never felt so lucky to come in from the beach after a hot day to a cool house.
I thought I'd start off my series of posts from home with a recipe for something simple that elevates most any dish – homemade pesto. My mom got this recipe from a family friend years ago, and once I discovered it I began making loads of pesto each summer, when basil is in season, and freezing it to be used the rest of year. This year we ended up with four basil plants, which were all planted in my dad's garden and have grown to enormous sizes since I've been away. (Every thing in the picture below is basil!)
I think one of the best additions to a kitchen is fresh herbs, and they are generally very easy to grow and more than pay for themselves. Rather than buying a tiny little overpriced bunch of basil leaves, which probably won't even make a 1/4 cup of pesto, "invest" in a good basil plant at the beginning of the summer. Basil grows pretty quickly as long as you don't overwater it (which I learned the hard way), so it is pretty foolproof and you quickly end up with a lot of basil. I really think fresh herbs just add a whole other dimension to every dish you make: chiffonade basil over pasta or chicken (stack some big leaves of basil, roll them up, and chop them into thin ribbons); purèe basil and olive oil in a food processor to make an herb-y oil for fish or shrimp (as you'll see me do in a later post!); roughly chop some basil into a salad for an unexpected hit of flavor.
Some other great fresh herbs that I would recommend are rosemary, which can grow into a beautifully large bush and is an aromatic addition to any garden (but also works perfectly fine in a pot on a windowsill) and mint, which grows like crazy and therefore does well in a pot where it won't take over your garden! I've had better luck with peppermint than spearmint plants, but either works fine for any recipe calling for mint. Rosemary is perfect for when you need a deep, woodsy, aromatic flavor, such as on meat or in soup. Mint is great to top fresh dishes like salads or recipes with fruit (watermelon or stone fruits like peaches pair with mint nicely). If you have more room for more herbs, I think thyme or sage are nice. I have found that cilantro can be hard to grow, and usually you can find a huge bunch of cilantro in the grocery store for less than a dollar. For my recipes with cilantro, I usually use almost the entire bunch (a cup or two of cilantro!), and I have never grown a cilantro plant well enough to garner that much from it. A lot of people have parsley in their herbs gardens, but honestly I find it a little unnecessary. Parsley is one of my least favorite herbs because it doesn't have much taste to me; it almost just takes like grass (sorry if that is sacrilegious to any Italians!). In most recipes that call for parsley, I just substitute something else – usually basil, and occasionally thyme or rosemary.
I honestly think that fresh herbs are one of the greatest secret weapons in my healthy cooking arsenal of tips; if you don't have any, go out and buy yourself a little plant right now! Even just starting with one type will make so many dishes excellent! You can usually find a good plant for about 3-4 dollars when the herb is in season, and it will more than pay for itself; with little maintenance, you have something that will continue to produce more and more leaves, and they are so much better than what you can get in one of those tiny little herb containers they sell at the store (while are also usually around $3, for a fraction of the amount you get).
Now that I'm done with my harangue on the importance of buying fresh herbs, let me show you what you can do with a bunch of fresh basil! You can also substitute other herbs for the basil, or combine a few: yes, many recipes call for parsley (but again, I think it only mutes the flavor); you could use mint, which tastes very different from classic pesto and is worth trying at least ones; you can even substitute spinach for some of the basil (especially if your basil plant isn't very fruitful and you need to bulk up the pesto).
This recipe will make about a cup of pesto. It is perfect to add straight to pasta (reserve a bit of the cooking liquid to thin out the pesto a little), add to shrimp or chicken, or slather on a slice of toasted French bread with goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, and a few toasted pine nuts.
If you have some leftover (as we always do), go ahead and freeze it! Pesto freezes perfectly so you can have it year round without resorted to buy the jarred stuff that is filled with preservatives. To freeze pesto, use a small cookie scoop (or just a spoon) and place scoops on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Freeze for at least an hour until firm, then remove the scoops and place them in a freezer storage bag. That way whenever you want pesto you can take out only as much as you need instead of thawing the entire batch. You can microwave the pesto to thaw it if you want, but since it melts the parmesan in the pesto it might end up with a strange consistency (that hasn't stopped me from doing it though). I often will microwave a bowl of pasta with a little water or olive oil and one scoop of pesto for an easy and quick meal.
As you can see, pesto is the pinnacle of dips (with guacamole and hummus tied for second): it is easy, cheap, and you can freeze it for later; it is versatile and pairs well with lots of dishes, but is far from bland. My next post will feature pesto in a delicious breakfast dish, and this is a perfect recipe for it. Whether in the fridge or the freezer, you should always keep some of this on hand!
Pesto Makes about one cup Ingredients 3 cups of fresh basil 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped (or two tablespoons pre-made minced garlic) 1/3 cup pine nuts (feel free to experiment with different types of nuts: almond and walnuts are both good choices, but I've also seen pistachio, pecan, and cashew. I wouldn't suggest peanuts. As always, toasted nuts add more flavor, so dry toast them yourself in a skillet, or find the roasted variety). 1/3 cup olive oil 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (I always suggest fresh parmesan, but the stuff in the can works as well. If you get a can of parmesan, make sure you get grated, which looks like this, and not shredded; the shredded parmesan is too hard and wont break up in the food processor, so you'll end up with a weird texture of pesto.) Directions 1. Place the basil, garlic, and pine nuts in a food processor and process until well mixed, scraping down the sides occasionally if necessary. You don't want the pesto to look like a paste right now; it should be chunky. Process only until all the basil leaves are chopped (which usually takes about ten seconds); see the 6th picture above for reference. 2. With the food processor running, stream in the olive oil. Again, scrape down the sides if necessary. 3. Add the parmesan cheese and pulse until combined. 4. To store in the fridge, cover with olive oil and cover tightly with plastic wrap, so that the plastic wrap is touching the top of the pesto. This keeps the pesto from browning on top, but down worry if it does; the basil browns once it's been cut and oxidized by the air, but the pesto won't taste any different. If the color bothers you, just stir up the pesto right before you use it. 5. To store in the freezer, use a small cookie scoop to place small rounds of basil on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Freeze for at least an hour, but no more than a day (or you'll risk the pesto developing ice crystals from being exposed to the air in the freezer). Remove the rounds and place in a Ziploc bag. To thaw, take however many rounds you need and microwave them for about 30 seconds, or let thaw in the fridge. You may need to add a little more olive oil if the consistency is too thick.