Pesto

Last week, I crossed off another thing on my list of Goals. I completed #19: Learn how to make pesto. After living in Italy, I've come to appreciate pesto. In fact, I love it! It's tasty and it goes with everything. People in Italy make their own pesto all the time but that always seemed intimidating to me. I finally resolved to try it and I discovered...it's not that hard! It was a bit of a challenge to find pine nuts here, but once we found them I was out of excuses. So, I toasted up the pine nuts, chopped up the nuts and basil, drizzled in the olive oil, added the parmesan cheese and stirred it in to the pasta. It was so delicious!! We even had some left over that we used on our garlic chicken pesto pizza. So good! Now that I know how to make pesto, I plan to make it often. I've heard it freezes well.

I can now cross off #19 and I can honestly say that my pesto was a success!

toasty pine nuts clean basil
nuts and garlic all chopped up
with the basil, oil and cheese added
delicious with pasta (we even added sun dried tomatoes)

Basil Pesto:

1 small clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
1 1/4 cups fresh basil leaves (packed)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and freshly ground pepper

In a food processor, pulse pine nuts and garlic together until finely ground. Add basil leaves and process until the leaves are finely chopped. With processor running, add olive oil in a steady stream. Add parmesan cheese and process until completely incorporated and the mixture is paste like. Season to taste with salt and pepper.