Because basil is in season and because everyone else is talking about it and doing it, I’m gonna share my pesto recipe with ya’ll. Just to put it out there.

I didn’t get this recipe from any old cookbook; I got it from a real chef from the highest-end restaurant in town. (Or is it highest-endest? Or highest-endedest?) Granted, he didn’t actually give me the recipe, but… See, a couple summers ago I had taken the kids to the children’s museum and they were having a special cooking presentation from a real chef from the above-mentioned establishment, and he just happened to be making pesto. So I watched closely, scrutinizing his every move. This is what I came away with.

Pesto

4-5 cups basil leaves, packed
2-3 cloves garlic
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
½ cup fresh Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
½ – 3/4 cup olive oil

Put all the ingredients but the olive oil in a food processor and pulverize till it turns into a green paste. Then, while it’s still processing, gradually pour in the olive oil through the feed tube. Stop once or twice to scrap down the sides with a rubber spatula. Put the pesto in small containers to freeze, or eat right away.

For a pound of pasta, reserve about a half cup of the pasta’s cooking liquid and mix it with about a half cup of pesto (or more, depending on your tastes). Or, if you like it strong, don’t bother to dilute the pesto with the cooking liquid at all and use about a cup of pesto.

Several other suggestions for serving pesto:
*add to macaroni and cheese
*add to Alfredo sauce (in this recipe I just used cubes of frozen basil, but pesto would work just fine, too)
*spread in sandwiches with roasted tomatoes and sharp cheese
*spread it on pizza crust in place of the tomato sauce and top with grated cheese and tomatoes (fresh, roasted, and dried all work well)
*after mixing it into a pot of drained, hot pasta, add a half-cup of cream

1. I put some dried cherry tomatoes on the pizza that I made last night and they were absolutely delicious. Chewy and tender and tomato-y. All that fear about the skins being too tough is for naught. I’ll be heading out to the garden (or sending one of the kids out in my place) today to pick a big bowlful for drying.

2. The Dove Tiramisu chocolates are fabulous. The Lindt Chili chocolate is so rich and spicy that I can only take a little nibble at a time, which is fine because one piece of chocolate lasts quite awhile that way. But don’t eat any right before going to bed; I couldn’t fall asleep for an hour last night due, I think, to that one piece of chocolate.

3. You wanna know something funny? Without reading that post about chocolate (which I’m refering to in #2), Mr. Handsome went and bought me a box of Gertrude Hawk chocolates, Dark Chocolate Lover’s Special Edition, for an anniversary present. Isn’t he sweet?

4. Last night I made pesto and finished off the jar of chopped garlic that I had sitting in my fridge. I loved having prepared, chopped garlic ready at all times, especially at this time of year when I am putting garlic in and on everything. The garlic has been sitting in my fridge for over a month with no sign of any rotting, so I plan to fix another jar soon.

5. My Girlfriend Michael Ann pointed me to another method for roasting tomatoes: put a bit of pesto on the Roma halves before roasting them. Is that not a wicked idea?

6. Mr. Handsome returned from his visit North with a boatload of discount bananas, courtesy of The Grand Matriarch (thank you!). There were two big bunches of bananas in each bag, ninety-nine cents a bag, and she bought us eight, EIGHT, bags. I’ve been peeling (Miss Becca Boo calls it “shelling”), chopping, and drying ever since.