Easy-Gourmet’s Homemade Basil Pesto Recipe

Here’s this easy-gourmet’s Homemade Basil Pesto recipe,
with all fresh ingredients that make it a fall harvest special. 

Sometimes you’re this many years old before you discover a simple little trick to making a lot of things better.

That sounds like psychology 101

but it’s actually a kitchen thing.

We used to have a client from NYC with the best Italian name.

He owned a construction business with lots of heavy equipment and one of those monster machines ended his career.

As a paraplegic, he moved to our city and continued his constructive life. A life of gardening. Picture a miniscule backyard overgrown with green plants loaded with tomatoes and peppers and beds full of herbs like basil and oregano.

And he shared.

One fall, he gave us fresh homemade basil pesto,

and this Italian food virgin became a believer.

There are sooooo many foods you can improve with pesto, and not only pasta, although that is a biggie. 

Lately, I’ve been pesto deprived and I got a sudden domesticated, fall-canning urge that made me look for a fresh basil pesto recipe.

This is The One!

 

 

Homemade Fresh Basil Pesto

Supplies:

• Food processor. I love my older version of this one.
• Salad spinner to dry the basil
• Spatula. Silicone with a steel core – the best.
• Cute jars
• These linen dish towels to dry all the dishes.
• This pencil for writing in your recipe album.

 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
• 1 or 2 fresh garlic clove
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts (I used pecans, because it’s what I have)
• 3 ounces fresh parmesan
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• juice from 1/2 fresh lemon
• 1/2 cup olive oil, the best quality you can afford

 

Directions:

1. Wash and dry the basil leaves. Remove stems. Place in food processor.
2. Loosely chop the garlic and add to the processor.
3. Add the chopped, toasted nuts to the basil and garlic.
4. Add the salt, pepper, parmesan and lemon.
5. Process about 15 seconds, then scrape the sides. Process another 10 seconds or so.
6. Slowly add the oil while the processor is running to get the consistency you like.
7. Find a cute little jar to store your pesto in the fridge. It lasts a long time in the fridge, but you can also freeze it. 

 

 

How to enjoy Homemade Basil Pesto:

1. I love adding pesto to homemade Alfredo Sauce.
2. Tossed in buttered pasta.
3. In caprese salad.
4. Drizzled on tomato soup, with a grilled cheese sandwich, for lunch.
5. On the bread before adding the cheese to make a grilled cheese sandwich.
6. Tell us how you enjoy pesto…

 

Sorry, no printable recipe for this delicious recipe.

And you know why?

Because random printed recipes are a huge pet-peeve of this easy gourmet cook.

If it’s not written and organized in my Personalized Recipe Album, I’m not a happy camper cook.

So just in case there’s more of you out there like me,

you get to copy this recipe directly into your own album, with pencil, so you can make adjustments as you finesse the recipe to your own taste choices.

 

 

Every successful cook
has a recipe book written in pencil
with lots of eraser marks,
 crossed-out ingredients,
and changed amounts.

 

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