Bucket of Basil
Have I been dilly-dallying in the harvesting of my basil this year? Yes. Did I think I had a couple more weeks to dilly-dally? Yes. Did we have our first frost last night? Yes. No more dilly-dallying for me!
After checking numerous weather reports yesterday, I determined that I need to cut down my basil plants last night in order to save the leaves from frostbite. I headed out to the garden with scissors (funny, I know) and a couple of plastic bags (even funnier). My plan was to cut them down and place the branches in various vases. Upon examination of the larger-than-I-remember basil plants, I panicked. Time to call the gardening hotline. “Mom? Can I just cover the plants with plastic tonight? No? Well, I don’t know what to do. They won’t fit in my vases. Oh, yeah, buckets are a good idea. Yes, I think that pruners are a better idea than scissors. Thanks, Mom”.
Fast forward to today. I can’t avoid pesto making any longer. I grabbed one of the buckets, set-up a table, but the latest episode of the Ken Burns National Park series on the television, and began picking basil leaves. Lots of basil leaves.
Bowl of Basil Leaves
Forty-five minutes later, I had filled a large mixing bowl and headed out to the kitchen to set-up my pesto-making factory.
Pesto Assembly Line
I use a very basic pesto recipe. I make one batch at a time, mainly because that is all my food processor can handle. Here’s the recipe:
Basil Pesto
Ingredients
3 packed cups of basil leaves
3-4 cloves of garlic-minced
1/3 cup of pine nuts
1/3 cup of olive oil
1/3 cup of parmesan cheese
Directions:
- Mix basil and garlic in food processor until minced.
- Add pine nuts and mix until minced.
- With food processor running, slowly add olive oil.
The final step would be to remove the mixture from the food processor and add the parmesan cheese. However, for my pesto-making factory purposes, I am freezing batches for later use and I don’t want to add cheese to batches that are to be frozen. The parmesan cheese will be added to these batches as they are thawed and used.
Now, back to the assembly line. With much guilt, I admit that I use a jar of minced garlic for my pesto-making factory. It just makes the process move along a little quicker. Do not tell my mom. Also, I buy my pine nuts in bulk.
Big ol' bag of pine nuts
The 8 oz packages in the produce section of the grocery store just don’t cut it for a pesto-making factory. Therefore, after rinsing the basil leaves, I start making my batches of pesto in the food processor:
Pesto in the works
Finished Pesto
After completion of the pesto batch, I place the pesto in plastic sandwich bags for freezer storage.
Pesto packets
All in all, it’s a very simple process. Although I love eating pesto fresh from the food processor, it’s great to be able to pull a packet from the freezer on a cold Michigan night in January and enjoy some of our garden’s harvest.
