Presto, pesto !

Hello there and happy Monday ! It is 1:00 am and I am up blogging... this is literally the first moment I've had to do this since awaking with the little one yesterday.  I have such a wonderful recipe to share with you guys... BASIL PESTO. Yum.  It's really easy, doesn't take a lot of ingredients, tools, or time.  I don't know how everyone else feels about pesto, but personally, I couldn't love it more.  It goes great on grilled shrimp, cheesy noodles, stuffed mushrooms, cold couscous salad, grilled cheese, chicken pizza, and all kinds of other things ...I could go on and on... But let's get to the recipe, shall we?

What you'll need :

• 1/2 cup of oil (sunflower, olive, grape seed, canola...)
• 1 bunch of fresh Basil leaves - at least 12 -15 leaves
• 1/2 cup of Pecorino Romano 
• 1/4 cup dry roasted pine nuts
• 1/2 tsp of minced garlic
• salt and pepper to taste
• Food Processor or blender 

Cooking Instructions:

First, I grated my cheese in the food processor.  If you are using already grated cheese, skip the grating step but do add it to the processor first. Then add your Basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic, salt and pepper.  Pour in oil and combine ! 

The texture you should achieve should be a green, moist paste. Not too wet and not too dry. If you feel it is too wet and about 1/2 tablespoon of pine nuts and combine again. If you would like it wetter, add more oil, 1 tsp at a time, because it's easy to make it too wet.  To store the pesto I always use a glass jar and put it in the the fridge. It stays fresher in glass and the pesto can't stain the glass like it would a plastic, porous container.


Just one last thing ....Like I said earlier, I LOVE pesto ...but I love even more that I can make it myself. The more things I can make myself, the more sustainable I feel; and that makes me very happy. Especially being able to avoid things that are usually over priced... and pesto is definitely one of those things. Now, I don't know exactly how much this jar of pesto cost me to make but it's definitely cheaper then the $8 jar of pesto I used to buy.  The bunch of pesto I purchased from Walmart cost me $2.38 and I only used portions of the other ingredients; so the only thing I would have to buy again  to make another jar is another bunch of Basil ! Making your own pesto is easy, delicious, and a money saver. 

Alright, I'm going to bed ! I'd love for you guys to try this out and let me know what you think  :) Thanks !

~Jess