Harvesting my basil is one of my favourite events of Autumn. Each leaf I pick is like summer in your hand. The smell of sweet basil as I pick it is so heart warming. All I can smell is the potential of pesto dish’s with prawns, chicken, parmigiano, chorizo and home made gnocchi, tagliatelle, linguini etc!
It’s a simple process, and a decent food processor does all the hard work for you. I used Almonds but in most cases Pine Nuts are used. The cheese can be a parigiano or peccorino and the olive oil is totally virgin like.
We bag it up in ‘deal bags’ and pop it in the freezer so that all winter when nothing much grows we can have a taste of summer with our fresh home made pesto. Much less slat than the store bought stuff, and there is a satisfaction that you put this dish together yourself. Nothing tastes better than that.
pesto drug lord
29 Tuesday Mar 2011
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Do you have a recipe for this? Or is it a secret?
Haha. That last picture…
My basil is just starting to grow. Its finally spring here.
I’m jealous! We have a week of fairly cool weather ahead of us, if I hadn’t harvested the basil I would have surely lost it all! Enjoy your Spring!
Looks like…um…something else herbal.
you betchya!
LOL… wrote that tired and after only looking at the pictures. Whoops.
mmmm… I have such good memories of the autumn basil harvest. Last year, I couldn’t afford to add nuts, so I loaded it with garlic and freshly grated parmesan instead. Then I froze it inside ice cube trays, which made it so easy to add just a little basil flavor to pasta. Looks like you got a really large harvest this year!
Sure did! This is the second batch I’ve done in two weeks.
I raised over 50 basil plants in my little hot house. We love basil. Is that obvious?
We’ve been using it all summer just picked and added straight to various recipes and most of all I’ve been adding it to tomato’s on toast for breakfast!
I left some about 5% on the plants just for the odd garnish here and there before the cooler weather really hits.
Ooooooh, yummy. Try it with pistachios sometime. You’ll really, really like it.
Mmmmm I can only hope our Basil crop is that bountiful this year.
and yes, try it with pistachios:
http://www.maggiemarsek.com/home/2011/03/recipe-wednesday-pistachio-pesto/
;)
How much pesto do you put in each bag?
Chris, We put three heaped table spoons in each. That will be a meal for a family of four with left overs!
Brilliant! I am considering buying a machine for plastic vacuumbags. A lot of money but well worth it i think.
HAHAHA!
Awesome.. does the pesto freeze alright? How long would it last? Not that i could leave it in the freezer for very long before stuffing it in my face!
Well it’s been frozen for a few months now and it still taste great! I just wanted to harness that taste of my fresh basil from the patch, so that in winter we could still enjoy the taste of summer. Pesto is something that even our 2 year old loves!