Pesto Party

Ok, I lied.

Remember back in July of last year when I said to use "a jar of pesto" in the orzo salad recipe? Well, I never use jarred pesto. I should have mentioned this then, but I was lazy and didn't feel like also including a pesto recipe. I doubt it matters because no one has actually used that orzo salad recipe anyway. But I would like to address this pesto thing.

Pesto is great, but pesto from a jar is not great. Fresh pesto is the only way to go and making your own means that it will be cheap as well. You really can't find large quantities of fresh basil at any other time of the year than the summer and the summer is coming to an end. So make pesto now. And make a lot of it, put it in ice cube trays, freeze it and then you have pesto to last the entire winter. That's what I did yesterday. It's also what I did at this time last year, and we just finished the last of our pesto a couple of weeks ago.

The New York Times had an article about this last week which included a recipe. You'll want to multiply the actual recipe many fold to get enough pesto to freeze for the winter. I bought 2 pounds of basil, so without the stems it probably yielded 1 lb/16 ounces of basil. I didn't use nearly as much oil as it calls for in the recipe. I probably only dumped about a cup or so in the food processor.

The most important part of this process is finding lots of basil on the cheap. I would look for ethnic grocery stores which also sell produce. The basil is out there you just have to find it, but stay away from the supermarkets which charge $2.50 for a little bunch in a tidy plastic container.