so as you can assume, i made my own pesto the other night.. i made a whole batch and then ruined it. had to throw it away. and then made a whole NEW batch.. and it ended up awesome! but its so sad that the first batch was so gross... i did something stupid. i added brown sugar to it :/ i know i know. youre thinking WHY!? why would you do that!?! well.. heres why..
first of all, i went to Publix and guess what is super expensive? Basil. guess what the main ingredient in pesto is? Basil. so yeah.. i ended up buying a basil ... plant. hah. a Sweet Basil plant to be specific. AND i also bought a package of basil too.. so for the first batch of pesto, i used store bought basil and added some of my plant leaves, mixed it with garlic and tasted it. it was bitter and a little spicy in a weird way and pretty gross. so i added salt.. that helped, but it was still bitter. so my stupid self added SUGAR - and it became inedible! soooo gross! i dumped it. super gross.
the next batch i only used the fresh leaves from my plant... my poor little plant... never saw me coming.
the ingredients that worked are:
2 cups of fresh sweet basil (i stripped that little plant clean)
2 tbsp garlic (minced)
1 tbsp pine nuts (the girls at the supermarket hadnt ever heard of pine nuts, so it took me about 20 minutes to find them! theyre with the planters peanuts btw :| )
1/4 red bell pepper (dice coarsely.. youre gonna blend them anyway- and this is what i used to add a little sweetness to the pesto.. instead of sugar like an idiot :/ )
salt to taste
so take out your blender. dust it off.. i literally hadnt used this blender since i moved here! (4 months). honestly i always thought it was too hard to clean a blender- so i just didnt use it. turns out its about as hard to clean as a cup. so yay! i have a new toy :) .. well new to me. hah
take your blender and throw in all your ingredients except for your salt. wait for the salt!! so blend everything else together until its soupy and looks like.... well pesto. Then sprinkle in 1/2 a tsp of salt at a time and taste it over and over until you like the taste. warning: no matter WHAT, when its cold, the taste will be a little bitter and strong. when you cook it, the flavor becomes less intense.
so i made my risotto (which is the first recipe on this blog- except this time i added sun-dried tomatoes to it) and at the very end of the risotto, fold in a tablespoon of your pesto. then add more to your liking. you can take your excess pesto and freeze it, to use it next time. it will keep for months in the freezer!
badabing badaboom! youre done! :) let me know how you like it!
