Here on our At Home with GCH blog, Monday’s are always focused on healthy but oh-so-yummy! recipes. We are continuing our series of summer recipes featuring in-season produce. Our featured ingredient this week is basil! We can all identify the pungent aroma of basil…mmmm! Basil has all kinds of health benefits <who knew?!>; check out some info here. While basil is definitely ‘in-season’ here at the height of the summer growing season, it actually is easily grown as a houseplant. Consider purchasing a small pot of basil (even in the grocery store) and keeping it in a cute little pot right on your sunniest windowsill. Easily you could be pinching off a handful of leaves to make into pesto, or scatter some into a Caprese Salad, or slicing them up to finish off your best pot of spaghetti sauce all winter long! Enjoy!
Pesto
Ingredients:
2 cups basil
2 cups baby spinach leaves
3 tablespoons (or more!) chopped garlic (I use jarred)
2/3 cup pine nuts
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 lemon, juiced
2/3 cup olive oil
Directions:
- Place the pine nuts and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and blend for 15 seconds.
- Add the basil, spinach, salt, and pepper.
- With the food processor running, slowly pour the olive oil and the lemon juice into the bowl through the feed tube.
- Process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed.
- Add the Parmesan and puree ‘til thoroughly incorporated (30-40 seconds).
- Use immediately. *See below for hints on storing the extra pesto. Enjoy!
This is how we enoyed the pesto: Mix 1/4 – 1/3 cup into a pound or so of shrimp sauteed with LOTS of garlic. Bread on the side. As you can see, we also enjoyed a delicious Caprese salad (click link above for recipe) as well as spaghetti squash sauteed along with some zucchini. No complaints were heard! 🙂
Store extra pesto in the refrigerator for up to 1 week in a small container with a very thin film of olive oil on top (to seal out air). Can also be frozen in an ice cube tray, or (my favorite) in mini-muffin cups. To do this, wipe the muffin tin compartments with a paper towel dipped in olive oil. Spoon in a heaping tablespoon of pesto into the compartments. Place in freezer. After a couple of hours, remove tin from freezer. Set gently into a sink with just a little bit of hot water; this should loosen the individual portions of pesto. Pop them all into a freezer container…you will be so glad you did!
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God loves you! ♥ (Don’t ever forget that!)
♥ coleen