I love pesto. I could eat pesto anything just about every day. I picked up a jar of it from the store and was so excited I could have it anytime I wanted. Then I made something with it and was reminded why I always make homemade pesto. It is so superior. Old jarred pesto just does not have the essence that fresh does.
Working With What You Have
I can only get Thai basil around where I live so I decided to experiment with pesto in general. I added about a cup of Thai basil to my food processor, with around 1/2 a cup of cashews (pine nuts are totally cost prohibitive), salt, pepper, tons of fresh Parm (at least 1/4 cup)…
A few glugs of olive oil and a whole head of roasted garlic.
That’s right! A whole head. I wanted that pesto flavour without dragon breath.
I blitzed everything together and added more olive oil as needed for everything to come together. If it needs more salt, I recommend adding more Parmesan. There are a lot of substitutions that can be made when making pesto but Parm is not one of them.
Much more subtle but still delicious, the nut substitution and the roasting of the garlic worked great. Next time I would add some fresh garlic too for a bit of a punch.
So I had the pesto but what about a meal to go with it?
I recently discovered that my Superstore sells lots of chicken sausages which rocked my world! I discovered these gourmet Chicken Feta & Spinach Sausages by Mark Angelo and have fallen in foodie love with them.
They are fully cooked so all I had to do was grill them up. I also cooked mushrooms alongside.
To make sure they were heated through I just added a pot lid to cover everything.
Divine and delicious!
I cooked up some pasta, sliced the chicken sausages, added the mushrooms and tossed them with the pesto.
Unbelievably delicious! So fresh, so easy and so yummy. Finally chicken has become interesting to me.
I added even more Parmesan and ate the whole damn bowl of pasta. Want a bite?
YUM
At work we make pesto with whatever leafy green we have available growing. Kale and Swiss Chard are usually available in abundance and then just with a bit of basil. We also use seeds like sunflower or pumpkin, toasted, as a nut substitute (preschools and nut products are a bit of a no-no). With kale and chard monopolizing the body of the pesto it is an inexpensive way to create an abundance of pesto that you don’t have to ration. We often end up using it as a chip dip because there is so much left.
Fascinating Heidi! I had made it with spinach before but chard and kale? Nice!