How to: Make Pesto

Summer is a wonderful time being that it provides the opportunity to partake in many activities not available during other parts of the year. One of the things that happens in summer is that basil grows very rapidly. I awoke this morning to find this picture from Hypnotic Aubergine.

Upon seeing that image I calculated that the best use of my late morning would be in the creation of some pesto. At the same time, I thought, "I should document the creation of the pesto and share it." I have done just that... and I discovered that making pesto, from picking the basil to putting the food processor in the dish washer, takes under 20 minutes. What a treat!

Pesto
The first step in making pesto is getting yourself some basil. For me this is quite easy; all I have to do is go outside and pick it (Steps 1a, 1b, and 2).

Step 1a: Find the Basil

Step 1b: Appreciate the beauty of basil

Step 2: Pick the basil

After acquiring some basil, I suggest that you give it a little rinse. Here in Davis, we recently had arial spraying of pesticides to try to wipe out mosquitos carrying West Nile Virus.

Step 3: Wash the basil

Another important ingredient in my version of pesto is garlic. I like using 2 cloves of garlic in my pesto, regardless of how much I make. I'm a sucker for garlic.

Step 4: Find the garlic cloves

The garlic does not have to be chopped too finely; it is going to go for a spin the food processor in a second.

Step 5: Roughly chop the garlic

Next, I gave the garlic a few pulses in the food processor to finely chop it. After it was minced up, the basil went in and it too was finely chopped up with the pulse button.

Step 6a: Put garlic in food processor

Step 6b: Pulse garlic until it is finely minced

Step 7a: Put basil in food processor

Step 7b: Pulse basil until it is finely chopped

Pesto is held together by olive oil. In order to keep the pesto tasting alive and fruity, use good extra virgin olive oil. I chose Yolo Vineyards Olive Oil Company Extra Virgin Olive Oil because it is both good and local.

Step 8: Find some good extra virgin olive oil

The next part is the trickiest part for me. This is where the consistency of the pesto is decided. Some people like it thicker, some thinner. To get consistent results, I drizzle in the olive oil until the pesto starts moving around in a clump. At the beggining of the drizzle, nothing will really happen. Eventually, when the level of the olive oil gets up to the blade, it will start sloshing around and the pesto will incorporate.

Step 9: Add olive oil

The rest of the pesto making is adding in the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and the pine nuts. I prefer raw pine nuts in my pesto, while some use toasted pine nuts.

Step 10: Acquire some Parmigiano Reggiano

Into the food processor now went some grated P-R cheese, a handful of pine nuts, salt and pepper.

Step 11: Add the rest of the stuff

Incorporate the new additions, and you are done!

Step 12: Pulse until the pine nuts are well incorporated

All done!

Step Done!: Don't let your dog eat your pesto

Tilden was more than interested in what I had been doing. It seemed like making pesto was really fast, and after looking at the EXIF data on the photos, I confirmed that hunch: It took 19 minutes start to finish to make the pesto.


Bon Apetit!


Slideshow of pesto making

Pizza Dough Recipe

For Sparsh and Nadoshi:

Here is the recipe that we use. It is adapted from a magazine article whose title I forgot to write down. As soon as I get home, I will update this post.

Pizza Dough

2.75-3.25 c AP flour
1 pkg active dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1 c warm water
2-3 tbs olive oil

In a large bowl combine 1.25 c flour, yeast and salt. Add warm water and oil. Beat with an electric mixer on low for 30 seconds, scraping down constantly. Beat on high 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.

Turn out dough onto floured board. Kneed in enough remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic, 6-8 minutes. Divide into 8,4,2 pieces depending on size of pizza desired. (I usually make 2 14-16" diameter pizzas out of this. The crust is pretty thin, which I enjoy.) Let rest for 10 minutes minimum. I leave for it for 30min - 1 hour, which gives the dough a little bit more time to rise and a slightly spongier crust.

Dinner idea rates going up

Due to recent press, my rate for dinner ideas will be going up to $5/15 minutes. So you lucky person who got to get an idea at my low introductory rate - Congrats. For the rest of you, I've got a head full of decent ideas about what you can do for dinner.

Two tomatoes or Living in the tomato capital and err... not living up to expecations.

Our Zebra Tomato
Originally uploaded by monkeycat!.

It was time for the big reveal, the moment that we have waited for all summer, the point in time when we realize that living in the Central Valley of California has an upside. It was time to eat the first tomatoes of the season. We live in Davis, California which is in Yolo County. Yolo County is the tomato capital of America. I'm not kidding. 90% of the U.S. tomatoes are grown in our fair county. The soil and the temperature are perfect to grow tomatoes, and for this reason, EVERYONE grows tomatoes. We like every other household in Davis planted tomatoes as soon as it stopped raining.

Now, months later, we realized that while Yolo County may be heaven for tomatoes, our backyard is not. We planted 3 tomato vines and were managed to get 6 flowers to set fruit. While most of Davis can get 6 fruits in a bunch, we made 6 total. Today I picked the 2 zebra tomatoes that we grew. Now, all is not lost; I tasted one and it was amazing - deep flavor, a slight hint of sweetness with no supermarket tomato qualities. It was a beautiful feeling cutting into the first tomato of the season. Yet there was something in the back of my head nagging at me... Two. Two? Two! I can't believe we were only able to grow 2 zebra tomatoes this season.

Oh well, next year will be better (I hope) and in the mean time, I think we are going to pull out the tomato plants and let the eggplant thrive with some additional light and let the lemon cucumbers colonize the rest of the bed. We have no problem growing those... In fact we can't give them away fast enough. If you are in town and want some zucchini or lemon cucumbers, give us a call. We would be more than happy to fill you up.