I don’t remember the first time I had pesto, but it is one of my favorite things to add to any food.
Pasta. Salmon. Shrimp. Toast. Eggs. Chips dipped directly into it. Pesto makes everything better. It’s also pretty much an entire spinach salad in every few spoons, which is how I help justify how quickly I can consume it compared to the amount of cheese and oil it contains.
I clearly recall having it at the appropriately-named Ristorante Pesto on Broad Street as a teenager, but that seems like such a late point in life to have tasted pesto for the first time.
Thus, while I wish I could say this is an old family recipe, it’s not – it’s just adapted from The Better Homes and Gardens cookbook over the course of dozens of trials over the course of the past decade. It used to be that E made it and then I just greedily consumed it. Finally, I became impatient about waiting for her to decide she felt like making pesto and so I made it myself and realized it is so easy to do (as long as you have a decent food processor).
Now I make double and triple batches every time so I can enjoy as much pesto as I want on my pasta and everything else.
Here is the ingredient list for an 8oz batch of pesto, which is probably enough to toss with for pasta for four. I use the alterations in parenthesis every time, but they make things more complex – you’ll do just fine ignoring them your first time. [Read more…] about My Best Pesto