One of my favorite things to harvest this time of year is lots of basil. Mine took a month or so to get going because it took a while for temps to warm up. Also, my small pesto plants became the favorite snack of some creatures in my raised bed and they were full of holes. Thankfully, after I sprinkled a bit of diatomaceous clay on the plants and around the base the pesky intruders went away. As temps warmed up my basil plants have now become large shrubs. I’ve been able to harvest multiple times for salads, pizza toppings, pasta and fresh pesto.
The beauty of making pesto is that you can tweak the recipe and use whatever you have available. Traditional the main ingredients are basil, olive oil, parmesan, pine nuts, lemon juice salt and garlic. If you don’t have enough basil you can incorporate other greens you have growing in your garden. For today’s batch I included a couple of mustard green leaves, chives, white wine vinegar (instead of lemon juice), garlic powder (in lieu of fresh garlic), a few oregano leaves and instead of pine nuts I used cashews. Pine nuts are extremely expensive in the best of times, but right now… you might as well be putting gold in your recipe! 😂😵💫
The greatest thing about pesto is that it freezes beautifully so you can store portions to enjoy it through the Fall and Winter when you are no longer able to grow basil outdoors. I often keep a couple of basil plants growing hydroponically indoors, however, you can get much larger quantities from the outdoor plants. It’s also extremely convenient to just pop a couple of portions of pesto in the microwave (or stove) for your pasta and have a meal ready in minutes.
As for the exact proportions, any basic pesto recipe will work well. If you have trouble blending the leaves, add more olive oil and vinegar (or lemon juice) to smooth it out. Feel free to go wild with the substitutions. In the past I’ve made it mainly with basil, but I’ve also added other greens like kale, nasturtium leaves or arugula. For the nuts you can also use pecans or walnuts. For the cheese you can try goat or feta, but parmesan is the most commonly used. If you don’t eat dairy, then skip the cheese altogether. Each one of these replacements adds a slightly different flavor, but they are all delicious and very nutritious.
***No robots were used to write this article! 😂🚫🤖