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pesto additives


Kim WB

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You can do nice pestos with any leafy herbs. If the colour goes a bit weird (like with mint) then just add a bit of blanched and shocked spinach.

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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Spinach is nice. I do about 2 large bunches with 1 1/2 cups basil for a batch.

What's wrong with peanut butter and mustard? What else is a guy supposed to do when we are out of jelly?

-Dad

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I don't get it.

I never have enough fresh basil leaves to make a supply of traditional pesto

(basil, olive oil, pine nuts or walnuts (that bit of heresy came from E. David!)

and parmesan reggiano, to last through the winter, but the sauce is so good with pasta, soup, or salad, that I would not consider a new age substitute in March or April, any more than purchasing pesto in a tub.

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I would not consider a new age substitute in March or April, any more than purchasing pesto in a tub.

Using other herbs is, uh, "new age"?

Awesome. Dude! Then I'm, like, not so much "gnarled" as "gnarly" then.

Tubular, Dude!

(What are these pesto tubs of which you speak?)

"I've caught you Richardson, stuffing spit-backs in your vile maw. 'Let tomorrow's omelets go empty,' is that your fucking attitude?" -E. B. Farnum

"Behold, I teach you the ubermunch. The ubermunch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the ubermunch shall be the meaning of the earth!" -Fritzy N.

"It's okay to like celery more than yogurt, but it's not okay to think that batter is yogurt."

Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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Because it's useless to try to plant basil until the soil is nicely warmed, I'm harvesting basil in late September in this Zone Five Garden. And I have a whole lotta basil to deal with. (Yes, I have a little pot of nursery basil on the patio for midsummer snipping.)

The spinach sounds like a good idea, likewise parsley if you want to fluff up the green leafy proportion in your pesto. Basil is great because even a little of its flavour goes a long way.

Making pesto purely with pignoli would involve pawning the family silver, given the volume of my late September basil harvest. I add walnuts, almonds or filberts. It's all good. And I freeze the pesto in big lumps in small freezer baggies. I know that following the stern Italian dictum of To every thing there is a season, (etc.) I shouldn't be dressing pasta with pesto in February. To that I give a very expressive Florentine hand signal-- it's so wonderful to taste summer in the dreary Midwesten midwinter.

Margaret McArthur

"Take it easy, but take it."

Studs Terkel

1912-2008

A sensational tennis blog from freakyfrites

margaretmcarthur.com

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Hey Maggie,

Just FYI, COSTCO has a huge bag of pignoli they sell fairly cheaply (can't remember exactly how much). And if you keep it in the freezer, you can use them all up before they turn bad!

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And if you keep it in the freezer, you can use them all up before they turn bad!

Pignoli turn bad? :shock::unsure: Thanks for that information.

Someone (I don't remember who) once made the suggestion of putting pesto in ice cube trays, so that you could have small portions to use when you want them. I did this a few weeks ago -- and promptly forgot about it. And last night I got home late -- and hungry -- and was wondering what to eat and I remembered the pesto in the ice cube trays. Really, what a brilliant idea. Thanks!

BTW -- I make pesto using only basil leaves, garlic cloves (lots of them), salt, pepper, a bit of EVOO, and a bit of lemon juice. No cheese, no nuts, no thousands of calories (and it's pareve!) It's from a James Beard recipe that he devised when he was put on a low-fat, salt-free diet (his recipe has no salt, mine does.) It comes out very good, and I'm going to try it with other greens -- and put them in ice cube trays. :smile:

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I have made pesto with the Siam Queen spicy basil, with lemon basil, cinnamon basil and also with cilantro, with parsley, also have included lovage leaves, summer savory along with the basil as well as salad burnet which has the flavor of cucumbers (and which reseeds itself with abandon all over the yard). Also shiso, both green and red.

I use the classic parmesan cheese - reggiano, of course, but also romano, asiago,

occasionally adding a bit of sap sago and some other hard grating cheeses.

Since I can get pine nuts locally (from people who go up into the Sierras to gather them and shell them, I use a lot more of them than other nuts.

I have made a wonderful pesto with cinnamon basil and macadamia nuts, slow roasted garlic (carmelized) and Sbrinz, a Swiss grating cheese - someone gave me a big chunk and I had to use it up......

It was a glorious combination. I have a friend on the Big Island who sends me broken mac nuts from a local grower.

By the way, regarding freezing stuff in ice cube trays - - - if you take a sheet of plastic wrap, lay it over the ice cube tray then push it down into the cube sections, leaving a little slack between them, you can fill them and when frozen cut the plastic wrap to separate the cubes and keep the little cubes, with the plastic wrap intact around each one, in a large ziploc bag. This way they will not stick together and the plastic ice cube trays do not get permanently "flavored"....

This is a very good thing when you want to avoid a garlic flavor to your fruit purees.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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By the way, regarding freezing stuff in ice cube trays - - - if you take a sheet of plastic wrap, lay it over the ice cube tray then push it down into the cube sections, leaving a little slack between them, you can fill them and when frozen cut the  plastic wrap to separate the cubes and keep the little cubes, with the plastic wrap intact around each one, in a large ziploc bag. This way they will not stick together and the plastic ice cube trays do not get permanently "flavored"....

This is a very good thing when you want to avoid a garlic flavor to your fruit purees.

What a great idea :smile: I've lost so many ice-cube trays to weird flavours that I'd stopped putting anything but water in my new ones.

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I have made any number of off-the-wall pestos experimenting with what is growing in the herb garden. It is fun to wander around in the garden, taking snippets of leaves and tasting, either alone or in combinations. I remember one favorite that was with anise hyssop. I think we may have diluted it with parsley because the hyssop was such a strong flavor. Then there is the decision as to which nuts, garlic or no garlic, cheese or no cheese. My sister and I get pretty free-wheeling with pestos and tradition goes out the window.

The oddest thing we ever did was a few weeks ago. At the local grocery, they had these gorgeous bunches of radishes. We wanted radishes to go with some Mexican dishes but what my sister zoomed in on was the condition of the leaves. They were perfectly fresh and undamaged. (An unusual condition for supermarket radishes.) So, she asks, "Do you have any pecans?" We were playing with my new KA food processor. In went the radish greens, toasted pecans, a little bit of garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Tasting as we went, we determined that cheese would just muck it up. We ate it on saltine crackers. It was a wonderful green tasting concoction with a little bit of a bite... very refreshing.

BTW, andiesenji is correct about the flavors getting in the plastic. When I have some to freeze, I use the little 1/2 cup wide mouth mason jars.

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

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(What are these pesto tubs of which you speak?)

It's like... you know.... like pesto in a tub. You buy it at a wholesale club in a big-ass plastic tub that holds about a quart of the stuff. Good for pesto wrestling but not sure I'd want to eat it.

I love that idea about adding a bit of bluee cheese - will have to try it.

I've been using the pignoli's from BJ's and they're good - not to mention half the price of what the grocery store charges.

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I have made arugula pesto, (or added some to my basil pesto), which is good on a lot of different pastas. And it is good on potato salad as well.

"Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage."

Woody Allen

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I made a recipe last week that had in it arugula-pistachio pesto.

It was made with a handful each of arugula and baby spinach, half cup of shelled-salted-toasted pistachios, quarter-cup grated parmesan, and enough oil to make a paste (about one third-cup). It turned out really nice. I used the leftovers in a sandwich, which was really great.

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"

-Presiden Muffley, Dr. Strangelove

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