Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Pesto that Wasn't......

Since I had a whole lot of fresh basil left over from my trip to the farmer's market, today was the day to try my hand at something new. Something that I have never attempted to make myself--pesto sauce.

Sauces aren't exactly my strong suite. I can make a great chicken, bake tons of goodies from scratch and even do a decent job at the grill. But sauces? From scratch? Mmmm....no.
But I have mentioned that I love fresh basil, and I couldn't stand to see it go to waste. So there I was, printing a recipe online. It looks simple enough, with just five ingredients:




However.....in order to make fresh pesto, you need a food processor. And NO, Ginny, the "chop" option on your blender is not a good enough substitute!!! So now I have a blenderful of basil in various stages of "chopped," and parmesan cheese, pinenuts, olive oil and garlic tossed in with it. It's not looking good. I still don't want to admit defeat and feed the whole mess to the garbage disposal. So I reach for the "Hail Mary" ingredient....a can of tomato puree. I open the can and pour it into the blender and scrape down the sides. I replace the cover, press "mix" and cross my fingers. I turn it off and grab a spoon to see if my precious basil can be saved. Hmmm....this stuff's not bad! It's not the BEST tomato sauce I've ever had, but it's good enough to pour over pasta and have a quick late lunch. Hooray! Thank goodness I always keep a couple of cans of tomato products in the house. They've been my saving grace before, and oh yes, they are again!

Now......if anyone needs any birthday ideas.....a food processor. Too bad my birthday's in December. No fresh pesto till then!

2 comments:

CraftyMomof3 said...

PLEASE tell me you didn't waste the cheese!

Toastqueen said...

You are always welcome to borrow my food processor. It's teeny, but does the job!