Yummo Pesto

If you live anywhere in the USA where it is a hot summer and that's most of the country and if you have an herb garden, you have an abundance of basil.  Basil likes it hot.  My herb garden consists of one big pot, about 24 w x 20 h, with the usual suspects....sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender and basil.  I have two smaller pots of parsley, one flat leaf and one curly. The parsley doesn't like it this hot, so it's not so great this year.  This is on my deck right off the kitchen door so it's very handy and more than enough for me.  Today I cut off about half the basil; that's a picture after the cutting.  It was way above the railing and had to be tied to keep from flopping in the wind.

You'll probably find it hard to believe that someone who likes to cook never had a food processor.  I just got mine this year.  Isn't that a great color?  My stand mixer is also a KitchenAid and I love it, so decided to go with the same brand. Making pesto used to be a big messy job making multiple batches in my blender, although it might not have been as bad in my new blender.  Can you guess the brand?  Anyway I had picked 8 cups of basil leaves, enough for 5 batches. I used my old recipe from my very old "Joy Of Cooking", which calls for a mortar and pestle, but I just threw everything in the food processor and hit "on".  It was amazingly easy. I could only fit 4 cups of leaves in, so made it in two big batches.

I spoon it into plastic ice-cube trays from the dollar store (neatness doesn't count) and freeze it. When frozen I pop them out of the trays into zip-lock plastic bags and have pesto all year round.  One big batch filled these trays, so the rest of the pesto is in the refrigerator until these are frozen.

I also made my cucumber/avocado/yogurt cold soup today, soooo easy in my KitchenAid blender.
Hmmmmm, I must be in a green mood since I'm working on a green quilt.  I got a call from the quilt shop yesterday saying that my Bernina is ready.  I'll get it tomorrow and I'll have to be in a brown mood.

Pesto

1 1/2 c basil leaves

2 cloves garlic

1/4 c pine nuts

3/4 c parmesan cheese

3/4 c olive oil

Put all ingredients except olive oil in food processor.  Process until thick paste forms then add olive oil slowly thru top feed.  Freeze or cover with plastic wrap if not using right away as it will darken.