Last weekend we harvested somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 cups of basil from the garden. Also, I didn't even get to every plant. So for those of you who said/thought that I planted too much basil, you might be right...but I'll never admit it. I'll work double time to make use of it all and I'll give the rest away. No basil will be left behind.
So what did I do with it all? Well, I made 6 batches of regular pesto - I used the Farmhouse Finishing School's recipe. Love. Great recipe. Not too different from the ones I've been using, but it called for the pine nuts to be lightly toasted and that made a giant difference. While I was toasting stuff, I toasted the garlic - made it easier to peel and the flavor was really great.
But that still left A WHOLE LOT OF BASIL, so I revisited my roasted red pepper pesto and whipped up a double batch. I should note here that the recipe I provided was already a double batch and I had forgotten that (d'oh!) and my food processor almost overflowethed. Almost.
I toasted the pine nuts and garlic and kept everything else the same. Mmmmmm...we ended up using the roasted red pepper pesto as the base sauce on a pizza with a little bit of the basil pesto in a swirl on top...wow. Highly recommend. All the work that has gone into growing this basil and making the pesto is 100% worth it.
Finally, I decided to dry some basil. In addition to using it in our own food, the dogs love it. At casa de Lopez, everyone wins!
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