Garden Pesto
I don’t know about you, but I just love the smell of fresh basil. For the last two weeks our garden has been producing beautiful basil plants, zucchini flowers (blossoms) and small tomatoes. My husband goes out there every morning before the direct sunlight reaches the garden to water all the plants and pick the basil and zucchini flowers that are ready for us to eat. I made so many fried zucchini flowers this past week (recipe coming shortly) that I actually think we were in a zucchini flower coma most nights!
One of those nights I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to drizzle some basil pesto over the zucchini flowers?!” and voila` a new favorite recipe was born in the Ponte household!
If you have a food processor, making basil pesto take less than five minutes, literally. There are so many uses for pesto, but some of my favorites are:
- Pasta with pesto (any kind of pasta is great but I like farfalle and penne the best)
- Tomato bruschetta with the first layer being pesto
- Roasted chicken sandwiches (click here for perfect roast chicken recipe) with pesto, lettuce, avocado and tomato
- Fried Zucchini Flowers with a pesto drizzle
Here is the simple garden pesto recipe. I hope you enjoy it! Let me know if you have some favorite uses for pesto I haven’t mentioned since I’m always looking for new ways to use up all of my garden basil!
Yum!
Nicole
- 2 cups fresh basil
- ¼ cup lightly toasted pine nuts
- ½ cup grated parmigiana cheese
- ¾ cup olive oil
- 1 garlic clove
- Toast the pine nuts in a frying pan on medium heat for 1minute.
- In a food processor, puree the basil, pine nuts and garlic until finely chopped.
- While the processor is still running, slowly add the olive oil to form a creamy consistency.
- Transfer pesto to a bowl and stir in the cheese.
