Hey presto, pesto!

I guess the title isn’t very original, but I’m very excited about my home-made pesto! I didn’t make it perfectly (didn’t read the recipe properly) but it still tastes really good, so good in fact that there is very little left of it!

A friend bought a living herb pot of basil from the supermarket; usually they just die, but this one survived and flourished and grew into a mighty bush. It was so mighty in fact that she decided to make some pesto in order to cut the plant back. She brought some into work and it was absolutely delicious! She said it was easy to make…

So when I came by rather a lot of basil recently, I went and bought some pine nuts and some pecorino cheese (didn’t read the recipe properly again!) and set to and make it. It was so easy – basil, cheese, pine nuts, garlic and lashings of olive oil. I out everything into a pestle and set too, adding the olive oil when everything became a lumpy paste. However, here is the recipe I used:

• 3 oz basil leaves
• 2 oz pine nuts
• 2 oz pecorino (the recipe said parmesan – but I don’t like parmesan so used pecorino instead)
• 1 clove of garlic (I chopped it up a bit to start with)
• pinch of sea salt
• loads of olive oil – I think you add as much as you like, and depending on whether you want runny or smooth pesto

1. crush the basil, pine nuts, garlic and salt in a pestle and mortar
2. once it is as smooth a paste as you want, add the cheese and olive oil – as much oil as you want to taste
3. (I just put everything except the olive oil in, ground it, then added the oil)

Nice on crusty bread or on pasta or in a salad as a dressing.