One of my favorite things in the world, the food world that is, is basil. It's so versatile. It's easy to grow in the garden and it lends itself to savory and sweet dishes. For these reasons and more, it's pretty much on of my top five favorite herbs list.
As a newbie food blogger, I've been trying to get involved, and one of the ways to do that, is to participate in "food events" a la Tuesdays with Dorie or Martha Mondays from Mimi on the Move.
There is a lot of baking in those two food events, and while I'm working my way up to baking on a regular basis, when I stumbled upon a pesto contest, I was immediately much more in my comfort zone. This contest is being put together by Tony Tahhan at Olive Juice.
I scoured my cookbook collection and the internet looking for inspiration and some basic pesto guidelines. What I discovered is, that basically, the sky is the limit. Ingredients, measurements, and techniques all varied from recipe to recipe. Very loosey goosey, I might say. Just another example of why cooking is fun and baking is haaaard.
Of course, as I've said before, I'm determined to become a better baker, hopefully in the near future my posts will begin to reflect that.
In the mean time, I created a Basil, Sun-dried tomato and Hazelnut Pesto, that I then used 3 ways.
First....
The Ingredients:
- 1 cup basil
- 1 cup spinach
- 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes. I used the kind you reconstitute with hot water, but you could also use the ones packed in olive oil.
- 1/4 cup roasted hazelnuts.
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/3 cup good quality Parmesan cheese
- juice of 1/2 a lemon
- salt and pepper
- olive oil - enough to blend your ingredients together
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The only real preparation for this recipe is toasting the hazelnuts. I did this in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.
I also had to rinse and dry the spinach and basil.
After that, simply pop all the ingredients, except for the olive oil, into the food processor and roughly chop them up. Then, while blending, drizzle in the olive oil until the pesto is the consistency you like.
The Results:
Any recipe, whether you get it from a fellow blogger, online or your favorite cookbook, can almost always be tweaked to your personal taste. If you change this in any way - let me know! I enjoy seeing peoples take on things.
For me, I loved the earthy color and the rich flavor the sun-dried tomatoes and spinach brought to the pesto. I don't like things overly oily, so for some the final consistency may be too "spread-like" but was perfect for me. I will definitely make it again especially because once the pesto is done it is easy to use in many different ways.
Here are three different ways I used it:
Fusilli Lunghi Bucati Con Pesto:
I simply cooked up the pasta, reserved some of the cooking water, then tossed the pasta, the water, and some pesto together. I put it on a bed of spinach, sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on and called it a day.
Grilled Chicken Marinated with Pesto:
I coated boneless, skinless chicken breasts with the pesto and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour. I then cooked them on a gas grill. The pesto added a gorgeous color to the chicken. It turned out tender, juicy, and incredibly flavorful.
Pesto Crostini:
This one is pretty self explanatory, no?
Enjoy one, enjoy them all!!!
And thanks to Tony Tahhan for the fun contest, I had a really great time putting this recipe together.
oh erinn, this is fabulous! i may have said it once or twice (or 289 times) before, but i absolutely adore sun-dried tomatoes. if i see them on a menu as a component of a dish, i'm automatically enticed by it. this pesto sounds wonderful, and so multi-purpose! i would enjoy it in each and every dish you have here, especially the grilled chicken. i may just have to go out and purchase some basil for this very recipe. :)
Posted by: grace | June 12, 2008 at 05:03 AM
Hi Erinn, thanks for the submission and welcome to the world of food blogging - be careful as it tends to become addictive :)
The flavor combination sounds delicious and I love that you not only mentioned how pesto is versatile but actually showed it by using it in 3 different dishes! Great post!
Posted by: Tony | June 14, 2008 at 05:54 AM
DUDE!! Your pics here are totally *Gorge* I fortunately got a big scoop of the leftover pesto but I never saw the pics! I'm totally drooling right now.
Posted by: Vanessa | June 23, 2008 at 11:04 PM
the fusilli picture is beautiful. And, I am really interested in using hazelnuts; I bet this is very full-bodied.
Posted by: maybelles mom (feeding maybelle) | October 07, 2008 at 05:36 PM