Plain old basil pesto is delicious and in summer, when you can pick some off the unwieldy bush in your yard and make some perfect pesto for a small plate of noodles, by all means do it.
But if you are going to freeze pesto, I say make a nod to the original purpose of pesto and supercharge the hell out of it.
Pesto came into existence in Genoa, Italy — a port town. It was created by women who wanted to welcome their husbands home from epically long sea journeys with something green and fresh, which is precisely what they did not get on a sea journey in the days before refrigeration.
Actually, I have been on a fancy cruise ship and I would say that “fresh green food” and “any sea journey” are two concepts that do not intersect.
Anyway, the fresh green pesto was like a tonic to these weathered, depleted guys.
Which is what I ended up with here — a mix of greens and things that is the ultimate in tonic for a weathered, depleted person.
Make batches of this during the summer and between this and Elderberry cordial, you will not get sick. If, perchance you do, you at least won’t get sick as long as everyone else.
Ingredients
2/3 c olive oil
1 cup fresh basil
1 cup fresh parsley
1/4 cup rosemary
1/4 cup oregano
2 T fresh lavander
1/4 cup pine nuts
3 garlic cloves
1/4 c parmesan cheese
1 green onion
1/2 t salt
Method
- Blend (I dump it all in but you could do the making an emulsion thing and drizzle in olive oil).
- Freeze (in ice cube trays).
- Store (in freezer).
Uses & Tips
- Heat in a little pot on the stove with some water to loosen it and pour over steamed, broiled or sauteed chicken, fish, or meat. (OK, no one steams meat that I know of or would want to know.)
- Do the above and then pour over pasta.
- Do the above (by which I mean #1 and not #2), mix in some goat cheese and use as a dip for vegetables or bread.
- Heat in a little sauce pan with some water and then mix with bread crumbs and use as a crust for chicken, fish, meat.
- Pour over eggs in the morning, especially over easy with nicely browned potato cubes.
- Also: one thing I do is with these kinds of flavor cubes is to separate the batch into a few servings per batch and vacuum seal those servings, then put all of the sealed bags into a Ziploc. This way, the batch of stuff lasts longer so I can make larger batches than I would normally be able to make.
