One of my friends told me that you can make a nice pesto with parsley – good to know when basil is not available or is overly pricey – like, in the winter! Swapping the one herb for another is an easy hack that still yields good results: a beautiful, tasty sauce.
More than anything else, I see this as a vehicle for garlic. The following is the merest of recipes…well, it’s just a reflection of what I did to make this happen.
Parsley Pesto
- 1 bunch of parsley;
- fresh walnuts;
- four, five or six garlic cloves (no first dates after eating this);
- olive oil; (I’m still in love with that Gata Hurdes)
- spreadable butter (with canola, salted);
- vegetable oil;
- Whole Foods 365 sea salt;
- Tillamook 2-year old White Cheddar, crumbled;
- Kraft Parmesan; and
- cracked black pepper.
I cut off the parsley stems before putting a bunch in the food processor. (You must use a food processor for this prep, or you will go batty.) Probably I put in about a 1/2 cup of walnuts. Then the olive oil, garlic, cheeses, salt and pepper. And of course I had to taste it and adjust at every step of the way. You might not want the pepper but I find that it carries the bite of the garlic a little further.
By the way, this pesto freezes like a dream (as seen above in the Gladware). I made it, froze it, and microwaved it for like 30 seconds at a time to revive it – this is mostly fat, so you might want to be cautious about re-heating to avoid overcooking (perhaps 10 seconds at a time would be the more responsible approach). All I had to do was boil up some pasta.
For myself, I served it with some rigatoni. To increase the cuteness factor, I tossed it with some farfalle (bowtie) so that I could bring it to a work potluck. And yes, I got compliments. You can too!
2 Comments
December 30, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Hey, thanks for your comment. I love your blog! Just wanted to add that you can make pesto out of spinach, or artichoke hearts, too. I like the spinach, because it is cheaper if you don’t grow your own basil. I never saw the parsley though, I’ll have to try that!
December 31, 2007 at 3:13 am
Nice looking pesto. You can also make a nice version with sun dried tomatoes which is awesome on pasta.