Food Entry 1-Pesto

Last night as I was making our dinner (pictured above) of grilled marinated chicken over salad, corn-on-the-cob and a cocktail of raspberry vodka and tonic I decided to make pesto. While JP and I were in Chicago we went to the botanical gardens by Evanston (story to come later). We just happened to be in time to take a cooking class with a guy who worked with Alton Brown (Good Eats-one of my favorites). He demonstrated how to make and cut your own pasta (my next challenge), how to make pesto and a great summer tomato and onion pasta sauce. Here's my journey....

Step 1: Roast the pine nuts, strip the basil, and pop the garlic

Step 2: Blend garlic, basil, pine nuts, parm and olive oil. I also added a little lemon

I froze some of the pesto in ice cube trays to use later--pictures above of the pesto just made and in trays and picture below just pulled out of the freezer.

Finally, I made a pesto pasta with roma tomatoes sauteed with garlic and olive oil and then added the pesto. Finished with freshly grated parm.

I thought the sauce turned out great although my ratio of basil to pine nuts might have been a bit off. I don't mind the nutty taste, but others might. Aften dinner I finished making MC's birthday cupcakes (to be featured later). Tomorrow postings of that and TC's birthday ice box cake.

Let me know what you like and dislike. I'm testing this idea out since I've seen it on a couple of people's blogs before. Cheers!