Fresh Basil Pesto

This recipe makes a wonderful Basil Pesto comparable to the best (and expensive) commercially prepared Pesto you can find anywhere. It's fast and easy to make, uses relatively few ingredients, you can adjust the sodium content to make it healthier, it keeps well in the fridge, can be used in many delicious recipes, it's fresh and best of all ... it's delicious! I didn't mention this in the instructions but if you pan toast the pine nuts in a dry saute pan over medium heat for a few minutes before pureeing it can add a delicious extra dimension to this. It's totally optional however and I don't bother unless I want something extra special ;)

This is best made in a food processor but if you don't HAVE a food processor (and I don't) making this in a blender is doable (and worth it) even if it IS incredibly annoying and messy, just be careful and NEVER run your blender while trying to push down hard to blend ingredients ... STOP your blender, stir contents, remove stirring utensil, cover and restart. Nuff said.


Ingredients

2 c fresh basil leaves (60g)
4-5 cloves garlic peeled but not chopped
1/3 c olive oil
1/3 c pine nuts or approx 2oz/60g by weight
1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese 2oz/60g
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

So the short of it is, if you have a food processor this will be easy, add everything and pulse a few seconds til you have a nice pesto paste...if not ... use a blender with caution. A magic bullet would probably work for this as well, maybe chop the nuts and garlic first as they are a bit harder to incorporate if you add them later. The oil helps a lot while blending but don't go wild on it, you want this to be more of a paste not a sauce.

Nutritionally this is very similar in calories to a popular commercially prepared brand but whereas theirs has 180mg/Tbsp of sodium mine only had about 57mg/Tbsp as calculated using the volumes and brands I personally used in making this recipe. In a taste test I could not tell that mine was lower in sodium at all, and every little bit helps when you are trying to reduce your sodium.


Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 tbsp
Calories 82
Total Fat 8.34g
Saturated Fat 1.6g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 56.58mg
Total Carbohydrate 0.88g
Dietary Fiber 0.32g
Sugars 0.15g
Protein 2.17g

IA