Pesto Cubes

i

love

pesto

The stuff in the jar doesn't do it for me, I love FRESH!

Enter: Basil from the garden.

I use it in salads and sauce, but nothing beats a fresh pesto pasta.

For enjoyment year round (or as long as they last) make pesto cubes for a quick and easy meal.

How To Make Pesto

• 4 cups fresh basil
• one clove garlic (okay, if you really love garlic, add more!)
• the juice from half of a lemon (this helps to prevent the darkening that will occur if you put it into the freezer)
• 2/3 cup walnuts, pine nut, or even pistachios *pine nuts are the traditional way, I'll be using pistachios however- keep in mind if your nuts are salted, to not add salt, the cheese will have enough in it combined with the already salted nuts.
• one cup of grated Pecorina Romano Cheese
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup water
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the walnuts into a dry skillet and put onto medium heat. Turn them with a spatula every few minutes until they're fragrant and toasted. This only takes a few minutes.
2. Into a food processor, pour in your walnuts and garlic. Pulse for about 20 seconds, then put in your basil.
3. Pulse several times, then use your spatula to push the leaves down toward the blades.
4. Add in the water, then squeeze in the half of a lemon (sans seeds) then the olive oil, then process until  blended.
5. Add in the cheese, salt and pepper then process.
6. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, if necessary. Don't forget that cheese is salty too, so season to taste.
7. Dump all the pesto into a large gallon bag and cut a corner off, squeeze into ice cube trays.
8. After frozen pop them out and store in a freezer safe gallon bag.

Let's get cooking

4 cubes per 1 ILB of pasta... or more according to your taste. 
Heat them on a skillet on a low heat with a little bit of butter to thaw. 
Add to cooked pasta....sprinkle of cheese, mangia!

Side note: I made two batches one with regular basil and one with lemon basil.  Lemon basil I plan to use with chicken and seafood.  While the regular basil will be used as is.