Amazing Pesto Recipe

[DumpTruck]

1 big container of basil – fill container with water and add a drop of lemon oil and let sit then pick off the leaves – it’s ok to have some stems in there (or just rinse with water and pick off leaves)
5 tablespoons of pine nuts
A drizzle or two EVOO (probably 2 ounces, but adjust to taste and texture you are looking for)
1.5 ounces of water (or how thin/thick you like it)
1 whole jalapeno
A squeeze of fresh lemon
10 cloves of garlic
Salt to taste

Shove all that into a food processor and you’re done!!! Let it sit in the fridge for about 10 minutes for flavor to set. Make three batches – freeze two of them!
I tend to get half the ingredients in, then run the processor, then add more, so it all fits in. You gotta jam it in.
Add spinach if you are running low on basil. A little spinach is always nice in there no matter what – full of iron, vitamin C and protein yummm

The pesto as a flair to other dishes really amps up the flavor quotient. Today for lunch I did Sesame Ezekiel bread toasted with a cashew "cheese", mashed avocado, roasted shiitake mushrooms, and toped with the pesto. DIVINE SO NOURISHING and I FEEL GREAT! What an incredible nutritional and value dense food!

[BTDretire]

 It looks good, I had pesto on toasted bread pieces about 10 years ago at a restaurant and it was oh so very good.
 I will try this, but can you do better than "1 big container of basil"?
Is ths a container on a semi truck, a container Sam's might sell, or a gallon bucket
I would pick in the garden. 1/2 pound? a 1 pound?
 With 10 gloves of garlic it seems like you would need a big container of basil. :-)
I just need to know how big.
                       Thanks,

[MDM]

...can you do better than "1 big container of basil"?

At one time a variety of pesto recipes were combined into the table below.  The 8 cups of basil refers to 8 cups of whole leaves "compressed by hand."  In other words, somewhere between "loose" and "hydraulic press".

The first column has the average values, with subsequent columns as labeled.

Macadamia nuts (or other) can be substituted for pine nuts.

"Cheese" refers to Parmesan or similar.

Adding other ingredients, as DumpTruck notes, is certainly fair game.

Basil	cups	8	Min	Max	Median
Olive oil	cup	1.21	0.5	2.0	1.3
Pine nuts	cup	0.74	0.6	1.0	0.7
Garlic	cloves	6.33	0.0	12.0	8.0
Cheese	cup	1.25	0.0	2.0	2.0
Salt	teaspoon	1.00	0.0	4.0	0.5
Lemon juice	Tbsp	1.44	0.0	8.0	0.0
Pepper	tsp	0.17	0.0	1.0	0.0
Oregano	tsp	0.67	0.0	5.3	0.0

[reginna]

1 big container of basil – fill container with water and add a drop of lemon oil and let sit then pick off the leaves – it’s ok to have some stems in there (or just rinse with water and pick off leaves)
5 tablespoons of pine nuts
A drizzle or two EVOO (probably 2 ounces, but adjust to taste and texture you are looking for)
1.5 ounces of water (or how thin/thick you like it)
1 whole jalapeno
A squeeze of fresh lemon
10 cloves of garlic
Salt to taste

Shove all that into a food processor and you’re done!!! Let it sit in the fridge for about 10 minutes for flavor to set. Make three batches – freeze two of them!
I tend to get half the ingredients in, then run the processor, then add more, so it all fits in. You gotta jam it in.
Add spinach if you are running low on basil. A little spinach is always nice in there no matter what – full of iron, vitamin C and protein yummm

The pesto as a flair to other dishes really amps up the flavor quotient. Today for lunch I did Sesame Ezekiel bread toasted with a cashew "cheese", mashed avocado, roasted shiitake mushrooms, and toped with the pesto. DIVINE SO NOURISHING and I FEEL GREAT! What an incredible nutritional and value dense food!

Sounds great DumpTruck! Starting to look forward to spring.

[BTDretire]

...can you do better than "1 big container of basil"?

At one time a variety of pesto recipes were combined into the table below.  The 8 cups of basil refers to 8 cups of whole leaves "compressed by hand."  In other words, somewhere between "loose" and "hydraulic press".

Thanks MDM, I'll try 8 cups. But I'll also weigh it so if I need to add or subtract next time
I will know how many ounces of Basil and tbls of VOO.
 You might say I'm more engineer than cook, I want the numbers. :-)

[BTDretire]

Sounds great DumpTruck! Starting to look forward to spring.

I just checked my wife has 8 pots with Basil plants, we include it in meals several times a week. I should plant some basil outside of the pots in an area of the yard she recently started growing in. Pesto takes a lot of basil. The new area is a very fertile . The luffa, orange trees and hot peppers grew so good we were surprised.
 In just 3 years we have way, way more oranges than we need.
The hot pepper plants are 5 ft tall and two people couldn't get their arms around them.

[sol]

Homemade basil is one of life's great luxuries.  Pine nuts can be hard to find, but basil and garlic are super easy to grow yourself.