Fresh Basil Pesto

If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE basil. And is it really so hard to understand why?! Basil is so fresh-tasting and delicious that almost anything you add it to automatically tastes fresher and better! If you need convincing of this, get yourself some fresh basil and try this: take approximately 10 basil leaves and roll and slice them thinly, then sprinkle it over the top of a plain frozen cheese pizza. It won't taste like any other frozen pizza you've ever had, that's for sure!
Even though I like using the basil leaves fresh off the plant by themselves, one of my favorite things to do with fresh basil is to make pesto. The best thing about this is that it preserves well, so you can keep it for a year and enjoy the same fresh herb taste in the middle of winter that you could in the middle of summer! After you have prepared the fresh pesto, all you have to do is fill the compartments of an ice cube tray with the mixture and freeze it until it's solid. When the pesto is frozen, just pop it out of the ice cube trays and place the frozen blocks into a freezer-safe zip top bag to keep in the freezer for whenever you need or want them. You could wrap the frozen blocks of pesto in plastic wrap before placing in the freezer bag, if you would like, and that will help hold it all together, but it's not necessary.
Now, after you've made the fresh pesto, there are countless things you can do with it. Mix it into fresh-cooked pasta before adding the sauce... Mix it with mayonnaise to use on sandwiches... Use it as a sauce on pizzas... Serve with crostini... Etc.
The only thing that I have to say is this... Pine nuts are DISGUSTING!! If I wanted my food to taste like a pine tree, I would go gnaw off some of the tree and just eat that. I don't know which crazy individual discovered that pine nuts are edible and then decided it would be a good idea to eat them, but it's just wrong. Pine nuts are just what you might presume - they're the seeds from inside pine cones. Someone goes and breaks open pine cones to harvest the little seeds from inside of them so that the delusional people who are told how yummy they are will eat them and then disillusion themselves further by convincing themselves that they taste good. Who are these people?! They are just wrong! I ALWAYS use walnuts, which ARE yummy, in my pesto, and I've never had bad results. :-)


½ c. walnuts
3 - 4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 - 5 oz. fresh basil leaves
½ tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 - 1½ c. olive oil
1 c. freshly grated Parmesan

Place the garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until garlic is coarsely chopped. Add the walnuts to the bowl and pulse again until the walnuts are chopped and mixed with the garlic, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper in batches; with the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed. Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute.

Oven Roasted Potatoes

So, this recipe is not entirely difficult or anything, but it IS one of my favorite ways to prepare potatoes. Actually, roasting is one of my favorite ways to prepare almost everything! I love the way that what you're roasting gets this wonderful golden brown color from being gently caramelized and the flavor that the roasting brings out. It's just wonderful, yummy goodness...
When it comes to roasted potatoes, I have gotten so discouraged at times because nearly every single recipe out there calls for you to roast them with rosemary. I'm fairly certain that I just haven't had a recipe in which it was prepared properly and this has led to my absolute dislike of the herb as a result. In my opinion, there are two things, despite some popular belief, that you can have too much of - garlic and rosemary. Don't get me wrong, garlic can be delicious. But you CAN have too much of a good thing! As for rosemary... Until someone can prepare a dish for me, using rosemary, and I am not overwhelmed by the extremely intense flavor of it, I will continue in my dislike of it. And if I feel the unbearable desire to eat something that tastes like pine needles, I'll just take a hike out to the pine tree in the yard and pick a few off! :-P Now, give me some yummy, fresh basil, and I could probably just put that in a salad and eat it all by itself!! Hee hee hee!
For roasted potatoes, my very favorite are the baby reds. However, you can probably use any potato you like and they will be wonderful and delicious. I recently found a bag which contained a combination of baby russet, red, and purple potatoes, so I used those with yummy results! I've seen purple potatoes, like in magazines and on television, but they had never been in any of the grocery stores I had access to, so I never tried them. So, of course, I just had to try them! And they taste like a potato. While being a pretty and interesting presentation, the flavor does not stand out as being anything really spectacular or addictive. But, they ARE potato goodness! :-) I think the important thing to remember is that you don't NEED to have the little baby potatoes to make this dish - you can use whatever potato you have on hand or find on sale at the grocery store - you just need to be sure to cut the potatoes into a somewhat uniform size so that they roast in the same amount of time.



2 lb. red new potatoes, quartered
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp. dried thyme
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Place the potatoes in a bowl with the olive oil, thyme, salt, and pepper; toss until the potatoes are well coated. Transfer the potatoes to a sheet pan and spread out into 1 layer. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until browned and crisp. Flip twice with a spatula during cooking in order to ensure even browning. Remove the potatoes from the oven and serve hot.