Rockland, Maine
All of the posts under the "pesto" tag.
I love serving antipasto when we have guests over, but sometimes the delivery is challenging. If you don’t give people something they can easily eat standing up, they won’t always take it.
This is the perfect time of year to be using late summer ingredients like basil and tomatoes. This weekend, I threw together my own twist on caprese bites. These were a huge hit at our gathering and every single one was eaten!
When you want to feel really self-satisfied over a home cooking endeavor, look no further than pesto. It’s one of those foods that has a sort of glamorous foodie image and with good cause. Pesto adds incredible flavor to everything from sandwiches to pasta. It’s expensive to buy, though, and can be overpowering if you use too much. I think people are a little intimidated by it.
When we finally moved into our own house and I had room to grow as much basil as my heart desired, I went a little overboard. In the summer of 2006, my backyard looked like it belonged to Cheech and Chong. What could I do with all this basil? I just made batch after batch of pesto and froze it in ice cube trays. For the entire winter, we had fresh pesto (defrosted on the spot) to use in our meals. Some summers, since, have been better for pesto than others. This year, I got another bumper crop. As August comes to a close, it’s time to put that freshness away for the cold winter nights.