Ways to Use Pesto Beyond Pasta
Some of my best ideas occur when I’m harvesting and cooking. This week I’d like to share a recipe for pesto along with some writing prompts that take their inspiration from the quick shift from summer to fall where I live in Maryland, not far from the Chesapeake Bay.
The nights are turning cold. My herb garden and the vegetables my husband planted have been producing all summer, but I can see the basil leaves starting to turn black and wilt in spots. If I wait any longer, as I did last year, the beautiful leaves will end up in my compost pile instead of in pesto or sauce.
Frantically I’ve been picking tomatoes and cooking them into sauces as well as tossing them into salads and including them in soups. Currently in the assembling stage is chicken rice soup with tomatoes.
But what to do with all the basil? Yes, I can also pick and hang the bunches upside down to dry, but pesto is a better use.
WAYS TO USE PESTO
If you have a food processor with a sharp steel blade, pesto making is easy. Placed in small containers in your freezer, your homemade pesto will last up to six months. Rather than using pesto exclusively as a quick sauce to toss into your pasta or to spread on toasted bread think of pesto as building block for a number of recipes.
Spread a coating of pesto on:
Baked fish
Baked chicken breast perhaps stuffed inside with mushrooms and spinach
Toss a few tablespoons of pesto into:
The shrimp and parsley sauteed in butter or olive oil and add a little extra grated parmesean.
The tomato sauce you’re planning to use for your lasagna
The frittata you are making for brunch
Once you get started, you’ll think of other ideas.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN PESTO
In the meantime, to make your own pesto the formula is:
½ cup of chopped nuts (walnuts, pine nuts, or almonds)
2 large peeled and chopped garlic gloves
2 cups of washed and chopped fresh basil leaves, (pressed into the measuring cup)
1 Tbs grated Italian Parmesan (grated by the chef from Parmigiano Reggiano)
Olive oil-enough to create a paste and extra to pour on top of the freezing container.
Start with the garlic and nuts. Run the processor briefly to evenly grind. Add the basil. Add the cheese and then the extra virgin olive oil. IF you don’t have the right cheese, you can add it later when you cook with the pesto.
After I used up all my small containers, I cooked up some cherry tomato sauce with garlic and onions and added a large amount of chopped basil leaves almost equal to the amount of tomatoes. The basil cooked down, as did the tomatoes. A little bit of tomato paste can be used to thicken up the sauce if it is too runny. The result was a delicious basil tomato sauce.
Still one of my favorite herbs, I love cooking with basil. And here is the start of a prose poem or what also goes by the name Creative Nonfiction (CNF) Flash prose.
THE NATURE OF BASIL
By Nadja Maril
I pluck four thick leaves and inhale the aromatic scent. How do I describe the smell? Fresh. Almost mint. Aromatic. I recall my first introduction to fresh herbs. Eight years old, seated between adults, the familiar smell of tomato sauce wafts across the table….
To read the entire poem click here. Originally published in Miniskirt Magazine Vol 1, issue 9, 2021. Now included in recently published RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN- (Old Scratch Press Sept. 2024) a great gift to yourself and for friends at $8.95.
WRITING PROMPT: Readers who are also writers, use this change in the weather to inspire you and to access forgotten memories.
Recall a time you were really cold and describe in detail how you coped to with the chill. Challenge yourself to describe the situation in a humorous way. Use that knowledge to inform one of your characters, if you are working on a piece of fiction or start a scene where a character wakes up to find out they have no heat in the house and it is the middle of winter. Or try the scene in reverse and describe a characters’ need to lower the temperature. Maybe the temperature has nothing to do with the actual weather and it has everything to do with emotions. Experiment with using the climate temperature to reflect what is going on emotionally with your characters. Read back to yourself what you’ve written and you may be surprised at what you discover when you layer the interior thoughts of your character with their environment.
Thank you for reading. If you haven’t already done so, you can follow me for FREE on WordPress, Substack or Medium. Read more of my work at Nadjamaril.com
Originally published at http://nadjamaril.com on October 28, 2024.
