Pesto Recipe For Canning

Time to Take Advantage of Basil's Last Hurrah

During my trip Saturday at O'Fallon Farmers Market, I found fresh basil, tomatoes and peppers. If you miss the Farmer's Market, check out stands produce sector, such as Orlando, Anthony and art for the last of the most beautiful season.

I use basil for so much. It gives a real taste for all things Italian, but also blends well with other cuisines. The leaves are rich, but tender. I can make a meal of basil wrapped around cubes of Italian cheese and drizzled with olive oil. Stuff that combination into a tomato or a small, sweet pepper, and you have an appetizer worthy of wine and company.

Every year, I end up with more basil than I can use or dry. Pesto is simple to make and it freezes well. Some “experts” recommend not freezing pesto, but countless websites agree with me. While nothing beats fresh pesto, frozen pesto still tastes great in recipes in the middle of the winter. Mix thawed pesto into some cream for a divine pasta sauce. Spread pesto onto a pizza crust for something that surpasses carryout.

Earlier this year, I had requests for my homemade pesto recipe. I have been using this recipe for about 20 years. It came from a vendor at the Snohomish Farmer’s Market in Washington State. Before I grew my own basil, I would pick up several bunches from her every week, turning much of the basil into pesto. She wrote down her recipe on the back of an old receipt. It is similar to many other pesto recipes out there, but for some reason, these are always my go-to proportions.

To freeze the pesto, fill an ice cube tray with the pesto. Once the cubes are frozen, remove them from the tray and store in a zip-top bag. I also have success freezing pesto in canning jars, but I find ice cube sized portions easy to work with. If you cannot find pine nuts, substitute shelled walnuts in the same proportion.

Last season, I began making basil jelly. While it is not for peanut butter sandwiches, basil jelly compliments grilled chicken or lamb. Basil jelly spread on crackers or small slices of toasted bread with cream cheese makes an extraordinary snack.

Labor Day, Hurricane Irene, pesto, basil, tomato, tomatoes, local ...

I’ve been trying to post recipes most weekends, but have been derailed lately. The weekend before hurricane Irene I was down on the Jersey shore with extended family. We had a blast smoking whole fish–even using pine branches from the yard–and I was eager to write up the recipe. Instead I evacuated the barrier island we were on, leaving the smoker behind.

This week’s recipe was almost derailed by Irene, too. My mother’s birthday falls every year on/around Labor Day weekend and we tend to spend it happily laboring over sauces that will sustain us through the winter–batches of pesto and jars of several types of tomato sauce. It’s a good (tipsy) time in her kitchen. The process helps ease the pain of summer ending, and I think of the silliness all fall/winter/spring long when we defrost the glass jars of sauce for meals.

But this year it was really hard to find a box of plum tomatoes; curiously the farm stands we normally rely on didn’t have any. The day before we wanted to make sauce I started to hear stories–mainly from my CSA farmer–that the FDA was saying no produce that had been under floodwaters was allowed to be sold. Irene hit the farmland in and around the Hudson Valley–where my mom has a house–hard. My CSA farmer had planned to harvest what she still could once the waters receded. But now that was no longer possible.

Knowing that Irene had ended the season for my CSA farmer of 11 years, I headed to the Saturday farmers’ market anxious–who would I see? Who would I not see? Would people be in similarly dire straights or did some survive intact? I was greeted with a better than anticipated market full of produce and farmers. I heard many stories, some of them devastating. And I loaded up on gorgeous produce, including a box of tomatoes.