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| Leftover Herb Pesto |
It seems to be bug season in my back yard. I made the mistake of going out to trim my tomatoes this evening. Very bad idea. I literally came in and had to take a benadryl since I had so many bites. Cicadas are the other fun visitor my yard now has. They arrived a couple of weeks back. In previous years they have arrived earlier, but this year they didn't arrive until August. Growing up in Seattle I had no idea what a cicada was when I moved here. The first night I tried to fall asleep in my new apartment I was driven crazy by a deafening noise. I had a giant tree outside my window and between the train that went through at 2 am and the cicadas I decided I would never sleep again. Over the years I have gotten used to their deafening noise, but they still aren't my favorite summer sound. Apparently we aren't even supposed to have cicadas this year, wrong. They are in my front yard and they are huge. Plus I don't trust any insect that is part of a horde. It just sounds wrong. So I am avoiding my yard for a couple of days until the bugs leave me alone. Yesterday I had to venture into my yard to cut back my herb garden. It has gone crazy in the last week and I am swimming in basil, so time to make pesto. I tried a new recipe for Leftover-Herb Pesto from Martha Stewart Living.
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| Virginia Point Park, Kenova, WV |
This recipe has 7 ingredients. It takes 5 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 3/4 cup of pesto. For the pesto I used basil and tarragon from my garden, pine nuts for the nuts and an extra clove of garlic. I prefer my pesto to have a pretty strong garlic taste. I also added part of the cheese to the food processor and then added the other half to the finished pesto. I prefer the texture with this method. Plus the flavor of the cheese come through better.
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| View From Virginia Point Park, Kenova, WV |
I love making quick and easy recipes. Pesto is a great way to use herbs that you have leftover in your fridge or garden and the taste can be easily adapted based on what ingredients you have on hand. In addition to serving with pasta, this recipe would be great with chicken or fish. I love using pesto with grilled salmon, it's wonderful.
For the recipe go to (video form) Leftover Herb Pesto.
Leftover Herb Pesto
Recipe Type: Main
Summary:
A very simple 7 ingredient pesto recipe. Can be made with any leftover green vegetable in your fridge and a variety of nuts.
Preparation Time: 0h, 5m
Total Time: 0h, 5m
Yield: 3/4 cup
This only takes 5 minutes? That is great. This I can certainly do and it does look delicious with all the green herbs. OK I was curious to find out what a Cicada was since I didn't know what it was either and I googled it. We don't have them here but I also listened to their sound. I wouldn't be able to sleep with that either. They are also pretty ugly. :) Hope you're having a great weekend.
ReplyDeleteIt really only takes minutes to prepare, which is so nice! Cicadas have a very distinct sound and can be very, very loud :) They are part of living in the south!
DeleteI love all your pictures:) My daughter lives in Georgia and Cicada's are loud~ Lynn @ Turnips 2 Tangerines
ReplyDeleteThey really are loud, I agree :) Thanks for the sweet comment!
DeleteYou do take graet pictures! Love the combo of pasta and pesto as it's a nice change from regular tomato sauce.
ReplyDeleteThanks :) It is a very nice change from tomato sauce I agree!
DeleteWe have cicadas here in Boston, but since I've lived here all my life they are just background noise. I had an herb garden for, like 2 seconds (not a speck of green on my thumb) but I was able to get one batch of pesto from it. This sounds delicious!
ReplyDeleteI think part of the problem here is that it is really quiet. Our whole city has less than 50,000 people and it is really spread out so there isn't a lot of noise to mask the cicadas. They are even worse in Kentucky where my husband's family lives, they are so annoying :) I think that if I had grown up around them like you it wouldn't annoy me as much! Sorry that your herb garden didn't work out, I have had years where mine wasn't great either.
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