Friday, June 25, 2010

Meatless Fridays

I have been reading Ina Garten's book, 'Back to Basics'. It's a wonderful book of simple meals with simple ingredients and lots of flavor. I like to grow basil but am often amiss at what to do with it, so I thought I'd make a big batch of Ina's pesto sauce to use over pasta and on homemade pizza Margarhita. The sauce came out very good, but there was a small little problem....my husband almost went into anaphylactic shock!

We had dinner and then Doug went out for his nightly walk. When he came home he was red as a beet and complaining that his arms and hands were "on fire!" I shuffled him off to the shower and when he took off his shirt I saw that he was covered in huge red welts! Two benadryl and a cool shower later he is still as red as a cooked lobster and bumpy and itchy from head to toe...and his eyes had begun to swell! The only thing that it could have been was the pesto sauce we had for dinner. We still don't know for sure if it was the basil or the walnuts (I'm thinking it was the nuts!)
But we won't be having this meal again....EVER!

But that doesn't mean that your family can't enjoy it!
It was really good, even the kids ate it up!

This week's Meatless Friday meal is:

Ina Garten's Homemade Pesto




1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup pignolis
(pine nuts are too expensive on our budget so I doubled the walnuts and toasted them first)

3 tablespoons chopped garlic (9 cloves) ~ (I only used 6!)
5 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups good olive oil
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese


Place the walnuts, pignolis, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for 30 seconds. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is finely pureed. Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute. Serve, or store the pesto in the refrigerator or freezer with a thin film of olive oil on top.



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