Three Pestos

With the herb bounty from our Creative Growers box increasing each week, I've been forced-- really quite aggressively, in that passive-aggressive way languishing fruits and vegetables have of fomenting guilt in the lazy cook letting them rot--to do something with them, something more lasting and copious than adding a teaspoon of fresh chopped herbs to the top of a tart or the last stir of a sauce. Hence the little plastic baggies of pesto dollops now filling our freezer, mint-pistachio pesto, parsley-sunflower pesto, and the standby basil pesto to be precise.

Truth be told, I'm not 100% pleased with any of the pestos--a crime considering the amount of kitchenware, herbs and olive oil that went into them. We did eat a lovely pasta with a combo of the basil and parsley pesto last night, and I have a feeling that the mint-pistachio pesto is going to find its cause smeared onto homemade flat breads and then baked with a smattering of ground lamb and aromatics. But by itself each pesto tastes too...green. A symptom of a lazy cook chucking them into the Cuisinart stem and all (so don't do that!), and a lack of lemon juice, perhaps. The pestos manage to taste both leafy and flat, a little too rich and not bright enough. Like Paris Hilton.

For this reason, I'm not going to give you precise recipes for these pestos. Besides, pesto is easy (just take off those stems and have plenty of lemons on hand). Grab your herbs, your olive oil, lemons, salt, garlic, nuts or seeds and cheese if you like, and grind them up. I like to toast the nuts/seeds before using to bring out their flavor and add depth to the pesto. Then, either put dollops of the pesto into a spare ice-cube tray, or do what I do, and place dollops (they will look unappetizing in this form, but go with it) onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Freeze the pesto lumps until solid and then scoop up with a spatula and pack loosely into plastic baggies. Voila! Instant flavor for pastas, soups, pizzas, roast fish and meats, and sandwiches. Or follow T's example and eat it with a spoon. Just don't, like T, expect a kiss afterwards.