Audrey and I harvested only half my basil plot and we made two batches of Kati’s amazing pesto. Talk about bounty. I ran out of cheeses and garlic so I was forced to halt my pesto expedition.

We packaged it up in little half cup containers and froze a bunch of it in ice cube trays for the winter, which I have found to be a wonderful way of using it in cooking. Usually you only need a small amount of pesto–add it to chicken in the frying pan, throw a cube of it in homemade spaghetti sauce.

Here is the recipe if you are interested:
Kati’s Pesto Recipe
4 garlic cloves
1/2 cup pine nuts or walnuts
1 tsp coarse salt (give or take to your liking)
1/2 tsp ground pepper (I usually use more)
3-4 cups fresh basil leaves (packed into the cup)
1/4lb fresh Parmesan, grated
1/4lb fresh Romano, grated
3/4-2 cup olive oil (I usually use 1/2 cup olive oil and add more later if I am freezing it and then using it in cooking later; you can always add more oil to it.

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor. Blend till super smooth.
Wallah!

Kati also taught me that if you are just going to keep it in the fridge, to help prevent it from changing color on you the way a banana turns brown, put a layer of saran wrap on top pressed nicely against the pesto and then apply the Tupperware lid.

One other delicious Kati pesto recipe that I didn’t believe her about until I tried it—take a bagel, cover it in a thin layer of cream cheese. Spread a thin layer of pesto on top of that and then to top it all off, cut a thin slab of a red, juicy tomato and lay it on. Oh my goodness! There is nothing like it! Trust me. And when Kati suggests eating these for breakfast, I wholeheartedly agree (now)!

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