The northwest corner of my backyard is dominated by volunteers – a rangy cottonwood sapling, millet and sunflowers from the bird feeder, and basil that re-seeds itself every year, after an initial deliberate planting when I first moved into the house. There was enough basil this year to make a batch of pesto, and since I recently purchased a small freezer, I have plenty of room to store pesto cubes. As you can see in the photo below, I also have space in the freezer to store a large bag of pine nuts. We’ve had a light freeze in the Hill Country already, and because the leaves are pretty sensitive to frost, I decided to harvest the basil before we have freezing temperatures in town.
Pesto ingredients, yesterday
I ended up with four cups of packed leaves – not bad for a serendipitous harvest. I left out the Parmesan cheese, because sometimes I use the pesto cubes in soups, or to top a pizza; it’s easy enough to add fresh-grated Parmesan cheese to the pesto, for a simple bowl of pasta. I spooned the pesto into an ice cube tray, with about two tablespoons per cube. My final yield was 15 cubes:
Frozen pesto, today
I wish my tomatoes and peppers had done as well as the basil. Next year, perhaps.
That’s a great idea. I love fresh pesto, but I usually put too much olive oil in mine. Tomatoes were hard in general this year- there was a blight up here.
Hmm, I love the spaghetti with fresh pesto and olive oil.