Nothing says summer to me more than the abundance of fresh basil. It suddenly appears everywhere, right? Instead of those tiny packages hanging with other fresh herbs in the produce section, we get entire basil plants. There are multiple displays of it at the grocery store. A million uses come to mind and that smell, oh, the smell of fresh basil. I consider an amazing summer basil pesto a must-have in my house for at least three months out of the year!
COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE: A GREAT WAY TO SUPPORT LOCAL FARMERS
But before I get into that, I would like to welcome you to my Community Supported Agriculture Series. I bought a summer farm share at Clark Farm in Carlisle, MA. This is very exciting. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is all about supporting local farms by buying a share of their harvest before the growing season and receiving farm fresh produce every week for a certain period of time.
I thought it would be fun to post new recipes each week where I use my fresh, organic farm veggies in recipes that you can make too! I know there are a lot of people out there who do CSA in the summer. So this is for all of you!
The incredible, versatile summer basil pesto!
Back to basil and how awesome it is. You can use basil, and specifically, pesto for so many things! My first batch of the summer, I usually become obsessed with French bread pizza with pesto and goat cheese. Seriously, I can eat that for days and I highly recommend you try that. You can put pesto on top of sandwiches and burgers. My favorite summer sandwich: The Ultimate Roasted Veggie Sandwich. Pesto can be incorporated into salads: think of a pesto caprese salad. There are countless crostini appetizers you can make with pesto: my fave being crostini with pesto, cherry tomato and a pinch of shredded parmesan. Once you start thinking about pesto, you will imagine even more ways you can use it! It's really handy to have an amazing summer basil pesto on hand - so what are you waiting for? Go forth and make pesto!
For more CSA recipes you can check out my CSA Series of recipes here.
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Amazing Summer Basil Pesto
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup 1x
Description
Amazing summer basil pesto is a staple in my house for at least three months of the year. With my Clark Farm CSA basil I’m making the best pesto ever!
Ingredients
- 2 heaping cups of basil leaves
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 ½ tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup olive oil (plus more for topping)
- ⅓ cup parmesan shaker cheese
- ⅓ cup pine nuts
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to your food processor. The only thing requiring an extra step is to cut and juice your lemon. Otherwise, everything goes right in the food processer and you should blend until well combined. Take a test. If you need additional salt you can add it to your liking.
NOTE: You may not need an entire lemon to get 1 ½ tablespoons of juice – depends on size and juiciness of the lemon.
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