I decided to try something different with all that great spinach from the garden. I usually just blanch and freeze spinach that I need to store for awhile and use it in recipes later.My friend, Tawnya, was asking around for a spinach pesto recipe on PYP recently and I thought I'd like to try it. So I begged her for the recipe. SOOO glad I did! YUM-O!
The first night I made a batch and put it on whole wheat penne pasta for dinner. That's it. So simple and so delicious!
Today I made 2 more batches and froze it in 1/2 cup portions.
I made some slight changes to the recipe Tawnya gave me based on ingredients I had on hand.
Spinach Pesto
8 cups spinachI also added 1/2 cup or so of fresh basil because we have some in the garden and I love the flavor.
1/2 cup pine nuts
2/3 cup parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
juice of 1/4 of a lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
There might be some cooking school type method for blending all this delicious stuff together. But, honestly, I just threw it all in the food processor and pulsed till it was all well combined. I had to add the spinach leaves 4 cups at a time.
This made 1 1/2 cups of pesto. I used 1/4 cup of pesto to dress 8 oz. (uncooked weight) of pasta.
There are 12 points in each 1/2 cup.
I have a little treasure stash of 8 containers of pesto in the freezer now. Yum! Lucky me!
4 comments:
That's how I mix it too! I got another batch of spinach at the farmer's market this week...along with beet greens. I wonder how they are in pesto??
So glad you liked it!
I think beet greens would add a peppery flavor. Could be good. Let me know if you try ti because I have a TON of beet greens in the garden too.
Super good idea!
Have you froze pesto before? I'm wondering if it freezes well.
And um is beet greens just the green part of the beet plant, from which you would normally eat beet? lol...
Seriously... never heard of beet greens... is that weird?
My sources tell me that the pesto freezes well. I haven't thawed any yet so if it goes wrong I'll be sure to let you know.
Yes, beet greens are the part that grow above ground. ;) I'll bet you have eaten beet greens before. They are usually in the spring mix packages of salad you get at the store. I think Smith's carries one called "Sassy spring mix" that has beet greens in it. They're green with the thinnest red veins in them when they are young.
They're yummy!
Some people even cook them but I've only ever had them in salads.
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