Has anyone made their own pesto?

purplegirluk1

I have lots of basil left over from making a tomato and basil sauce and was thinking of making a green pesto. I found a recipe in a book and the ingredients are as follows -

4 cups of basil leaves
Half a cup of pine nuts
Half a cup of parmesan cheese
2 cloves of minced garlic
Quarter of a cup of olive oil

I have most of the things that I need, I don't have pine nuts but I don't really want to put them in anyway but I don't have any parmesan and I don't really want to go out and buy some because its quite expencive. I do have lots of cheddar, do you think that would work?

If anyone has a different recipe and advice would be great, thanks!

squeaky

Erm... sort of. You can leave out the pine nuts and cheese (and I'm really not sure how a softer substitute for parmesan would work anyway) and perhaps add a few bits and bobs of things like chives if you have any. Any other nuts should be a fair addition if you have some around.

Just how small a mix could you make trying the above for a taste test and then modify your main batch to suit?

purplegirluk1

I think I will leave out the nuts, but I will try chives, thanks. I will have a go later with a small batch and perhaps I will test the cheddar, it might work you never know!

squeaky

Best of luck. Let us know how it goes

Curry_Queen

You need a bit of lemon juice in it too, if you have any. Not sure about the cheddar though but if you don't give it a go you'll never know, and isn't that how all recipes are made by a bit of experimenting

You can add other greenery like water cress and rocket too if you have any, gives it that peppery flavour

mirakl

Last year I grew tons of basil and made my own pesto and it was amazing. At the time Holland and Barrett had a sale on pine nuts so they were half price and it was very economical.

This year I'm going to do the same thing but I've also had a new and hopefully brilliant idea, we live by a forest covered in wild garlic and I'm going to try wild garlic pesto.

2 questions:

1. Has anyone tried making wild garlic pesto? does it work?

2. Anyone have any ideas on the cheapest place to get pine nuts?

Many thanks

thriftlady_2

Try Julian Graves for pinenuts.

I tried making pesto with sunflower seeds the other day (dd is allergic to pinenuts) and it worked really well.It's a long time since I bought pinenuts,but I'm sure sunflower seeds from a health food shop are cheaper.

Sharra

Have you made red pesto with sunflower seeds? If so a recipe would be appreciated, I made pesto last year but its soooo expensive.

samnmalc

Hi, I got two jars of pesto,one green and one red for about 60 or 70p ish in Lidl this week.:D

I've just got to think of some ways to use it now

nuttyrockeress

Anyone care to share their recipie on this thread?

Ta
L