Homemade Garden Pesto: “Everything But the Garden Hose”

This recipe kind of came by accident one day.

We were invited to go to a 4th of July picnic at a friend’s house and I forgot I wanted to bring pesto as a condiment for the bratwurst we were having. My husband is a self proclaimed weirdo and finds most condiments revolting, so pesto is big in our house. We typically, like every good American, have a huge Costco sized jar of it on hand but at this exact moment? We were completely dry.

But luckily my garden was in that weird in between stage of late spring/early summer where there were plenty of leafy greens to go around. Including the first cutting of basil. Mmmm. Cutting basil has got to be one of the most quintessential summer things that you can do. The problem I faced though was that it didn’t get me quite enough for a decent batch of pesto.

Then I looked behind me at the lettuce that was starting to bolt and go to seed. Clip clip. And the carrots that I needed to pull, they have nice big green tops. Snip snip. Ooh, look at that hail damaged swiss chard. (Thanks Colorado). Chop chop.

Seriously though. I don’t discriminate any edible greens. As long as the basil is somewhere in there, I think it is quite tasty. Hence the name…

This isn’t your typical step-by-step recipe. Mostly because it doesn’t exist, but also because I encourage you to make it your own! Sometimes I grab some sweet potato leaves, sometimes the majority consists of swiss chard. No matter what you make it out of, make it yours and make it yummy!

My only tip here is to make sure the mixture consists of at least 30% basil, preferably more. After all, basil gives pesto that characteristic flavor. Making at least a third of the mixture basil seems to still give it that flavor while adding other ingredients that don’t have strong flavors of their own.

Once inside, wash those greens really well and shove them all in your food processor. I’ll add about 3 glugs of olive oil at this point and a splash of lemon juice to puree it better. Scientific, huh?

Then my favorite part: add garlic. All the garlic. As much garlic as you want. Which in this household, is ALL THE GARLIC. We love growing a bunch of it every year, and you can find all of my growing tips here. I found some chopped walnuts in the back of the freezer that I threw in as well, really adding great flavor to this pesto. Add more olive oil if you need it to be a smoother consistency and more lemon juice for flavor. Feel free to add some Parmesan cheese if you have it on hand as well.

Then try not to eat this right out of the food processor. I dare ya. This freezes very well. In the fridge, it lasts for about a week, a week and a half.

It’s truly as simple as that, friends! I’ve made this a bunch of times already this summer and no two batches have been the same. Each has been equally delicious, though.

Thanks for stopping by! Have you had a chance to try out this quote unquote recipe? Leave us a comment below and let us know what you put in your pesto. Until next time.

Happy growing,

Becca

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