2-in-1 today babes! So much flavor with so few ingredients (if you don’t count salt and water).
We’re making basil oil and then turning what would be garbage into pesto!
Ingredients
1 1/2 c olive oil
3 oz basil, rinsed and picked off stems
zest of one lemon
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1/4 c sunflower seeds
In a blender, combine the olive oil and basil until the basil is chopped up teeny tiny! Strain through a fine mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth (you may need to squeeze the cheesecloth a bit to get the oil moving, you’ll end up with about a cup of strained oil total). This oil is FANTASTIC in omelettes, as a salad dressing base, to dip bread in and on top of pizza and pasta. It keeps best covered in the fridge for about a month.
For the pesto: Toast the sunflower seeds in a dry pan over a low flame, tossing occasionally for about five minutes until they are golden and smell nutty.
Scrape the solid remnants of basil back into the blender cup, add the lemon zest, two cloves of garlic, salt, sunflower seeds and two tablespoons of water and blend until smooth, about a minute. If you’re not using it immediately, place this in an airtight container with about an 1/8th of an inch of olive oil atop it so it doesn’t oxidize and turn brown.
I like pesto best with pasta. I generally melt a bit of butter, add some of the starchy pasta water to it with a big dollop of pesto and make a thinner sauce before tossing the pasta with everything combined. You can also add parmesan!
