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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Cooking / Pesto Madness

Pesto Madness

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I have so much basil that I’ve decided I’m going to make some pesto for dinner. Figure I might as well get the benefit of my herb garden before the raccoons or rabbits. Toasting the pine nuts as we speak.

Plan to use it on this very nice wheat pasta I picked up the other day. BTW- I have a very ripe tomato that will probably turn soon- think it would be too much to dice it and sautee it and top the pesto with it?

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  1. 1.

    pharniel

    Throw some seasalt and moz on that tomatoe and i’d say you’ve got a winning snack.

  2. 2.

    licensed to kill time

    Who’s going to stop you, the Pesto Police? You are the Master of Your Food Domain!

  4. 4.

    flukebucket

    BTW- I have a very ripe tomato that will probably turn soon- think it would be too much to dice it and sautee it and top the pesto with it?

    Either that or you can slice it, salt it, pepper it and put it between two pieces of bread that have been slathered with mayonnaise and have what we down here in Georgia call a ‘mater sanwitch.

  6. 6.

    peach flavored shampoo

    Raw tomato = bleech

    And cooking dinner at 4:30? You really dont work, do you? ;)

  10. 10.

    geg6

    I also recommend making some nice marinara, especially since your tomatoes are getting ripe.

    Thinly slice 6 garlic cloves and dice 2-3 shallots. Saute in 3 T. of olive oil with a pinch of crushed red pepper until the garlic is golden. Add a 28 oz. can of San Marzano tomatoes (or fresh, as the case may be), squeezing to break them up. Add about a cup of water (use it to rinse all the juice from the can) and simmer, uncovered, about 20 minutes. Add a handful of torn basil leaves and cook another 5 minutes.

    Awesome stuff and so, so easy. Any tomatoes will do, but the San Marzanos are just over the top.

  11. 11.

    BR

    Be sure to avoid imported Chinese pine nuts. (They can sometimes cause severe allergic reactions; nobody is quite sure why, but the google will give you some info.)

  13. 13.

    beltane

    Pesto freezes very well as long as you don’t add cheese until serving time. We make huge batches of it and use it all through the winter. Actually, basil in general freezes well.

  14. 14.

    Tom Hilton

    Fresh pesto is perfect in its own right–no need to add tomato, IMO.

    Use the tomato for bruschetta instead: a little olive oil, garlic, and finely-chopped basil (whatever you aren’t using in the pesto), stick it under the broiler, and you’re there.

  15. 15.

    Rosalita

    John, for future ripe tomatoes, you can always dice them into a bowl, add some garlic, basil and olive oil and then toss all of that with hot linguine. Put the lid back on the pasta pot for a few minutes so the flavors meld. It’s a delicious summer pasta–and easy!

    As for tonight’s tomato, since it’s garden fresh, salt and pepper it and enjoy…such a rare delicacy for condo dwellers like me.

  17. 17.

    Fwiffo

    BTW- I have a very ripe tomato that will probably turn soon- think it would be too much to dice it and sautee it and top the pesto with it?

    For God’s sake, don’t try it. The results could be disastrous!

  18. 18.

    Joy

    Absolutely! Can you think of anything fresher, unless of course, you had made your own mozzarella.

  19. 19.

    Violet

    If the pick the tomatoes when they first start to turn a bit pinkish or reddish, and let them ripen on a windowsill, you’ll avoid the horror of going out to pick a perfectly ripe tomato, only to find that a bird has pecked it to bits moments before you get there.

    After getting greedy about wanting my tomatoes ripened perfectly only the vine, and having them destroyed by birds, I always pick them when they first start to turn. Take that, stupid birds!

    A bird feeder and bird bath can help combat the bird menace by providing them alternate food and water sources. But they don’t work completely.

  21. 21.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Is this very ripe tomato from your garden? Then I’m so jealous. If this is a fresh garden tomato, from your garden or the farmer’s market, for godsake, don’t cook it. Dice it, toss it with some olive oil and spices and if nothing else, eat it on some good bread.

    If it’s a store bought mater, well, do what you will with it.

  22. 22.

    ChrisB

    @cleek:

    The Pestapo.

    Brilliant.

    I’m with those who would keep the tomato away from the pesto. But try it and tell us how it tastes.

  26. 26.

    LarryB

    John, you’ve struck gold. Use all your basil and make a ton of pesto. It freezes great (not so much in the fridge). I use an old ice cube tray for this purpose. When I want pesto, I just pop a cube or two out of the freezer bag and, Voila!, Winter pesto.

    My recipe is easier:

    Chop a heathy dose of chopped raw garlic, diced whole tomatoes, and shredded basil (salt and pepper) into the bottom of a bowl. Dump the pasta over and toss. End of story.

  28. 28.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @cleek: Okay, still laughing.

    Now everyone don’t fill up over here on John’s post, because remember it’s Thursday and you know what that means.

    (You do know what that means, right?)

  30. 30.

    Butch

    We keep trying to grow basil, but at 8,600 feet where we live….well, a couple of years ago a niece who is a master gardener visited and asked about that “cute little dwarf basil variety” we were growing. Still, we keep trying.

  31. 31.

    geg6

    @TaMara (BHF):

    Man, we jumped the gun on you, didn’t we?

    Hey, you should try my marinara recipe with the San Marzanos. You are always trying easy but delicious recipes and that is certainly one. It’s good with any tomato, but the San Marzanos are really, really, really what I can only call “essence of tomato.”

    Of course, they better be for $6 a can.

  32. 32.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Be careful with the basil, John. I heard a kind of scary piece on All Things Considered last night about some kind of mildew that’s blighting basil in New York and Florida and I think one or two other states. It’s no joke, it can be fatal. Find out about it before you start harvesting. In any case, check the bottom of the basil leaves and if they’re brownish or greyish, don’t use the basil!

    Here’s NPR link to the transcript of the ATC story: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=128061773

  33. 33.

    Chat Noir

    Yum…pesto on wheat pasta! We’re still working on the batch my husband made on Sunday.

    @Tom Hilton:

    Use the tomato for bruschetta instead: a little olive oil, garlic, and finely-chopped basil (whatever you aren’t using in the pesto), stick it under the broiler, and you’re there.

    Double yum.

  36. 36.

    Gina

    NPR had a piece yesterday about a downy mildew/basil blight thing. HORROR! The only major advice they had was to keep looking at the leaves to see if they’re getting yellowed on top, and turn over to see if there are gray/black spots on the bottom. If you find it, the recommendation was to harvest all your basil immediately (the leaves that weren’t yet infected). The guest (from Cornell) said she just does a big pesto-making session and freezes it. Today, a listener recommended just washing the leaves and freezing them in baggies, and use them later to make pesto. He claimed the flavor was fresher that way.

    Another way to save them that learned a few years ago was to do a rough chop in a food processor, with a bit of olive oil. Then, dollop it onto a cookie sheet, freeze til set, then bag up the blobs for use later. Something about keeping it from getting freezer burned by using the olive oil…I’ve done the pesto and the olive oil version of freezing, both came out great.

    I also like making pesto with arugula and pecorino romano. So, if all my basil fails this year, at least I had arugula pesto this spring, and with luck, this fall again.

  37. 37.

    elmo

    @Butch:

    I moved away from 8,000 feet seven years ago. Upside: I can now grow veritable forests of basil, and I didn’t have to shovel snow this morning.

    Downside: We are on our third straight week of 90+ temps.

    I want to go back to 8,000 feet now plz.

  38. 38.

    Danton

    Pesto on fresh mozzarella cheese is good. It’s good mixed with goat cheese, too. I like to smear it on grilled chicken. Toss it with cold cooked chickpeas or borlotti beans. My wife likes it on flour tortillas. I’ve been told it’s pretty good on pasta, so I’ll have to try that some day.

  40. 40.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Fresh, ripe tomato?

    Sure, put it on the pesto. Heck, put it on anything at all.

  42. 42.

    Gina

    @SiubhanDuinne: Where are you getting that it is deadly to humans? Definitely to basil, but I heard the same interview and didn’t get any sort of OMG WTF BBQ WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE.

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Fern: It’s an amusing and fuzzy-sounding name, but it can seriously be life-threatening. See my post at #32 and Gina’s at #36 for details. Worth being very careful.

  50. 50.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    The nice thing about herbs is the critters won’t touch them (too smelly). Although some benighted creature did chomp on my bee balm back to the stalks a few months ago (I suspect the local groundhog). It came right back so no harm done.

    Now all I need is something that will graze on the damn mint.

    (Note to anyone thinking of planting mint in the garden: DON’T.)

  51. 51.

    Butch

    @elmo: A week ago Monday our high was 33 degrees, and I’m talking about June. Still, we have incredible views and some space around us, so I gladly put up with the limited gardening.
    And for kommrade (sorry I didn’t think to hit reply) yesteday I watched a chippermunker climb up on the herb cart, take a leaf between its paws, and start munching away. Our epicurean chipper…

  52. 52.

    CT Voter

    I heard the NPR piece as well–and I don’t remember there being a risk associated with it–for humans, that is.

    I think it’s here in Connecticut as well–at least I have two basil plants that look infected. Bummer. And my tomato plants are nowhere close to producing tomatoes. Thanks, John, for making me feel inadequate.

  53. 53.

    Gina

    More on the basil blight. Note again, it is not.toxic.to.humans. Here’s the site from the Cornell expert with lots of pics and more disease infohttp://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/NewsArticles/BasilDowny.html

  54. 54.

    QuaintIrene

    I have a very ripe tomato that will probably turn soon-

    By ‘turn soon’ do you mean it’s still green? Or that it’s overripe and about to go bad.

  55. 55.

    tatertot

    @Gina: Arugula (i.e. rocket) pesto is the bizz! Here in Scotland, it’s too far north for really rampant outdoor basil growth, but rocket, well, it just rockets, and makes great pesto – which is really nice rubbed on freshly caught brown trout fillets and then put under the grill (broiler in US speak?) I’ve got my rocket/arugula, just waiting for mate to come back with fresh-caught trout this evening!
    J. out of curiosity, is Tunch a trout-aficionado?

  56. 56.

    AndyG

    I sometimes saute tomatoes and mushrooms, add a splash of balsamic and use the resulting heavenly mess to top pesto and pasta. Not very traditional, but it works for me.

    Or, if you have a ton of maters, use them in this amazing recipe for pesto Trapanese:

    lidiasitaly.com/first-courses/fc09

    The recipe calls for cherry toms, but any nice ripe mater will do.

  57. 57.

    Tsulagi

    Since you’re growing herbs (maybe cilantro too), peppers, tomatoes and whatever else, one thing you might try making is ceviche. We eat a lot of it during the summer. Great stuff, easy to make. In fact it’s almost impossible to screw up as the lime juice does the “cooking” of the white fish, shrimp, or if you’re really elitist, lobster. You can make it as spicy or as bland as you like. Make up a batch and it’ll keep for at least a few days in the frig. Serve it with tortilla chips, or fresh baked hot bread is good too.

    SO makes a ceviche appetizer that has gotten some good compliments. She cuts the top off a large tomato, hollows it out like a pumpkin, then fills it with shrimp ceviche. Delicate guests will daintily use a small spoon. I pick up the tomato, slurp away, then eat the tomato. Can’t take me anywhere.

  59. 59.

    PurpleGirl

    Whether or not the mildewed basil is fatal to humans, I would think that it affects the taste of the basil and I don’t think I’d want to eat something that looked that off the normal, healthy plant.

  60. 60.

    kormgar

    Or you could save a bit of the basil, add some lightly caramelized garlic dice the tomato and add a touch of olive oil, salt, and balsamic. Mix it a bit and put them on top of some very thin lightly grilled slices of a good bread and have yourself some bruschetta to go with your pesto pasta.

  62. 62.

    Comrade Mary

    You don’t need pine nuts (lovely, but overpriced) for pesto. I make AWESOME pesto with almonds or walnuts. It’s all good.

    I wouldn’t put the tomato on the pesto, but I would put pesto on my tomato. If it’s a ripe, home grown beefsteak, slice it thick, then spread on a thick layer of pesto. If the beefsteak is big enough, it will make a wonderful bread substitute for any sandwiches.

    Nah. Just put pesto on your bread, too.

  63. 63.

    Gina

    @tatertot: Arugula pesto + fresh trout = WANT (Drooooolllll) Oh, and Mario Batali can go screw, his whole “real Italians don’t put cheese on fish dishes” snooty purist crap.

  64. 64.

    donnah

    “…think it would be too much to dice it and sautee it and top the pesto with it?”

    Too much perfection, maybe!

  66. 66.

    David in NY

    Man — ceviche, why didn’t I think of that? Limes are ten to the dollar right now in my (Brooklyn Caribbean) neighborhood, and I’ve got to do something with them. I love ceviche. (Too bad the boy has turned vegetarian, but let him eat pesto.)

  68. 68.

    David in NY

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:

    The nice thing about herbs is the critters won’t touch them (too smelly).

    It’s getting so that herbs and onions are the only things I can grow in the open. We are under attack by woodchucks, who have been causing me to price pellet guns (though I’ve never in my life fired anything more powerful than a Daisy BB rifle, so I don’t expect I’ll actually do it).

  69. 69.

    Nik

    man, don’t saute the tomato! You’ll just cook it and it will turn mushy. Dice it and toss it in the pasta to warm it, and then top it with the pesto. But don’t cook the tomato beyond what the warmth of the pasta and sauce already provide.

  75. 75.

    Violet

    @Nik:
    This. The tomato should be room temp anyway (never put a tomato in the fridge), so a few moments in the just-cooked pasta should warm it right up.

  77. 77.

    kdaug

    @beltane: We do the same thing with Hatch green chillies at the end of August – spend a Saturday skinning and cleaning a case of them, throw them in the freezer, and get a little gentle heat to every stew, soup, taco/burrito, bread, etc. for the rest of the year (or just stuff them).

    They’ll blister them on the grill for you while you wait, and for about two weeks virtually all of Austin smells like roasted chillies.

  79. 79.

    Southern Beale

    I’m in the same boat, made pesto Monday night for Meatless Monday. I like to add some sauteed mushrooms & pine nuts and a dash of 1/2 and 1/2 to make it creamy.

    Have never added tomato to it, seems like it doesn’t match the flavor profile. Maybe save the tomato for a green salad on the side?

  80. 80.

    Southern Beale

    I’m in the same boat, made pesto Monday night for Meatless Monday. I like to add some sauteed mushrooms & pine nuts and a dash of 1/2 and 1/2 to make it creamy.

    Have never added tomato to it, seems like it doesn’t match the flavor profile. Maybe save the tomato for a green salad on the side?

  82. 82.

    Alan in SF

    My Mom would cut the tomato in half, slather it with pesto, sprinkle grated parmesan on top and bake it

  85. 85.

    David in NY

    Just to brag, last night the vegetarian boy and I made the world’s best vegetarian mushroom risotto (despite the brutal heat), inspired by a Mark Bittman recipe, and he made cold broccoli-onion-sesame oil-hot pepper salad for the veggies. Yum!

  87. 87.

    shortstop

    These nonstop thunderstorms have caused our windowbox basil to triple in size — it’s pesto time for us, too, this weekend.

    I love whole wheat pasta. (Little-known nutrition fact: If it doesn’t say 100% percent WW on the box, it’s probably just tan-colored white pasta.) Once we got used to it we decided we like it better than the hahly refahned kahnd. Mmm, chewy.

  88. 88.

    asdf

    “You don’t need pine nuts (lovely, but overpriced) for pesto. I make AWESOME pesto with almonds or walnuts. It’s all good.”

    Comrade Mary, that’s brilliant. Thanks.

    I love the food threads.

  89. 89.

    Something Fabulous

    Thanks youse guys! I have been sitting here at home working on the proofreading (the saga continues), and the thing about working from home is that it’s important to remember to GO GROCERY SHOPPING OCCASIONALLY, so that when it’s time to eat, there’s actually something in the house (or in my case, apartment)! Totally forgot yesterday to go to the farmer’s market even though it is less than a block from home. Couldn’t figure out what to make with my remaining odds and ends for breakfast or lunch today.

    Then saw this! Reminded me that I still had a (sad, supermarket) tomato and (sad supermarket) mozzerella and (dried, jarred) herbs and (actually quite nice) pumpernickel! Ad-hoc bruscetta in the oven now. Would be better with all fresh stuff, but is better than ramen would’ve been!
    Yay.

  91. 91.

    Kered (formerly Derek)

    @Rosalita:

    As for tonight’s tomato, since it’s garden fresh, salt and pepper it and enjoy…such a rare delicacy for condo dwellers like me.

    God, yes. I almost feel like it’s a waste to do anythingelse with a garden fresh tomato.

  92. 92.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Thanks to everybody who clarified / corrected my wildly wrong interpretation of “potentially fatal.” Hope I didn’t scare anyone too badly! I have to say, as a non-gardener it didn’t mean much to me — I heard them tease the segment, latched on to the words “potentially fatal,” and listened to the entire interview through that filter. It’s no defense, though, for getting it so wrong, and I’m grateful for the correction.

  94. 94.

    asiangrrlMN

    @cleek: I snicker every time I read your comment.

    Y’all are making me hungry. I’m going to have Mexican with a friend in about an hour. This thread should tide me over until then. Or not….

  95. 95.

    Gina

    Another sub for pine nuts, besides delicious walnuts or almonds, is sunflower seeds. I toast raw ones, let ’em cool and toss them in. Good for those who are tree nut allergic. I’m just “taking the time to saddle up, wrangle the kids into the car and head 8 miles to town to buy walnuts that I’m out of when I have perfectly delicious sunflower seeds right here” allergic.

    This thread inspired me to do the final harvest of arugula (it was just starting to bolt) and put in the basil starts, so I just finished whipping up arugula/romano/sunflower seed pesto. We’ll see whether the blight takes the basil or not, I did read in the WaPo article that purple basil seems resistant. I was trying to figure out how you’d even see teeny dark dots on dark purple leaves, but oh well! I have both Genovese and purple varieties I’m trying this year. Also thinking about hydroponic setups for indoors over the winter, maybe sooner now with disease rampant.

  98. 98.

    copithorne

    Arrgh.

    I have tried year after year to grow too much basil, but my basil plants do not thrive. Hot sunny, mediteranean climate. I try to enrich the soil. (I’m only one man…)

    How much do you water basil for success?

  99. 99.

    Taylor

    Try flax pasta.

    It’s got texture and a nice flavor, without that chewy ick factor and raw taste of wheat pasta.

    I can’t stand wheat pasta, but I love the flax pasta. Hard to find though.

  100. 100.

    Anne Laurie

    @copithorne:

    How much do you water basil for success?

    In my experience (New England), not very much — not more than half as often as the tomato plants. And basil likes nasty, unenriched, sandy soil. I wasn’t having much luck with the plants in the well-composted pots that I watered religiously, but the “extra” that got exiled to a tub of last year’s tomato-growing soil at the end of the driveway flourished. Now it’s used-up soil & minimal water for every summer’s crop, and the sunniest spots I can find, however hot they get.

    If you’re not already using planters for your basil, it might be worth trying a pot or two with a low-fertility planting mix. My eating garden is all in containers, and it can be a problem finding pots big enough that the tomatoes don’t dry out too quickly on the hottest summer days even when I’m watering twice a day. But the basil plants seem to love having their roots crowded & parched!

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