If you have a nut allergy, making your own pesto is a must-do! Pesto is one of our new favorite creations. We are using a recipe from Bobby Flay on the pizza episode of Worst Cooks in America Season 5. This is not a revolutionary recipe, but it sure tastes like it is! We altered the recipe a bit because of our own preferences and put it on a pizza instead of tomato sauce, as was suggested by Bobby Flay in this episode.
You will need:
-8 large leaves of fresh basil
-half a supermarket-sized bunch of fresh parsley (as in, you will need a bunch of parsley, but the amount we found works best is about half of the size bunches they sell in the supermarket)
-3 or 4 cloves of garlic
-lots of good-quality olive oil, start with 1/4 cup and then add a splash more as needed
-about 1/3 cup of freshly-grated parmeggiano reggiano (and freshly-grated really does make a difference, so take that extra step and buy a whole block to grate yourself! Note: Whole Foods in-store cheeses come into contact with nuts, but you can find the safe cheeses at Trader Joe's or Stop and Shop.)
Slice the garlic and roughly chiffonade and then chop the basil. Pick the parsley off the stems as best you can without being overly particular, and then roughly chop that. Put everything in the blender or food processor and use whatever setting makes the most sense to your particular appliance, perhaps the chop setting. If it's not blending, add more oil until it gets to a better consistency. If you're using a blender, it will be a pretty chunky pesto, which is totally acceptable.
Knife-Cut Note: A chiffonade is a ribbon cut. You take all of the basil leaves in a pile, roll them up, then cut slices of basil. Then you can easily cut these into thirds or so to achieve a rough chop that is blender-friendly.
We put this gorgeous pesto on pizza. We've experimented with a mixture of parmeggiano, mozzarella, and fontina cheeses. We've tried broccoli and mushrooms as toppings. My favorite combo is all 3 cheeses but just a touch of parmesan, and then plenty of small pieces of broccoli. I'm planning to try caramelizing some onions for a topping next time we make this.
Ben and Mark's mom asked me if I had any ideas for what to send to camp in their lunchboxes because it is a Jewish camp with a dairy kosher lunchbox rule, which means you can only bring items that qualify as "milk" and no meat except tunafish. (Don't ask me why tuna is dairy, but I assure you it is.) She asked this a few days after we made pesto, so it was fresh in our minds, and the kids agreed they would be happy to take pesto and melted cheese sandwiches for lunch, or just cheese sandwiches. Lunch is solved!
FYI, we use Trader Joe's brand pizza dough. We use a lot of Trader Joe's products because they are really good about labeling their products with allergy info, so although there are a ton of products that they make which we cannot use, it is really easy to see which products are good for Mark. The demi-baguettes are also great and got a rave review from Mark, as did the egg-free marshmallows covered in dark chocolate.
You will need:
-8 large leaves of fresh basil
-half a supermarket-sized bunch of fresh parsley (as in, you will need a bunch of parsley, but the amount we found works best is about half of the size bunches they sell in the supermarket)
-3 or 4 cloves of garlic
-lots of good-quality olive oil, start with 1/4 cup and then add a splash more as needed
-about 1/3 cup of freshly-grated parmeggiano reggiano (and freshly-grated really does make a difference, so take that extra step and buy a whole block to grate yourself! Note: Whole Foods in-store cheeses come into contact with nuts, but you can find the safe cheeses at Trader Joe's or Stop and Shop.)
Slice the garlic and roughly chiffonade and then chop the basil. Pick the parsley off the stems as best you can without being overly particular, and then roughly chop that. Put everything in the blender or food processor and use whatever setting makes the most sense to your particular appliance, perhaps the chop setting. If it's not blending, add more oil until it gets to a better consistency. If you're using a blender, it will be a pretty chunky pesto, which is totally acceptable.
Knife-Cut Note: A chiffonade is a ribbon cut. You take all of the basil leaves in a pile, roll them up, then cut slices of basil. Then you can easily cut these into thirds or so to achieve a rough chop that is blender-friendly.
We put this gorgeous pesto on pizza. We've experimented with a mixture of parmeggiano, mozzarella, and fontina cheeses. We've tried broccoli and mushrooms as toppings. My favorite combo is all 3 cheeses but just a touch of parmesan, and then plenty of small pieces of broccoli. I'm planning to try caramelizing some onions for a topping next time we make this.
Ben and Mark's mom asked me if I had any ideas for what to send to camp in their lunchboxes because it is a Jewish camp with a dairy kosher lunchbox rule, which means you can only bring items that qualify as "milk" and no meat except tunafish. (Don't ask me why tuna is dairy, but I assure you it is.) She asked this a few days after we made pesto, so it was fresh in our minds, and the kids agreed they would be happy to take pesto and melted cheese sandwiches for lunch, or just cheese sandwiches. Lunch is solved!
FYI, we use Trader Joe's brand pizza dough. We use a lot of Trader Joe's products because they are really good about labeling their products with allergy info, so although there are a ton of products that they make which we cannot use, it is really easy to see which products are good for Mark. The demi-baguettes are also great and got a rave review from Mark, as did the egg-free marshmallows covered in dark chocolate.