I realized that I don’t use my mini chopper/ food processor nearly enough. So when I decided to make my classic standby 3 ingredient salad (roasted eggplant, tomatoes, garlic) the other night I thought I would use the processor and a fresh bushel of purple basil to make a quick pesto.
You’ll need:
- 2 bushels purple basil
- a handful of pine nuts
- two tablespoons good olive oil
- 3 roughly chopped garlic cloves
Put all of this in and ta-da! pulse until it reaches your desired level of consistency.
Then you can do one of two things (or both):
1. Roast an eggplant, chop it and mix with cherry tomatoes, using the pesto as dressing.
The salad keeps really well in the fridge (for 2 or so days, well-covered).
2. Roast a trout or salmon filet in the oven (at approximately 150C) – cover it in the pesto and several separate basil leaves, then wrap in tinfoil. This will be ready in 15-20 minutes.The trout will be opaque and flaky and full of the pesto flavour. If you put separate basil leaves in with the fish, don’t be surprised if some of the liquid left in the tinfoil ‘pouch’ is purple as the basil will give off its purple color while in the oven.
Enjoy!
This is kind of freaky because I just put together a potential fresh direct order for next week and was going to get eggplant to roast with tomatoes and salmon to cook in tinfoil. I didn’t have pesto but there was a plan for some parmesan cheese on top of both.
*magic psychic connection* at work!