Buckets Of Pesto...

Having absolutely no plans whatsoever going into two entire days off is a lovely thing...it really opens you up for all sorts of surprises!

Saturday found me up and about early to yogurt with my favorite instructor...helping me set the pace for the rest of the time I had to myself. I had juice at the health food store with a friend, and then off to the Farmer's Market...making plans for dinner and a movie later that night...(that would be Mexican and Handcock...both good!)

While I happened to be at the Farmer's Market innocently looking at some peas, the lady who was running the stall for some reason thought it would be a good idea to tell me they happened to have tons of basil, and did I like to make pesto? I asked her how much it was, because fresh basil can be a little pricey...she turned to a cooler and proceeded to fill up a grocery sack and let me have it all for $4...

I quickly added make pesto to my weekend plans.

I ran to CostCo to gas up cheap (well, a little cheaper that is) and to grab some pine nuts and vacuum sealed food containers (I needed some anyway to store all the fresh food I like to keep chopped and made in the fridge and freezer so that it's easy for me to make my salads and other meals...I've been eating mighty fresh and good food this summer. The storage containers I got are hard plastic and the one's I've been using are quite old and oily...) Since I was planning on making up some big batches of pesto...I figured I needed more room than my Cuisinart small chopper...

I grabbed my step stool and peered into the storage space above the hallway until I spied a big big box. A few years ago, I decided all I needed to be a totally complete person was to have a Cuisinart food processor. You see...I had always wanted one. My mother in law at the time thought it would be a great holiday present and gave me one...she used hers all the time, and gave me a tiny Cuisinart chopper (which kind of permanently smells of garlic) an extra 11 cup bowl, and a Cuisinart Cook Book...Wellll, with one thing and another happening and the subsequent dissolution of my marriage and clearing out the kitchen, the unused and then unpacked Cuisinart food processor went into that storage space.

I lugged it out, blew the dust off the box and convinced myself that it hadn't been that long that I had it and hadn't used it, so I didn't need to feel all that bad...There was a receipt taped to the outside of the box. 2004...oh, well...time certainly flies doesn't it? Ahem...I opened up the box and carefully removed all the goodies inside including the Video on how to use this thing.

Sigh.

I didn't really want to sit and watch a video explaining a kitchen gadget, so I did a quick flip through the booklet and hoped that was enough prep for just pulsing (I'm sure the shredding and whatnot is a lot more complicated...) promised to try not to chop off any extremities with all the crazy sharp blades and went to work. It took me longer to figure out how to get the thing apart than anything else...there are no instructions on how to do that in the huge booklet, if you can believe it...but I figured it out, proceeded to wash and then dry each piece, and added all the goodies into to the mix. Now...the food processor is so easy to use, I almost feel embarrassed to have waited this long to use it. I have a feeling I will be using it even more often at that.

When all was said and done, I made 3 separate containers of basil pesto...2 to freeze and 1 to use this week on something lovely (and this was after dropping off several stalks of pesto to my mother) I also happened to stop by the grocery on the way home from CostCo today and picked up 2 bunches of cilantro to make cilantro pesto. I have an amazing recipe that I have been bragging to Megan about, and I am thinking it is high time I bust it out and share it this Thursday after yogurt (since I usually go over there) That way I can bribe her to show me how to make the amazing salsa she always has on hand...

And, you can believe that the Cuisinart is here ready and waiting...