Homemade Basil Pesto And Leftover Meatloaf

We had a good crop of basil in our herb garden and with frost predicted, we decided to turn some of it into pesto to freeze.  We used Ina Garten’s recipe for the pesto and I amended it for the amount of basil we had to get the recipe below.

Basil Pesto – Adapted from Ina Garten

Ingredients:

3/8 cup English walnuts

3/8 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted

5 tablespoons chopped garlic

7½ cups fresh basil leaves, packed tight

1½ teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2¼ cups good olive oil

1½ cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions:

Place the walnuts, pine nuts, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for 30 seconds.

Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed.

Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute. Serve, or freeze in half cup containers.  

After freezing, we popped them out and stored them in a plastic bag in the freezer.

The recipe made five cups and tasted very good.

We used a half cup for our supper that evening and Bev cooked some frozen meatballs to use up the red sauce we had in the fridge.  It was a very good meal.

Taste Test

As an aside, we did a little Parmesan taste test comparing the brand we get at Food City with Parmigiano Reggiano from Costco and found the real deal to be more flavorful.  So we'll continue to use the Food City version to grate up in the food processor for cooking (like in making meatballs) but we'll use the good stuff for fresh grating over dishes.

Meatloaf  Leftovers

We recently tried a new meatloaf recipe and while it was good, it won’t replace our normal recipe.  The main reason we make meat loaf is for leftover sandwiches like this open faced version - the fried cheese is covering the mayo slathered bread in the second pic.

And further still with additional leftovers, I tried my first ever meatloaf hash using some chopped up Tater Tots (had an opened bag of them in the freezer) and some chopped up meatloaf and onion.  I first fried the onion and frozen tots until they were crispy on side one then added the meatloaf to warm it up and get a little crust, then plated and topped with the required two sunny-side-up eggs. 

At this point I cut everything up together with the goal of having egg yolk on every piece.  Bev had turned up nose up when I told her what I was having but it was delicious - how could it not be given the four ingredients.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

10/15/24 event date