Happiness is a well stocked larder!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July. Mine consisted of events, a storm passing through, no water, no power, 20 hungry people and trying to make it as seamless as possible.

This will be a short newsletter today. It’s about food but mainly about food you can put up for yourself while produce is abundant locally or in your own garden. It’s amazing to me how much of it gets thrown out or just left to waste in the refrigerator. I had seen some really nice broccoli at Whole Foods the other day in the compost bin they use from time to time while swapping out produce. I always pull stuff out and look at it and see if it’s really that bad of not. Nothing was wrong with these broccoli crowns at all. They weren’t even soft or limp or flexible. I’m guessing it was past the allotted company time limit. Why not sell it cheap or do something with it? I’ll never understand that.

At any rate, I was able to pick the first haul of greenhouse basil on my end the other day. It’s a compact Genovese I started growing a few years ago. They are half the size on the leaves, very smooth and dark green and has amazing flavor. It doesn’t bush out like traditional Genovese but stays tighter, more uniform and the leaves are less clustered together. Two 3 x 3 greenhouse cells produced about 16lbs of fresh basil. I am doing three plantings for the season to harvest which should yield 48 to 50lbs in total. Thats a lot of basil for a $5 seed packet from Johnnys that will last me two seasons.

I typically do pesto for the year and just plain base with nothing more than olive oil for other applications. Frozen basil cubes for water or for soups, dehydrated and dried and obviously some for fresh applications as well. The smell of fresh basil growing and after harvest is intoxicating and truly one of life’s many blessing to able to enjoy. I’m sure most everyone makes their own pesto but if you don’t I am including my basic recipe that I use for a typical season of stocking up my pantry with this basic ingredient to use for so many applications. This recipe is the one I use for the bulk quantity I do and a lot of it is by sight and texture and taste so if you try or break down the numbers you might find you prefer to add more of something or less of something.

Your basic ingredients are fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic, good olive oil, reggiano, salt and pepper. I also like a little citrus in mine so I grab the micro plane and grate some fresh lemon zest into the food processor when I’m spinning the pesto.

For this batch I have the ingredient amount as follows.

16lbs basil(about 12ish pounds after its been picked and de stemmed)

6 heads roasted garlic( you can use fresh cloves as well)

1.5 cups toasted pine nuts

3 lemons ( zest only)

1.25lbs freshly grated Reggiano

1.75 liters Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt( I use red salt)

Fresh ground pepper( I use Tellicherry Peppercorns)

Once the basil is pulled and cut, I de stem and put the leaves in a bus tub until I’m ready to get everything going in the food processor. This is one of those super easy projects that goes very quickly if you have everything ready to go and laid out in an organized manor. It also keeps your workspace clean and tidy as well which makes the entire process seamless.

I know most pre bought pestos and pesto recipes use fresh chopped garlic. I like it as well and love fresh garlic. However, I love roasted garlic. I love the sweetness and the earthy, caramel notes it gives to food and sauces. You can use either but I prefer roasted most of the time in this application.

I pack the basil in the food processor with and handful of pine nuts, cheese and squeeze an entire head of garlic into the vessel. Next I grate some lemon and season with salt and pepper. Don’t do too much as you can adjust your final seasoning after the entire batch is finished. If you are only a small batch season as you like and finish it in the food processor. Lastly I add some olive oil. Maybe a half cup to start. You also don’t want to overload on the basil. You can add more to the bowl as you pulse and smooth out the mixture. If you add too much in the beginning the blades won’t do their job as well as they should and your final product can be super fibrous

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Once I have done the entire bus tub and used all of my ingredients, I transfer to a stainless bowl and taste it. I will adjust my seasoning if need be and from here it’s ready to be bagged up, chamber vac’d, labeled and ready to be frozen. I like to vac seal over jar them as I really like how you can have nice, neat uniform stacks of sauces in the freezer instead of jars everywhere. It just looks better and you can fit a lot more in a smaller section on your shelf. I do think the jars hold a better amount for individual use but you can get get smaller bags as well online to customize how you want it

It holds the vibrant green color from the peak summer months and tastes outstanding during the winter doldrums . Again, I know this is super basic and redundant and I’m sure most people do their own or maybe they buy a good quality version at the store. However, if you have extra basil in your garden or want to capitalize on your local growers basil harvest to save some money this is a fantastic and easy way to do it. Keep your money local and in your pocket, make a better tasting and higher quality product than at the store, know what you put into it and explore other flavors or ingredients to make with it or add to it. I also do the same with my abundance of arugula as well. To be honest, I actually prefer arugula pesto to basil pesto. At any rate, with all of the crazy going on in the world, take a little time and brush up on stocking your larder. If nothing else, you will just have a pantry full of good food to use and eat up!

Scott ( The Traveling Ungulate)