Mama Simon’s Pesto

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Hi everyone! This week I wanted to share with you a Hall of Fame recipe. Mama Simon’s Pesto is so delicious, it is borderline addicting. This recipe, like my mom’s Watermelon Summer Salad,screams summertime to me.

Every time I taste this pesto, I can picture my mom gathering basil from our garden and prepping the pesto in our kitchen. She and I would sit by the pool, soak up the sun, and talk about life over some pretzel thins and pesto – *sigh* SUCH great memories.

Mama Simon’s pesto is bursting with freshness from the basil, while at the same time delightfully creamy and rich from the olive oil and pine nuts. It is one of those foods where you keep saying “okay last bite”… “actually last bite”… “okay take this away from me so I can stop”. SO, I am sorry – but also YOU’RE WELCOME –  in advance 😉

I’ve included some tips below on how you can master the art of making pesto:

PESTO IS SO VERSATILE!

Not only is pesto seriously easy to make, but it is extremely versatile. You can spread it on your pizza, drizzle it on your pasta, or take a page from our book, and eat it as a dip!

The addition of pesto will add a punch of freshness to any meal. If that’s not motivating enough, pesto is jam packed with vitamins and antioxidants!

For the full pesto experience, grow FRESH BASIL 

To follow in my mother’s footsteps, and as the true over-achiever that I am, I wanted to make my mom’s pesto with fresh basil that I grew myself. So this past May, I set off to the local garden shop and picked out a basil plant. As those of you who read my Tomato Basil Stuffed Chicken recipe know, it did not go so well at first. RIP basil plant #1.

HOWEVER, my second basil plant is FLOURISHING. And I was able to grow a full cup of fresh basil for this recipe! 

Fortunately, you do NOT need to buy your own basil plant in order to make this recipe BUT if you have lots of fresh basil, this is a great way to put it to use! 

STORING FOR LATER

I cannot speak from experience on saving pesto for later… ahem.. as I have never had pesto last for very long when I make it LOL. For those of you who want to make a big batch and store it, I’ve done the research for you on how best to preserve pesto.

Pesto will keep for a week in the fridge and up to 6 months in the freezer. For instructions on how to save pesto as individual cubes using an ice cream tray, check out this blog post HERE. 

I hope you all enjoy this recipe! I have a delicious pesto pizza recipe coming for you soon, so stay tuned ;). 

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