Basil, Parsley, and Rosemary Pesto
I may be 24 years old, but I’m hoping 2018 is the year I finally become a ~responsible adult~. I have been described many ways, but “responsible” is not usually a word that people reach for. Maybe it’s part of my charm, but my Mom doesn’t think so.
Anyway, I’ve decided to make a few minor changes that I suspect may put me on a path to “responsible adulthood.” Doesn’t seem especially fun, but I think it could save me some minor injuries (see numbers 1 and 3 below), and annoyances (see 2, 4, and 5 below). Without further ado, my New Year’s Resolutions:
- Iron my clothes on an ironing board and never on my body.
- Make sure that there is a sheet covering at least 75% of my bed instead of sleeping on the mattress because the fitted sheet has migrated to the end of the bed
- Buy a pair of left-handed scissors so that I don’t ever stab myself in the hand again.
- Master once and for all which side of the envelope to put the stamp on.
- Always put my keys in the same place so that I don’t have to waste my precious hours searching for them and have more time to do important things like painting my nails and eating these cookies.
- Learn how to do my taxes. Just kidding, Momma Bear is doing these until the day I die. We’ll make it work.
6 is enough, right? I was going to write 18, but I’m tired and haven’t had my nap yet. A person can only do so much. One day I’ll be ready to commit to other, more responsible things like keeping plants alive for more than two weeks and always eating something other than chocolate for my first meal of the day. But for right now, I’ve just got this list and a commitment to bring more recipes and more humor to ya in 2018. But let’s squeeze one more recipe into 2017, shall we?
Iiiiiit’s pesto! It’s inspired by the pesto at Acqua al 2 in Washington, DC, which I had the pleasure of tasting as part of an INCREDIBLE meal of 5 vegetarian pastas.
This pesto is damn good. It’s more complex than your average pesto, but it only requires a couple more ingredients. It recalls traditional basil pesto but tastes fresher and has more bite thanks to the parsley, and it has nice herbaceous and savory notes thanks to the rosemary. It’s actually the best pesto I’ve ever made and possibly the best I’ve ever had. But don’t take my word for it. Make it.
| Prep Time | 15 minutes |
| Servings |
(about 1.5 cups)
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- 2 cups basil large stems removed
- 2 cups flat-leaf parsley
- 1.5 tbsp rosemary approx. 2 4-inch sprigs, stripped of leaves
- 2 cloves garlic medium or large, depending on how garlic forward you want it to be
- 1/4 cup roasted almonds
- 1/4 cup roasted pistachios
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup water more as needed for desired consistency
- 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese grate it yourself, optional
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast substitute for cheese, optional
- 1/2 lemon juice and zest
Ingredients
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- Add basil to food processor and process until finely chopped.
- Add parsley, rosemary, garlic, nuts, and salt to food processor. Process, scraping the sides down as necessary, until mixture comes together into a thick paste.
- With food processor running, add olive oil and water through feed tube (that little plastic device that goes in the chimney thing on the food processor).
- Remove lid and add cheese or nutritional yeast and lemon juice and zest. Replace lid and process until mixture comes together.
- Taste, and season with additional lemon juice, salt, and pepper as necessary.
- Eat the pesto with a spoon if you can't wait long enough to put it on anything else. I won't tell.