Adventures In My Kitchen: pesto

In New Zealand the seasons change on the first of the month, as opposed to the solstices or equinoxes, so we've been ensconced in autumn for a month now. Aside from the calendar heralding the change of seasons, the weather has also let us know (in no uncertain terms) that summer's over... but further to that, the summer produce is definitely done.

First - the watermelon:

Check out my melon baby... kind of wish I had another one, so I could do a real classy melon shot! Please excuse the crazy eyes and the teeth I've bared - I think I was a bit tired and disheveled from gardening.

Unfortunately, when I cut it, it was a bit anemic inside - a light pink instead of a beautiful juicy watermelon colour. That hasn't stopped me from eating it - tastes alright.

Today my dinner was provided to me, courtesy of our garden. I didn't feel like anything fancy, but everything just seemed to fall into place this evening. The BEST thing is that this meal was delicious and relatively low in Weight Watchers ProPoints!

First, I whipped up some pesto, using some sad basil from the garden. It's nearing the end of heat-loving-basil-growing season and my basil got blown over during a storm a while back, so it's a bit worse for wear, so I figured I needed to use it up quick smart. I used the same recipe as I have before, except I was lazy and didn't toast the pine nuts. It still tasted fabulous.


I had to fight some yucky snails for the last of my basil leaves. I've still got a bit out there that I need to harvest.

My plan was to make a pesto cream sauce (I made one last week with some Philadelphia Cream for Cooking.) It was lovely, but a touch bland... I was planning to give it another go, but to make the odd improvement.

Then I looked at my veggies I gathered from the garden and hemmed and hawed for a while.


I chopped up the capsicum and when I tasted it, it felt like the bits exploded with flavour in my mouth! I think I even did a little happy dance.

I decided I wasn't in a pasta mood, so I cooked up some quinoa. We had it in the cupboard and both Phill and I weren't wild about it when we tried it - we found it far too bland to enjoy. I have been convinced that I could find something that would work with it though.

So I chopped up the beans (after stringing them) and threw them in a pot with the silverbeet and a little bit of water so they could cook a tiny bit (about 10 min.) I diced the capsicum and tomato and set them aside for later. Once the quinoa was cooked I stirred in about 4 tablespoons of pesto, the cooked beans and silverbeet. I spooned the mixture on a plate and sprinkled the diced capsicum and tomato over top of the warm quinoa and veggies. The veggies are all 0 points, so all the points come from the quinoa and pesto - for the amount I used, it was around 7 ProPoints all together, but you could easily reduce the number of points by using a bit less pesto.

I'm going to go right ahead and say it - it was AMAZING. If I wasn't trying to practise some sort of portion control, I would have eaten another plateful!! The remaining pesto is going to be frozen in the ice cube tray so I can enjoy the taste of summer in a few months' time.

Phill even liked it (he really didn't like quinoa when we had it) - I do attribute it to my heavy hand with the pesto. To be honest, it had so much of it because my ice cube tray was full and I didn't want to sterilize a bottle to save a tablespoon's worth of pesto.

We both agreed that a bit of chicken (cooked with a lot of garlic) would have made this amazing dish extraordinary. Ooooh - maybe a bit of grated parmesan too?

Next time!

As promised, here's my pesto post. I suppose I can see why pesto is so expensive in the shops, because parmesan and pine nuts are luxury items. That being said, holy cow! I'm not sure I can go back to store bough pesto. The flavour seemed to explode! It tasted so vivid and fresh... like there was a party in my mouth! I thought it was a bit too oily yesterday, but when I used it today with pasta, it was perfect. If making it for a dip with crackers or to eat immediately, I'd suggest a little less oil and salt. I'm also a bit of a garlic fiend... I think you couldn't go too far wrong with another clove of fresh garlic.

So... here we are:

Basil Pesto - Makes approx 1 1/4 cups - Weight Watchers ProPoints - 3 points per tbsp

3 1/2 - 4 cups loosely packed basil leaves (gently washed and dried)
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup parmesan
2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Wash and dry - remove leaves from stalks.

Toast pine nuts in a pan with no oil over medium heat until a nice golden brown - then put in food processor.

Not sure if you're meant to use grated parmesan or whole bits, but this is what I had. I threw it in the food processor before I did all the other parts.