Pesto Recipe

Pesto Recipe

2 cups loosely packed basil leaves

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/3 cup pine nuts (found in the baking section or in produce with salad toppings)

2 cloves garlic

1/2 olive oil

salt and pepper

 

1. Combine basil, cheese, pine nuts and peeled/crushed garlic in a food processor and process into a rough paste.

2. With the machine running, slowly add olive oil to desired consistancy. It should be a thick paste.

3. Season with salt and pepper.

 

Can be refrigerated for a week or frozen for up to 3 months (but I've frozen for much longer in the deep freeze). 

 

Our family LOVES pesto! It can be pretty expensive though. So I made sure to plant lots of basil in the garden this year. I started them in newspaper starters, here. They germinated well and flourished in the garden. Basil loves hot weather, so we were very lucky!

 

I had 4 plants that resembled bushes!



I used scissors to clip the leaves off all 4 plants. My colander runneth over!

I prepare the recipe and freeze them in baggies, about 1/2 cup per bag (that's how much our family consumes in one meal, but you can bag as much or as little as you want!). I pull a bag out the day before I want to use it and homemade pesto is what's for dinner!

 

I have lots of freezer recipes and tips here.



Freezer Lasagna

For lasagna, I can get 4 dinners out of one recipe! For now anyway :) A loaf pan is the perfect size for one dinner for us, but use whatever you have! You could even buy disposible loaf pans, freeze them and cook right in the pans and throw them away. I make one pan for us to eat that night (no foil) and line 3 pans with foil. Flatten the foil as much as you can. If there are any bumps, pieces bunched up, or overlapping, it will get frozen and stuck in with the lasagna! So flatten out any bunchy spots. The foil is solely to for easy removal from the pan, not to cook in. I had done that once in the past, and got tiny pieces of foil mixed in with my lasagna when I cut it.

Note: Studies have shown in books that I've read that aluminum can be bad for the brain. I still use it in cooking, but I try to limit my use. Mostly I use it to cover a pan to keep it from drying out in the oven, and I try not to let it touch the food. But for something like this, I'm not heating it in the oven. So I don't fret too much. If you're concerned, do some research and come to your own conclusion... because I am not a scientist :)

Make the layers in the pans, and your lined pans will look like this. Pop in the freezer over night. Pull the frozen lasagnas out and let them sit on the counter for 5 or 10 minutes. This will allow them to loosen from the pan without ripping the foil. Pop the lasagnas out of the pan (they should slide right out). The foil will be slightly frozen to the dish, so gently pull the foil off. If you flattened it when you lined the pan, the foil should peel right off. Every once in a while, a little piece of foil will get stuck in a crack of the pasta or layers, it's pretty easy to chip those out. This batch was perfect! Peeled off without a hitch!

I can fit 2 loaf pan lasagnas in a gallon bag. When I'm ready to cook it, I pull one out and put it into a loaf pan. Perfect fit! You can cook from frozen or thaw in the fridge in the loaf pan. 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes. I don't typically cook it from frozen, so I'm not sure about how much longer to cook it. But I'd add at least 30-45 minutes.

Baby Food

My first son had hardly any store bought baby food. Mostly because I was really cheap!

I just cooked down veggies (carrots, peas, green beans) or fruits (apples, pears), blended with a little bit of water, and froze them in ice cube trays. Easy! Ice cube trays are great. I popped themout and stored them in gallon size ziploc baggies, labeled; carrots, peas, etc. That way I could as many or little as needed. (I also do this same system with homemade chicken stock!)

I sometimes added a little more water and rice cereal. With canned fruits, I just mashed them up and served. It's super cheap to make baby food. A friend of mine owns a restaurant and she made her son all kinds of gourmet baby food. There are such great books out there too. I've gotten great recipes from books for toddlers that have become some of my favorite meals for the entire family!