It is the end of the summer. The basil plants you may have in your garden have been growing throughout the spring and summer yielding beautiful leaves for a wide variety of dishes. With fall approaching, you need to take advantage of your basil crop before it is gone. The solution, make pesto for your tailgate!
Pesto is a versatile spread with hundreds of uses. You can bring it to your tailgate and create a simple appetizer by spreading it on toasted bread slices. It can be added to pasta, spread onto sandwiches, or mixed into vegetable dip This recipe will yield a large amount of pesto that is the foundation of many great tailgating recipes.
Basil Arugula Walnut Pesto
Makes about 3 1/3 cups
Ingredients
4 cups packed washed basil leaves
3 cups packed washed baby arugula leaves
1 cup toasted walnuts
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan Cheese
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1 3/4 to 2 cups extra virgin olive oil (depending on how thick you like your pesto)
Place basil, arugula, walnuts, cheese, garlic, salt, pepper and tabasco in work bowl of food processor. Pulse on/off until the ingredients are chopped together. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the basil and arugula mixture until the pesto comes together and thickens. Remove the pesto from the work bowl and chill until needed. Pesto can be divided and stored in the freezer and saved for a later use.
Recipe ©Sally James
Photos ©Taylor Mathis
[...] an earlier post, I mentioned how useful Basil Arugula Walnut Pesto is. Here is just one of the many ways you can use it as a component on your tailgating [...]
Sounds yummy …. Gonna try if you don’t mind !
Ty