Not Easy Being Green.

 Green Schmear.

Pesto.

I love that word schmear, and while it usually refers to the stuff you paste onto a bagel, my ‘Green Schmear’ is a little different but still just as tasty.

Maybe even better than mere schmear. Sorry I’m confusing you aren’t I,

 I’ll try and keep it simple.

Pesto!

I’d like to think of pesto as the best food invention since the cave man decided to grill a bit of cows bum over a flame. A handful of nuts, some fresh green herbs, salty cheese, oil, a smashing of garlic and you’ve got yourself a dam fine schmear, that just so happens to be green.

This fantastic invention is available at supermarkets, you’ll find it crammed into pressurised glass jars with an off-green-tinge. But there is nothing better than making this schmear at home. And I just so happen to have the best tip (learnt off a French chef ironically) to keep it as green as grass for a long time. (That way you can make heaps of it)

So what is the trick?

Pesto Toasties.

Well as the saying goes: ‘Its not easy being green’ and Kermit the frog was right! Its not! Once you blitz the bajeebas out of a soft herb like basil it does this weird thing where it goes a yucky brown colour, due to oxidation. 

But I have the solution! Its all in the preparation people! 

(Exclamation overdose?)

By blanching off the basil in hot boiling water for 20-30 seconds then quickly immersing the leaves into a bowl of iced cold water, then drying it off on paper-towl,  you strengthen the chlorophyll greenies. This way when it gets blitzed the green colour sticks around.

Do you want the recipe? Here's a schmeared version that lets your taste buds be the decider.

For my pesto I would usually go a BIG bunch of basil(I get mine at the markets for $2 and its bigger than my face!), about 75g of parmesan, 2 garlic cloves, 150g blanched skinless almonds (you can use pine nuts but man they’re expensive) juice of 1 lemon, and enough decent olive oil to make it schmeary… if that’s even a word.

Now you can up the garlic, get it chunky with more nuts or make it less schmeary with more oil its up to you. All you need is a food processor or stick blender. I usually put the cheese and almonds in with the garlic and blitz it to form a crumb then I add the rest of the ingredients, some seasoning and blitz while slowly adding more and more olive oil until I like the look of it.

This makes a lot, so I keep it in the fridge in some sort of sealable container. I even pop some in the freezer for extra back up if its an extra large bunch of basil. This is definitely the best way to make pesto, once you blanch you can’t go back!

Pesto is fantastic with pasta, or schmeared onto toast for breaky!But could be put with anything really, get creative with it!

So next time basil is on sale, make a big whack of Green Schmear, AKA pesto. You won’t regret it and its worth all the effort.

Pesto pasta with sun-dried tomatoes.