Pesto Factory

A few weeks ago, Andy and I decided that we should dig up one of our garden beds, mix some more organic matter into the soil, widen the bed and edge it properly, so that it didn't dry out so much or be infiltrated with grass so easily. The garden bed in question was growing a big, prolific row of rocket (aka arugula), and a straggly, pathetic row of beetroot. So we harvested them, and as Andy dug, I made pesto.
 

The harvest from our beetroot plants. They weren't so tasty.

This was a serious mission, primarily because we are ill-equipped. Though I sometimes think we are a bit gadget crazy, we don't have a food processor. We have a small mini-chopper, but I smugly thought I would make my pesto by hand in the pestle&mortar.

A pretty big pile of rocket, with some beetroot leaves for pinkness.

This idea, to be quite frank, was a stupid idiot, and I realised as much after one batch. The rocket was stringy, and didn't want to pound down very well. And I would have had to do about 20 batches to get them all done, which would have taken hours for sure.

But I kept the pestle&mortar out and used it to crush up my toasted almonds before they went in to the mini chopper.

 Because it is, ahem, mini, it still took about 6 batches to do. It was a constant, stupid process of making a little batch of pesto, usually in a few stages - crush almonds and garlic, add some rocket, miso and olive oil, blend, add some more rocket, taste, add salt and pepper, and so on - then scraping it out into a bowl and starting again. I had to do a lot of mixing in the bowl, too, because each batch was just a little different. There was pesto and oil EVERYWHERE, and I was feeling a little shmeh at the end from all the tasting of the oily-rich pesto.

But I got there, and managed to make a pretty substantial bowl of pesto.

Andy made me some "lunch" of cucumber & tomato pesto bites, which were really very delicious, and might be a fancy party snack idea.

I transferred the pesto to 6 jars (about 2 meals per jar) and froze 4. We have had pesto on pasta and gnocchi. Because we didn't have any lemon, and because rocket is less exciting than basil, it's never as good as we expect, but it is still yummy.

We've had pesto pizza, too. And we mixed a little pesto in mayo to go with some BBQ veggies.

What's your favourite way to use pesto?