Recipe of the Week: Pesto Crackers (For Real This Time)
Ingredients:
- Fresh basil
- Pine nuts or walnuts
- Parmesan cheese
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
Method & Analysis:
Last year, I stood at this very bully pulpit and all but declared that trying to make your own pesto is a waste of time and energy, due to the existence of Costco pesto. Shortly after sending this energy out into the world, I had occasion to try making my own pesto anyway, and I need to retract my previous statement. Making pesto in a food processor takes about 20 minutes from start to finish, it fills you with the satisfaction of doing something yourself for a change, and, most importantly, creates a finished product that tastes like salt and cheese and basil; Costco pesto really only tastes like the first two. I don’t want to denigrate the jarred stuff too much, as it saw me through some boring times, but we can do better.
You will need 5 or 6 ounces of fresh basil, which is what you get if you buy two of the giant plastic clamshells of the stuff at the grocery store. Open your clamshells and pull the basil leaves off of the stems, discarding any leaves that are beat up or grody. Don’t worry too much about efficiency. There will be some smaller leaves that are tough to get off of the stems, and there will be some little bits of stem that will cling to the larger leaves. Don’t worry too much about either; just make sure you get most of the leaves off of their stems, and that any attached stem pieces are on the small side.
Ideally, you will be able to acquire some pine nuts for your pesto, but let’s face it, pine nuts are expensive. Walnuts are cheaper and work just fine in pesto; they also do not require toasting in advance. (If you do use walnuts, however, you may wish to chop up the larger chunks into bite-sized pieces in advance.) If you do manage to convince your parents to cash out their life insurance policies in order to secure a low-interest personal loan that you can then use to spring for some pine nuts, you will need to toast them in your trusty frying pan prior to combining into your pesto. Grab a hearty fistful of pine nuts and place them in the pan, then drizzle them with some olive oil and a pinch of salt.
Put the pan on medium-low to medium heat and move the pine nuts around more or less constantly, as they burn easily. As soon as some but not all of your pine nuts take on a golden brown and toasty color, kill the heat, remove them from the pan, and set them aside. It is better to have some slightly under-toasted pine nuts than a single burned one, and they will continue cooking for a little bit after they come off of the heat, anyway. Make sure you’re stirring them around as much as you can, and keeping a close eye on them. Once these are done, crush open 4 to 6 cloves of garlic, then grab about a 4 ounce wad of Parmesan cheese and break it up into chunks.
Haul out your food processor and set it up, then toss your basil leaves, nuts, garlic, and Parmesan into the processor. Dump in a few pinches of salt and several glugs of extra virgin olive oil, then start blitzing everything together. Take periodic breaks to scrape down the sides of your food processor with a spatula, and also check on the condition of your pesto. It will start to come together fairly quickly, however, in all likelihood it will take on a loose, crumbly texture. This is a sign that your nascent pesto does not have enough oil, so add a few more glugs and pulse it again until it comes together. Once the pesto looks like it’s hanging together, stop processing and give it a taste. Add more salt if needed – pesto is supposed to be somewhat salty – and blitz it again for a quick half second to mix the salt in.
Congratulations, you have made pesto in less time than it takes to get in and out of Costco, the unhappiest place on earth. Not bad, huh? Doesn’t it still mostly taste like cheese and salt suspended in oil, but with a hint of sweet, fresh basil to it? Wasn’t this whipped together with almost no effort exerted? Don’t you feel accomplished now? Does this recipe produce the best pesto, one that the foodie pesto-knowers would praise from the highest mountaintop? Perhaps not. Does it produce adequate pesto? Most certainly. Grab some neutral-ish crackers and splash a spoonful of your pesto on each, then sit down for another agonizing Sunday of watching your beloved [insert name of your miserable bullshit team here] struggle mightily against mediocre opposition. Dig in!
Week 15 NFL Confidence Pool
Week 14 Correct Picks: 8/13 (0.615)
Season Total Correct Picks: 137/208 (0.659)
Week 14 Points: 66/91 (0.725)
Season Total Points: 1,131/1,658 (0.682)
16 Points: Ravens over Giants
15 Points: Chiefs over Browns
14 Points: Vikings over Bears
13 Points: Commanders over Saints
12 Points: Broncos over Colts
11 Points: Bills over Lions
10 Points: Packers over Seahawks
9 Points: Steelers over Eagles
8 Points: Chargers over Buccaneers
7 Points: Falcons over Raiders
6 Points: Dolphins over Texans
5 Points: Rams over 49ers
4 Points: Bengals over Titans
3 Points: Cardinals over Patriots
2 Points: Panthers over Cowboys
1 Point: Jets over Jaguars
It was a hectic week on the home front and frankly, a lot of these picks and assignments are self-explanatory, so I’m going to phone in this portion of the proceedings and only go over the more controversial and/or baffling selections made above. Sound good? No? Tough shit, this is my blog and I do what I want. Why don’t you piss off and go do whipits in the parking lot of the OTB instead?
The emerging consensus appears to be that the Lions are going to beat the Bills, but remember, professional football can not be explained through transitive wins and losses, and the Rams were a perfectly laid trap. The fact that the Lions are better than the Rams and beat them in Week 1 does not in any way mean that the Bills will fall to them as well. They will be highly motivated to kick ass, not only to get back in the win column but also in pursuit of home field advantage, as their already slim chance of securing said will all but vanish with another loss. I’m not guaranteeing a Bills victory by any means – the Bills are better than all 5 teams I’ve assigned above them – but I must re-iterate that the Bills have every chance here.
By contrast, I am making the conscious decision to overreact to the Eagles’ flat performance last week. I didn’t see a single second of the game in question, but I have seen Jalen Hurts’ statline, and my finest football pundits have been unanimous in declaring his game to be as bad as the stats make it look. 108 yards on 21 attempts, my goodness gracious. Note that picking either the Rams or the 49ers is an overreaction, as you are either giving too much credit to the Rams for overcoming the Bills or the 49ers for annihilating the disintegrating Bears. I’m rolling with the Rams because their offense is healthy and the 9ers are still in the vibes toilet. I have no real justification for picking the Dolphins, and I’m not sure I believe picking them against any future playoff team can be justified. But blowing this game just seems like the sort of thing this year’s Texans would do.
Enjoy the games, everybody!
Rob Writes About Whatever 