My 11 month old daughter loves pasta and pesto for her lunch so I usually buy the Co-Op own brand fresh pesto but recently they have been out of stock. I tried the jar of Jamie Oliver pesto and it was crap. So how easy is it to make my own? Any good recipes or tips?

Think it's easy enough but bound to be more pricey? No idea if better or not, you would hope so I guess.

google is your recipe-friend.

Funnily enough jamie olivers recipe for pesto is pretty good.

Anything you make yourself with fresh ingredients will be far better then anything from a jar.

PS its tasty, but pine nuts and parmesan are quite high in fat/calories, just beware!!

Piece of cake. If I can do it, anyone can.

I'll see if I still have a recipe written down anywhere.

Dead easy. Note, "real" pesto is made with a pestle and mortar, but it's quite possible to get great results with a blender/food processor. Mrs North and I did just that the other night (from this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Truly-Madly-Pasta-Ultimate-Lovers/dp/1844000184).

Marcella Hazan is the grand dame of Italian cooking – anything by her is good, e.g. http://chris.shenton.org/recipes/Italian/pesto-marcella-hazan.txt or http://wednesdaychef.typepad.com/the_wednesday_chef/2005/10/marcella_hazans.html.

wild garlic and nettle pesto rules, and it's cheap!

tons of basil, a handful of pine nuts, couple of cloves of garlic to taste, a little salt, bung it all in the food processor. Once it's a fairly fine consistency put it in a bowl and add good quality olive oil until it gets glossy. Easy, and totally different to the stuff in jars.

Oh! Forgot the parmesan!

That does sound pretty easy. Now all I need is a few basil plants sticking in the garden.

Oil + Nut + Cheese

Its a wonder the Americans or the Scots didnt think of it first :-p
Then again, it wouldnt taste the same with 'singles' rather than cheese so that rules those two nations out.

As adstick says… but it does need lots of fresh leaf basil.

Can last up to a month or so too.

Some times to make it in to more of a sauce we add creme fresh.

re growing your own basil

don't put it in the garden – instead go for a nice sunny/ warm windowsill. A supermarket plant moved into a small pot and watered regularly will give you far more basil then you can ever use when grown like this

don't forget a little squeeze of lemon juice. try rocket instead of basil too, lovely

+1 to rocket.

Also try walnuts instead of the pine nuts. Walnut & rocket pesto is ace.

If you want to grow it at home, get a tub of supermarket basil & gently prize the plants out & plant those into a few bigger pots with some decent soil.

Hi,

How long would home made pesto last in the fridge?

About 10 minutes if my OH finds it.

I suppose good Soil/compose is the key to keeping live basil. My supermarket ones always die within a fortnight despite sunny window and watering everyday.

we use tony's recipe

Pesto alla Genovese

we use the pret recipe from their book – piece of piss and takes about 5 mins. bloody delicious too! 🙂

How long would home made pesto last in the fridge?

Plenty of oil in the mix, then a thin layer of oil on top, airtight container, keeps for ages. I've got a wee tub in the fridge at the moment that must be at least 6 weeks old.

Walnut and rocket is indeed excellent, as is walnut and wild garlic (even easier, as you don't need to add any garlic cloves)

My supermarket ones always die within a fortnight despite sunny window and watering everyday.

Try reading the label then. Don't water them til they start to wilt, and then only a little bit. Its a mediterranean plant, it needs mediterranean amounts of sun and water.

Parsley can make a pretty nice pesto too

always a good place to start.

http://www.phaidon.com/silverspoon/

the italian cook book pg68

basil, pine nuts, oil and a bit of salt, into the blender for 25s

then add parmesan and peccorino and whizz again

-1 to rocket, basil has much more taste.

OK, -0.5, as it's still pretty good.