Pesto: A Basil-Based Delight

Nothing says summer like the smell of fragrant basil, but when combined with other farmers’ market ingredients such as nuts, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, you’ve got a winning recipe for light summer dishes all season long. Just a quick walk through the on Sunday revealed a bevy of options for tasty basil-based delights.

For starters, there’s your basic pesto recipe like this one from SimplyRecipes.com, which is usually served over pasta. Grab some Parmesan cheese from Lelio and Sons' booth and local olive oil from Joelle and you're good to go. 

Let’s go a step further and change out the traditional pine nuts for cashews, like in Rose Elliott’s Complete Vegetarian Cuisine, and your pesto is suddenly rich and nutty. Some recipes substitute walnuts instead, and with all the assorted nuts from vendors like Avila and Sons, you can experiment each week with a different type of pesto. 

Want something spicy? Throw in a handful of arugula from John Givens Organics farm stand and watch this pesto recipe from Food.com come to life on your plate. The possibilities are endless.

Pesto isn’t just for pasta, of course. It makes a great spread for crostini or bruschetta (which, for the record, is properly pronounced broo-SKEH-tah). You can pick up a freshly baked boule from Homeboy Bakery or some olive bread from Les Delices Du Four French Bakery. Toast slices until crisp, spread a thin layer of pesto and top with sliced heirloom tomatoes from J. R. Organics.

Of course, if you’d rather have your pesto made for you, you can pick up one of the 11 varieties of fabulous pre-fab pesto at the BasilTops All-natural Artisan Pesto booth. 

Cynthia Bronte has been making pesto since 1995 and has won several awards as a result. BasilTops offers not only traditional pesto, but a selection of vegan options, as well as a hemp seed pesto and several spicy choices. BasilTops has been at our Mar Vista Farmers’ Market since December 2010, and plans to be there every week. Save time chopping and blending for only $10 each or 3 for $27.

When asked what people do with pre-made pesto, Lisa the BasilTops vendor told me that in addition to pasta, her customers come up with great ideas. She has one who buys large mushrooms, stuffs them with the herbed goat cheese balls from the Solidad Farms booth, and then drizzles BasilTops pesto on top. 

“We usually joke that it goes with everything but cornflakes, but some gentleman was standing there and said, ‘no, no, no, it’s really good on cornflakes,’ ” said Lisa.

Apparently if you crush cornflakes and coat chicken breasts with BasilTops pesto, the cornflakes make a great breading. Who knew?

BasilTops pesto is also available online. So even if you don’t feel inspired to make your own pesto creations, you’ll find plenty of summer recipe ideas and ingredients in the neighborhood.

Christy Wilhelmi is well known to many local Mar Vistans as The Gardenerd. Her website and blog at  www.gardenerd.com offers  information on classes, consulting and food-garden design.