Making Pesto to Freeze

As the gardener of six little struggling basil plants, I could hardly wait to harvest some of the herb to make pesto.

A few years ago, a friend had given me some frozen pesto sauce (delicious!) and I recall her saying to add cheese and butter to it after thawing and before using it.

That thought set me on a quest for a pesto recipe specifically for freezing purposes. This is where I found one: Pesto for Freezing (Food Network).

Using that recipe, but halving the ingredients because the basil is as precious as hen's teeth, and there was not two cups full yet available from the plants, here is a picture of the pesto in process.

And the bottom picture shows the miserly amount gleaned from those six basil plants, with added garlic, spices, olive oil and pine nuts.

So, basically, the only difference in preparing pesto sauce for consumption in the future by means of freezing is:

1: add just some of the olive oil to the blender, reserving the remainder for a "topping" in the freezer container (to retain a layer to help preserve it);
2: add the Italian cheese AFTER the pesto is thawed

Now we have about 3/4 of a cup of prepared pesto which will be enjoyable when the cold winds blow.

Hopefully, those basil plants will keep producing leaves, and there may be enough pesto by the end of the summer for several meals.