Asparague Pesto

For the past eight years, I have loathed buying too many groceries at once because of how heavy they can get to carry. When you’re a full-time pedestrian it’s hard to realistically shop at places like Costco or Sam’s Club. If it makes sense, you’ll have your own little push cart, often known as a “granny cart”, but even then, it’s best to keep the groceries to a minimum. But ever since we moved to suburbia and have had a car, we have been able to go back to places like Costco and fill up our cart with lots and lots of things (which, let me tell you, is an enormous novelty when you’re so used to tiny little grocery stores).

When it comes to big stores like Costco, you’re not only buying a lot of different things, you’re buying a lot of each individual item. It can be great, but it can also make you wonder how two people can eat that much lettuce or that many potatoes. It’s easy to not keep up with food at home and wind up with an extra pound of something going bad. I hate being wasteful, though, so lately I have tried to get a little more creative with the surplus. One such food item is asparagus. It comes in two-pound bags, which is quite a bit for one person to chew on, let alone two. After scratching my head and wondering what I’d make, I finally realized that the perfect solution would be pesto.

Fresh asparagus

What I’ve learned over the last few years is that pesto can be made out of pretty much anything. Basil, dill, green beans, spinach – you name it, you can probably create a pesto out of it. Because asparagus has such a unique and strong flavor on its own, I had assumed that it would turn out a flavorful pesto. I’m afraid I was quite wrong. What resulted was an extremely mild-tasting pesto that really needed a handful or two of basil or spinach. In the recipe that follows, I am going to include a recommendation to add basil or spinach, but just be aware that I did not do this, so I do not know how it would turn out if you added one of those. Still, this is the exciting part of cooking – experiment until you wind up with a dish that you love. And if you shop at Costco, you’ll wind up with a lot of that dish, too. ;)

Asparagus Pesto
Makes enough for two or three pounds of pasta. Suggestion – reserve some of the pesto to use for dipping chips or raw veggies.

• 2 pounds asparagus, washed with ends trimmed
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Handful of fresh spinach or basil (optional, but should add additional flavor)
• 1 package of your preferred pasta (add an additional package if you wish to use all of your pesto in one dish)

Boil your pasta according to package directions.

Wash the asparagus and trim the ends, then steam or boil for a few minutes until just tender.

Preparing and steaming the asparagus

When the asparagus has finished cooking, reserve some of the spears for garnish, and place the rest in a food processor. Add to the food processor the pine nuts and garlic, as well as the basil and spinach if you are using those. As the processor is blending the ingredients together, slowly pour in the olive oil.

Making asparagus pesto

Once the pesto has mixed, add the salt and blend more. At this point taste test. Does it have enough salt? Does the pesto have enough flavor? Ask yourself if something is missing.

When you feel it is ready, add the pesto to your cooked, drained and rinsed pasta and mix well.

Mixing the pesto with the pasta

Garnish with some asparagus spears and serve.

Penne Pasta with Asparagus Pesto

What is your favorite way to prepare pesto?

A few weeks ago I made a batch of orzo with basil pesto. The recipe had originally been inspired by a recipe in a food magazine that used dill instead of basil. The recipe continued to eat at me because I was terribly curious if dill pesto would be as tasty and satisfying as basil pesto.

One day at the grocery store I grabbed one bunch of dill and decided I’d find out, for better or worse, if dill pesto is all that magazine cracked it up to be. The recipe from a few weeks ago remains the same, just the dill is different.

Dill Pesto

• 1 cup fresh dill, washed
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 package pasta

Cook the pasta according to package directions.

While pasta is cooking, prepare your pesto ingredients.

Put fresh dill, pine nuts, garlic cloves, and salt into a food processor or blender, and as it is blending pour olive oil into the blender. Once it is done blending it should look similar to this (and yes this is the basil, but same concept).

When the pasta has finished cooking, drain and rinse it under cold water, then mix the pesto and pasta together.

Verdict? I was surprised, but the dill was not as overpowering as I thought it might be. In fact, I realized how much the other ingredients really influence the taste of pesto. I have tended to believe that the primary flavor has been the basil, but the truth of the matter is that you’re tasting the pine nuts, olive oil and garlic just as much.

You can still taste the dill, but honestly, it didn’t taste tremendously different than the basil pesto. I’m sure if you were to put the two side by side and do a taste test you’d see – ah yes, that is basil, this is dill. But the dill did quite well as a pesto, and I’d recommend it to those of you who haven’t forayed into the realm of other herb pesto possibilities.

Hmmm… Now this makes me wonder what other herb pestos I should try. Any recommendations?

For the last three years or so we have done container gardening. It isn’t quite the same as doing regular gardening where you have your own land, but it is a decent substitute. We usually grow about a million tomatoes (slight exaggeration), and a few other random items. This year we’re trying to grow artichokes, have successfully grown radishes and turnips (more on that in a future post), and strawberries.

Another thing we grow, but never manage to use all of, is basil. It is probably one of the absolute easiest things to grow, but we rarely take full advantage of it since there is so much of it.

A couple of weeks ago when I was looking through a food magazine I ran across a recipe for an orzo dish with dill pesto. Since it has been a while since I’ve had orzo, and since we had all that basil growing on our back porch, I decided to try to make it with our basil.

Orzo, if you have never heard of it, is a pasta that looks similar to rice.

It tastes like other pasta, so the only real difference is its shape.

Orzo with Basil Pesto

• 1 cup fresh basil leaves, washed
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 pkg. orzo pasta
• 1 lb. fresh or frozen asparagus spears

Cook the pasta according to package directions.

While pasta is cooking, prepare your pesto ingredients.

Put basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic cloves, and salt into a food processor or blender.

And start your blender.

As it is blending, pour olive oil into the blender.

Once it is done, it should look something like this.

When the orzo has finished cooking, drain and rinse it under cold water.

Cut the asparagus into one-inch pieces and steam or cook for a few minutes until the desired tenderness. Put the orzo, pesto, and asparagus into a large bowl and stir it all together.

I am usually not big on pesto, but I liked how this turned out. The pesto wasn’t too overpowering and the asparagus was a nice touch. I also liked the orzo. Its size and shape give this dish a nice texture.

I will say though that I probably should have increased the amount of basil or cut down on the olive oil. It was still quite good, but the ratio of oil to basil was a little off.

I also think that this is a dish that can most certainly be played around with. Instead of pine nuts you could most certainly use walnuts or even possibly pecans. Instead of basil, you can use fresh spinach, green beans, or dill. You could also use other oils, but I would probably leave that the same. Olive oil gives such a rich and smooth flavor that I wouldn’t trade that for a lighter oil.

Have any of you used dill as a base for pesto? I am really curious to know if the dill is too strong of a flavor or if it is similar in intensity to basil. I may try it at some point, but would love to know your experiences with it in the meantime.