Basil

Making Pesto or How I Almost Burned Down the House

Some grape tomatoes hidden among the basil.

I have mentioned before that I have two self-seeded basil patches that are quite large--meaning my cup runneth over with basil. I have given away plants and cuttings to everyone I know, enough so that they are starting to run the other way when they see me coming. Also, I have left some to flower to make the bees happy and I've made pesto. And more pesto.

The traditional recipe for pesto calls for pine nuts. I'm not even certain what pine nuts are, but they sure are expensive. So Theo and I studied substitutes and decided on cashews. We had used almonds before, but didn't like the texture they produced, and while cashews are expensive, they cost about 1/2 the price of pine nuts.

The other day, I was making a another batch of pesto to use up some basil that I hadn't been able to give away. I picked and washed the basil leaves, shredded the cheese, and chopped the nuts and garlic so they would blend better. Then I decided I would cook the garlic just a bit to mellow its bite. I wasn't going to take the time to roast it, so I popped it into the microwave. And flash! There were large flames. This wasn't a little arc but flames filling the oven. Luckily they were gone as soon as I turned it off.  Crisis averted. I quickly examined what was in the oven, but nothing was there except a little glass bowl and some charred garlic.

Beginning to make pesto. Notice this was
before I burned the garlic.

Then I did what I always do in these situations. I consulted Google. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly) I got a hit when I entered, "garlic burning in the microwave."  It seems that garlic has minerals in it that are not evenly distributed and it can arc between these different charges in the microwave.  And it is especially prone to happen if there are sharp edges on the food. Just like the ones I had made by cutting up the garlic cloves. It turns out that garlic is not unique with this characteristic. It happens with other vegetables. So, I don't know how I've been using the microwave for over 30 years and not have this happen before.

So what did I learn from this? For a fun time, try cooking some cut up garlic in the microwave. In fact, I feel an experiment coming on. Trying different vegetables to see which ones are most likely to arc in the microwave. Mmmmm...... What ones should I start with?

But Wait, There's More!

As I suspected, pine nuts are just what the name says, seeds/nuts from a pine tree. They are expensive because it can take 36 months to produce them and harvesting is usually done by hand.


But Wait, There's Even More!

I found this book at the library, Pesto by Leslie Lennox. The perfect book for a bumper crop of basil. All kinds pesto recipes as well as ways to use the pesto. Lot's of ideas to explore.