Why would anyone buy Pesto?

[PeggySioux]

I am so cross.

For 30 years I have thought that I hated pesto. Turns out I hate the nasty vinegary oily nasty yak that you can buy.

Whizzed up fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts and olive oil with parmesan is blardy lovely!

My god I have a lot of pesto to eat to make up for lost time.

I was 18 before I tasted pesto . It was in a cheese sandwich my Uni housemate made me.
Pasta, tuna, red pesto and grated cheddar cheese is my all time hangover cure. I have never made pesto from scratch. Sacla here all the way!

My 'Ponce-dar' has just sounded.

Aldi pesto in a jar. Better than Lidl, and they don't come over all Big Brother on the workers.

i agree carm .

I can't get enthusiastic about peeps buggering about with it and doing aubergine and coriander versions. A step too far I feel.

i do it from coriander fresh, moony, you processed food freak!

what next, i draw your name in the Xmas Swap and send you a copy of 'Delia's Cheats'?

I can't be fucked cooking these days.

Oh I looooove pesto, have never tried to make my own. We buy twatrose in a jar or the sainsbugs fresh one in the chiller section.

Have jotted down the vinegrette recipe for this summer's salads though, and may even attempt to make my own pesto. But exactly how much basil do you need??

I went into an M&S foodhall today and had a nose round the ready meal section .

Our lovely health visitor told me that now her kids have grown up and flown the coop she and her husband 'nip into M&S and get us a quick tea on the way home from work'.

and i'm thinking, 'yeah, i could sort of see this.'

wanderingtrolley, i agree, the M&S one is much nicer than the sacla one. you and i, we agree on so much these days... who's mellowing?

Expat,we had a good laugh discussing this t'other day

Coriander pesto is just gorgeous, expat. You are quite right. A few years ago a winner of Masterchef made something with coriander pesto. I had it for the first time in a roadside diner somewhere near Seattle (alongside an asian-y steaky sort of dish as I recall, but also goes great with lamb) and I thought it was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever eaten. Mmmmmm.

Oh I intend to live on M&S ready meals when I am old and alone. I am looking forward to it . I will have earnt it by then I have decided and won't cook and wash up just for me!

It's not pesto though is it? It's coriander puree.Much as chamomile tea is not tea,it's chamomile infusion.

What?? Life is NOT too short to make it, and it's not a faff and you don't even have to use the food processor. Use your whizzy blade stick and a cereal bowl. Takes less than a minute.

I have never heard of Sacla.

It does take more than a minute.

You have to
(a) find the basil lurking at the bottom of the fridge under the carrots
(b) peel the garlic mutteringly
(c) fossick about in the cupboard for the bag of pine-nuts
(d) open said bag - always allowing that the scissors are in the jar where you thought they were, and splurge out rather more pine nuts than you intended and swear a bit
(e) go back to the fridge and take out the box of cheese and rummage around for that chunk of parmesan/pecorino that's wedged behind the packet of hallumi that is almost certainly past its sell-by date but still counts as a Useful Staple For Emergencies.

In the Inferiority Complex, lacking a food processor, you then have to grind the pine nuts in the spice grinder (plugging it in first obviously) and grate the cheese and chop up the garlic and basil a bit, before bunging it all in with oil into whatever vessel you're blending it with.

In practice none of this takes more than about five minutes, if and only if those damn scissors were where you thought they were in the first place. However at 6pm, having cycled five miles and with children in tow, I really cannot blame the father of my children for reaching for a jar instead.

I love the tesco or Sainsbury fresh pesto, M & S doesnt do it for me. Before children I used to make our own, but used masses and masses of basil. Is there a recipe nowadays that uses less? FWIW I use Sacla, on pasta, and my dd's favourtie lucnhbox meal is tomata, mozz & avocado but i do worry about the salt content/ But unless someone can come ups with a recipe that uses less than about four plants of basil for a little pesto, I will stay with trusty old sacla:}

I prefer the jar stuff. It's one of my Guilty Pleasures. Homemade is too rich.

MI, that halloumi never goes out of date, it has a half-life of several hundred years.

Mmm, Tideford Foods Hey Pesto. It is excellent...no vinegar anywhere

OK moondog. Am just off to have a chamomile infusion myself actually and then to bed.

a) buy basil in shop
b) put it in salad spinner after rinsing and use child labour to spin it.
c) chuck in food processor, stems and all, with handful of pine nuts from big bag bought at Costco Glasgow every six months
d) add in chunks of Lidl parm cheese
e) couple of spoonfuls of lazy garlic^
f) pepper, olive oil, have child turn processor on and voila!

jarred green pesto.

boak.

[sticks tongue out a moony and think, 'When I win the lotto, I'm buying you Delia's Cheats and a case of tinned mince from ASDA]

Love pesto, mixed with mayo. Serve it on chicken brest with olives. Taste sensation.

I aqree Marina..the Tideford one is gorgeous
M&S one is too oily & salty

Aldi one came a close second in taste test in one of the sunday papers a few weeks ago - can't remember which one won but it was three times the price. Cheap, tasty and no blender to clean

It is a major operation in my rubbish tiny kitchen to get food processor out of the top cupboard from amongst precarious piles of cat food, party napkins, cake board, metal water bottles etc. And I cannot stand cleaning the thing.

Special occasion use only.