Pesto is so very easy to throw together in fifteen minutes, if you have made it in advance. Home-made pesto easily beats anything from a jar as the freshness of the ingredients is crucial. Grow some basil on the windowsill or garden and you have eliminated the cost of the second most expensive ingredient.
All measurements are intuitive rather than accurately measured, sorry. Recipe is easily adjusted to suit taste.
One very large bunch of fresh sweet basil
Half a cup of extra virgin olive oil
One small packet of pine nuts
Three large cloves of garlic
One cup of grated parmesan cheese
Place everything but the cheese in a blender and go for it. Add the oil until the consistency is right. Fold through the cheese. Store in a jar in the fridge for up to a week. The less time spent in the blender, the rougher and more rustic/home-made it will appear.
Adding this fresh to steaming hot pasta is a huge treat and the raw garlic is highly aromatic. You can then add cherry tomatoes, pan-fried prawns, anything you like.
Rhubarb ripple ice-cream
If you have a rhubarb plant delivering more stalks than you know what to do with, try this recipe.
6 x large stalks rhubarb
600ml double cream
8 Tablespoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or seeds from 2 vanilla pods
Chop the rhubarb and cook with a tiny bit of water and half the sugar until almost liquid. Cool.
Whip cream with half the sugar and the vanilla until it is bubbly and has increased in volume, without going firm.
Fold the rhubarb through the cream and transfer to a chilled container, freeze. Open the freezer hourly and stir the ice-cream, until set (about four hours)