Basil Pesto

Yum, I made my first batch of basil pesto for this year!

There's more where that came from!

"That's allotta basil!"
(in our best Italian accent)

Last year, I made lots of pesto all summer long.  Then at the end of the summer, we just pulled out the plants and brought them into the house.  There were only two of them but they were huge!  I enlisted my family to help me pick off all of the leaves ... it took over an hour with four of us working at it.  I froze all of the pesto and I am just now using up my last container, so this new batch is just in time!

Here is my basic recipe:
4 cups basil leaves
1 cup olive oil
2/3 cup parmesan cheese
4 large cloves garlic
freshly ground black pepper to taste

This is the general recipe and I kind of go from there.  When I go to use it, I add more olive oil.  Authentic Italian basil pesto has pine nuts, but I don't care for them so I leave them out.