My mother-in-law had bought me an Aerogarden, a few years ago. I was so excited when I got it but I had to wait, until I moved and got settled into my new apartment. So, it waited patiently until I got married and moved in with my husband. Immediately, we opened the box and set it up. We planted the herb set and poured the water and the nutrients and watched excitedly, every day for our new plants to grow. The basil, was the first to show itself. There were two pods in the set. Mint showed up later along with dill. Parsley and Cilantro…I was sad to see, did not grow at all. The Aerogarden has been on now for about 7 months now. Basil is the the main herb it is growing and it is wonderful! I have had so many opportunities to use fresh basil, in my recipes, where I would normally just use dried. The basil plants have been growing so well, that every other day, I have been having to cut it back and harvest leaves. These leaves, I have been freezing and it is great to use, especially when I make sauce or pesto.
Because my basil plants were doing so well, my bag of basil, in the freezer was full and already, the second bag nearly filled. I needed a good way to use up all this basil! I decided to make a large batch of basil this time. Normally, I would never make this much basil because it was just too expensive to purchase so much basil. You can always cut this recipe down to size. I used up some of the basil immediately and the rest I separated out the basil into serving portions and froze them.
Walnut Pesto
6 cups of fresh basil
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup walnuts
4-6 gloves of garlic (to your taste)
salt and pepper (to your taste)
Good Olive Oil
Directions:
- In a blender, pour about 1/4 cup of olive oil
- Add on top: basil, cheese, walnuts and some salt and pepper
- Start blender on lowest setting.
- Add more olive oil, until blender is able to blend properly and the pesto is at consistency you want.
- Once the ingredients are blended, taste to see if you want more garlic, salt and pepper.
Enjoy!
(sorry about the picture today, it was a busy cooking day)
Samina Cooks 
I never tried pesto before maybe I was afraid of how it looks like and taste on a pasta but this will be a good step as you added walnut, I guess the flavours would me much different.
I was a bit skeptical of how pesto would taste, as well, when I first heard of it. Now, I really enjoy it. I make a few variations to the basil, pine nuts (regular) version of pest. If you are not to eager for a “too basil” flavor, I like skipping the basil altogether and using baby spinach. The flavors should be creamy (from the Parmesan) and garlicky with a bit of saltiness. It also goes great with mozzarella. I hope you enjoy this! I really like the walnuts, it added a warmth to the pesto.
Oh my gosh, I first misread that as armageddon! An aerogarden sounds much nicer.
LOL Yes it does. Imagine trying to grow basil during armageddon…I don’t think I would be very successful 🙂
This pesto is very unique. I’ve never tried it before. What do you recommend what go well with this pesto? I want to try it 🙂 *HUGS*
lol Don’t you worry, I have 3 new recipes that I used this pesto in, already..coming soon. In the meantime, this pesto would go great in this recipe: https://saminacooks.com/2011/01/02/chicken-pesto-pasta/