So this is a modification of the Basil Cream Pasta Sauce that I got from AllRecipes.com (http://madhuknitsandcooks.typepad.com/madhu_knits_and_cooks/2006/09/absolutely_fant.html) to take out the cream and just make it more like a pesto. This takes maybe 15 max to prepare, so it’s a great way to get away from the canned pasta sauces.
What I did for about 3 servings of the sauce was take:
1 cup of fresh basil leaves
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
Maybe 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil (no idea really, I just eye-balled it while pouring directly from the bottle into the food processor)
Approx. 1/2 cup of shredded parmesan cheese (again, just eye-balled it so not entirely sure)
salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste
So throw the basil leaves and garlic into the food processor, mix for maybe 10-20 seconds, and then start pouring in the olive oil. You’re going to want to make sure that the resulting mixture is a little too olive-oily because you’re going to need to make sure there is enough to soak up the parmesan while still making it a "sauce" as opposed to a "spread" of sorts. Then throw in the parm, continue processing until you have the consistency you want and then mix in the salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.
When you throw over pasta, I would recommend adding the sauce after you put the pasta in whatever serving dish you will use. You can put it directly in the pot where you cooked the pasta after you’ve drained the water out, but the heat of the pot may melt the cheese in the pot a bit so that it’s a bit harder to clean the pot later. Of course though, putting the sauce on hot pasta is great precisely because of that little melting of the cheese when it hits the pasta.
Leave a Reply