Easy Pesto Sauce Recipe and Hamilton Beach Blender Giveaway

An easy pesto sauce recipe made with fresh basil, parsley, and parmesan. I added a little cayenne to give it an added kick. SO yummy!

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Easy Pesto Sauce Recipe and Hamilton Beach Blender Giveaway

Yield: 1 .5 cups

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Ingredients

• 1 cup of basil and parsley, I used about 1/2 cup of each - I would make sure to use at least 1/2 cup of basil.
• 1/4 cup fresh parmesan cheese, shaved or shredded
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne, optional - this gave it a big kick. I would consider using 1/4 teaspoon.

Instructions

1. Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Store in the refrigerator in an air tight container.

Notes

Best a day or so after it's been made and refrigerated

This is the first year that we’ve lived somewhere that we’ve actually been able to have a garden. While Forrest definitely has the greener thumb of the two of us (and is the main reason our garden is doing as well as it is), I love going out each morning to see the progress our plants have made. It’s so fun to have so many plants growing and to be able to teach Jack a little bit about where some foods come from.

In addition to have tomatoes, strawberries (that the squirrels won’t stop eating!), squash, cucumbers, and a few other items, we’ve been growing lots of fresh herbs. Before now, I never really felt like there was a big difference between fresh and dried herbs…but now I’m a believer in using fresh when you can.

I’ve been really excited to use our basil plant, so I could make pesto! There’s few foods I enjoy more than pesto – it’s great on pasta, chicken, flat bread, toast, crackers…everything. I’ve been dying to try it at home for awhile now, and I finally got around to it last week!

This is such an easy pesto recipe, and it doesn’t require a lot of ingredients. We actually didn’t have enough basil to make it, so I added some parsley – which is growing like crazy in our garden as well. I used freshly shredded parmesan, pine nuts, olive oil, pepper, and I also added a little bit of cayenne for a little bit of a kick. That’s totally optional though.

I used the new Hamilton Beach Wave-Action Blender that the company so kindly sent me a few weeks ago. It’s a fairly simple blender with a lot of fun features, and I was thrilled to see that it had an option specifically for dice chopping, and salsa. I’ll admit that it took a little while to get the blender to completely blend up the pesto, but I think it’s because we were using a small quantity of ingredients. If you doubled this recipe, I don’t think it would have any trouble. It’s a great blender – especially for college students and newlyweds! It is very sturdy and durable feeling, and it looks rather sleek (and if you stick around to the end, you can win one!)

My little helper assisted with this recipe, and he loved putting all the ingredients in and then pressing the blender buttons.

It turned out really yummy! Next time I would use a little less cayenne, because it made the sauce a little too spicy when I just eat it off a spoon. However, when I added it to some chicken, it tasted awesome, and I didn’t mind the spiciness at all.

We made a delicious chicken pesto pizza using this pesto, and it was fantastic. I made it on a homemade naan crust, which I will be sharing soon. Here’s a little teaser so you make sure to come back and get that recipe (tomorrow…hopefully!)

And if you’d like to win your own Hamilton Beach Wave Action Blender, here’s your chance! Thank you to Hamilton Beach for providing me with a blender to review and giveaway.

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