Return of the Caesar

This will be the second time I've posted this recipe, but I don't want you to miss it, since today I made a Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad and it hit the spot. Now I know that is the opposite end of the spectrum from avant-garde, GCCS being ubiquitous these days, from McDonald's to the haute-est retro steakhouses, but the difference between a vibrant, punchy, fresh-tasting CS, and one that is bland and greasy, is in the dressing. THIS is the dressing you want: lemony, garlicky and full of depth and flavor. On a warm evening, a moderate amount of this dressing, tossed with cold, crisp romaine lettuce and fresh grated Parmesan (put that green can away before I smack someone!), eaten with grilled chicken from the barbecue, will revive your sense of what this salad can be.

I posted this once here, in 2007, and it's true that I did learn to make it in a five-gallon bucket in Michael Chiarello's Tra Vigne kitchen, under the tutelage of the impish cold-side wizard Peggy. It is still the best, the original, authentic Caesar salad dressing. If you must, due to health reasons, omit the egg yolk, the dressing still tastes ok with the Dijon as the only binder, but take care when you emulsify that you go slowly with the oil at first so that it doesn't break.

A couple of things you need to know about this recipe: one, it makes about a half-pint of dressing, which is a lot. Be prepared to share, or to have more than one salad in a week. And two, both people had better partake. As with all things garlic and anchovy-y, this dressing packs a serious wallop in the breath department later. But raw garlic is good for you, and it's soooo delicious. I used Meyer Lemon juice, so I added a full tablespoon more for the right amount of tartness. I like my Caesar dressing lemony.

This was also my Grandma’s favorite Caesar salad, reason enough to justify a trip down from Tahoe just to eat at the restaurant.

Caesar Salad
(From the Tra Vigne Cookbook, "Piadine with Blue Cheese Caesar Salad" by Michael Chiarello and Penelope Wisner. Blue cheese, though I love it dearly, is a terrible waste of the subtle and not so subtle flavors in this dressing. I prefer the original recipe.)

1T Champagne vinegar
2T Fresh lemon juice
1 ½ tsp minced garlic
1 egg yolk
1 tb dijon mustard
Dash Worcestershire sauce
6 anchovy fillets (buy the filets in a jar of oil rather than the can-- they are much neater and easier to store, and keep almost indefinitely in the refrigerator)
Pinch fresh ground black pepper
1 cup pure olive oil
2 tb freshly grated Parmesan cheese plus more for sprinkling on salad

Using a blender, food processor or stick blender, mince the garlic, then add the vinegar, lemon juice, egg yolk, mustard, Worcestershire, anchovies and pepper and blend until well mixed.

With the machine running, add the olive oil, at first by drops and then in a thin, steady stream until all of the oil is incorporated.

Pulse in the finely grated parmesan

Refrigerate in a covered container until ready to use. Toss with chilled, chopped hearts of romaine, and extra parmesan until the greens are evenly but thinly coated.

Do not overdress; keep a bowl on the table for those who like more. Top with chicken if you like. Or dip raw vegetables in it, or make a warm/cold piadini (a folded flatbread sandwich) with it, using some Trader Joe's raw pizza doughs cooked up on the barbecue grill or in the oven, or soft, storebought flatbread. Trader Joe's also has a good one.

Note: If you have no food processor or blender, chop the ingredients very fine, then whisk them together with a wire wisk, or pummel them using a mortar and pestle. Emulsions are a little tougher to do with a whisk, but that's the way they were done forever and ever, so just roll a damp towel into a tube and wrap around the base of a stainless or glass bowl, tilted slightly, so you'll have two free hands, and whisk away, remembering to go very slowly at first with the oil, and you'll be just fine.

Enjoy!

Voila le Gateau des Blueberries

Barely caught these last two pieces before we polished off another one. I made one substitution: I used King Arthur Unbleached White Whole Wheat instead of AP. Didn't harm the texture one bit-- if anything, it enhanced it. Happy munching!

Blueberry Cake

Getting started. Generously greased pan.

This butter was not soft enough-- had to mix it in with my fingers.

Batter before blueberries is like a very wet cookie dough- thick but still spreadable.

After adding frozen blueberries, a very stiff dough, looks and feels just like cold chocolate chip cookie dough. Make sure you've mixed it thoroughly before adding the frozen berries, and then press it into the pan as much as you can. It will continue to fill in the holes as it bakes.

An Easy Summer Tea Cake

Another nice little breakfast cake that's fairly foolproof. It is not too sweet, and comes out somewhere between a scone and a cake. If you'd like it a little sweeter, a glaze similar to the one on these scones would be lovely. I liked that the recipe was simple and could be made with a bowl and a fork (as long as your butter is already soft), and uses ingredients that I typically have on hand.

Shenandoah Valley Blueberry Cake

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup softened butter
3/4 cup plus 2 T sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (do not thaw frozen blueberries)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 and generously grease a 9 inch round or square cake pan.

Combine flour, bp and salt in a bowl, stir with a fork to combine.

In another bowl, combine butter and sugar and beat (with a mixer or fork) at high speed until well combined. Add the egg and beat well for 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl, until the mixture is smooth and light.

Stir in half the flour mixture, then half the milk, mixing just enough to keep the batter fairly smooth. Add the remaining flour, then the rest of the milk, mixing gently. Stir in the blueberries. (Note: if the blueberries are frozen, you are going to want to mix them in quickly and get the batter into the pan right away, as it will chill the batter to an almost solid.)

Scrape the batter into the pan and bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes or until the top is golden, springs back when touched gently in the center and is pulling away from the sides of the pan. (Note: my cake took 40-45, using frozen blueberries. I thought that my oven was running slow, but I checked it with a thermometer and it was 3 degrees warmer than it read, so FYI.)

Serve a square cake right from the pan, warm or at room temperature, cut into small squares. IF it's round, let cool in the pan on a wire rack, then turn it out to finish cooling, top side up. (From Nancie McDermott's Southern Cakes)

My grandfather would love this warm with a nice fat slab of butter melting into it. (Hi Grandpa! Maybe you can get the Viking Queen to make you one!)

Didn't get any pictures of the first one because we gobbled it up so fast, so I'm going to go make another one right now-- pictures up shortly.

*******
While you're waiting, check this out: I discovered this pink caterpillar on my magenta geraniums yesterday morning. Cool, huh? I don't think I've ever seen a pink caterpillar before.


By this morning, the pretty pink bud on the right was completely devoured. I wonder if the caterpillar started out pink, or became pink from eating all of those flowers?

Peachy Keen

Summer is glorious, isn't it? I know we're finally there when I can have these luscious peaches for breakfast, and fat, juicy slices of heirloom tomatoes on my sandwich at lunch.

Almost Forgot

Of course, this was the thing I sat down to write about yesterday and I left it out completely. I made up this dip one day for cold veggies and the little ones scarfed it down. If you prefer, reduce the ratio of sour cream to silken tofu, or use fat-free sour cream.

Tamara's Blue Cheese Dip for Veggies
1/2 c sour cream, regular or fat free
1/2 c silken tofu
+/- 2 oz crumbled blue cheese (I like Buttermilk Blue)

The best way to blend this is with a stick blender, right in the bowl, but you can also do it in a food processor or blender. Blend just until smooth. If you have neither, use a fork and do the best you can. You can either blend everything together until smooth, or blend the tofu and sour cream until creamy and crumble in the blue cheese if you want to leave it chunky.

Cut an orange, yellow, or red bell pepper in half lengthwise, remove the stem and seeds and any extra white pith. Cut crosswise and then into one-inch sections. The curved ends of the pepper make nice little scoops. White Belgian endive also makes a nice little scoop (sometimes I use it with tuna salad made with grapes for lunch, yum), and also carrot and cucumber sticks.

This was my favorite suggestion from "Feeding the Kids": putting cut vegetables out with something to dip them in as an afternoon snack. Hungry people will munch on veggies!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

(Adapted from Cook's Illustrated New Best Recipe Cookbook)

Ingredients
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1.5 lbs rhubarb, ends trimmed, peeled if tough, and cut into 3/4" slices
1 cup plus 1 T sugar
1 recipe pie crust for a double crust pie
(2.5 c flour, 1 tsp each sugar and salt, 1/2 cup each shortening and butter, ice water)
1 lb strawberries, hulled and quartered
3 T arrowroot powder (you'll like this, go ahead and buy some)
Pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla (optional)
2 teaspoons grated zest of 1 orange
1 egg white, lightly beaten

Tools
Food processor is handy for crust
Parchment paper handy for rolling
Knife and cutting board
Skillet or saute pan

Method
1. Preheat oven to 475. Adjust a rack to the lowest level and place a rimmed baking sheet on it.
2. Saute rhubarb briefly in oil to remove moisture, toss with 1/4 c sugar, refrigerate to chill.
3. Make and roll out bottom crust, place in pie pan
4. Mix together 3/4 c sugar, arrowroot and salt. Add to hulled, quartered strawberries. Drain rhubarb and mix with strawberries. Pour all into pan and flatten lightly.
5. Roll out top crust, place on top (*To use a pie bird, cut and x in the center of the crust when folded. Insert bird in filling and place crust on top.), trimming ends and rolling top crust edges under bottom crust edges. Press to seal, flute or crimp with fork.
6. Make plenty of vents in top of pie or use a pie bird. (This is a juicy pie.)
7. Brush top crust with beaten egg white, sprinkle with 1 T sugar.
8. Place pie on baking sheet, reduce temperature to 425.
9. Bake for 25 minutes, rotate pie and reduce temperature to 325.
10. Bake 30-35 minutes more, remove and cool at room temperature 3-4 hours.

Yes, you can eat this pie hot right out of the oven, but allowing it to cool completely will gel the filling so that it stays with the piece it belongs in, so I say wait.

Do refer to the real cookbook for detailed instructions and explanation of their methods.

Damn, I make a nice crust.

Because You Have Been Deprived

Here are some pictures I took in the French Laundry's garden in Yountville a couple of months ago. It was crazy how much stuff they still had growing that late. Everything is all covered up in white blankets now, hiding from the frost we had two weeks ago.

The spring flowers are already starting here on the ranch, halfway through January. Some of those crazy, precocious narcissi were going mid-December, but now the bright mustard is emerging and the camellias and magnolias are blooming, too. I barely got a taste of winter, but I know this January warm spell is just a teaser. Hopefully we'll get a few more good soakings before spring really starts.

Melon Granita

We are overwhelmed by beautiful melons from the veggie box at the moment, and this seemed like the best way to use up one or two that we couldn't get to.

Melon Granita

1 1/2 small melons, canteloupe, orange honeydew, etc.
1/4 cup sugar
fresh lemon juice to taste if desired

Cut peeled melon into chunks, place in blender, add sugar and lemon juice (if desired). Blend briefly, just until you have a slightly chunky puree. Pour into a metal cake pan and freeze. Scrape with a fork to make snow-cone textured granita. Serve with a garnish of mint leaves or a thin dutch butter cookie. An orange granita alongside a green honeydew granita would be an elegant, tasty and inexpensive dessert for a warm summer night.

The basic recipe I consulted called for 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice to 2 cups melon. I used at least twice that much melon with the same amount of sugar and no lemon juice, because the melon was very sweet and I wanted the true flavor to come through. You could make this any way you like it.

That's it. It tastes absolutely divine, especially since my mouth is burning from the sriracha* on the take-out pizza we had for dinner tonight. I promise to try to photograph this some time in the next few days, as I realize I have been slacking on good food photographs since I took the photo class back in July and August.

*If you haven't tried sriracha on pizza, and you are someone who flirts with danger when it comes to the chile flakes on your pie, this may be your new best friend. Indispensable when it comes to chilis, curries and chinese peanut sauce.

Tomatoes

Two Quick Summer Recipes

Due to a host of circumstances, my posting has slipped a bit in the last two weeks. These past few days have been about getting things back in order around here, and yesterday afternoon I took a walk out to the big garden for the first time in weeks to see what was happening. I found myself in the midst of glorious summer. On top of the fragrant cantaloupe, fresh corn, skinny Japanese eggplant and tangy zebra and green grape tomatoes I found there, we also discovered a little nectarine tree in our backyard, laden with fruit. Here is what we made from the bounty:

Frozen Nectarine Margaritas
16 oz sliced fresh nectarines
2-3 shots tequila
Juice of 1/2 large lime or 1 small lime
1-2 tablespoons agave syrup, as needed, depending on sweetness of fruit
1 cup ice cubes
1/2- 1 cup water, if necessary to thin to drinking consistency

Blend until smooth, adding water to thin if necessary. To freeze nectarines, slice and arrange in a single layer on a parchment or plastic covered sheet pan. Freeze until solid. Store in zipper bags. Great in smoothies too. I keep these in the freezer throughout summer, adding new fruit as the supply is depleted. These are also good defrosted just a little bit for dessert, with ladyfingers and cream or by themselves. Frozen peaches and nectarines also work for pie and cobbler.


Gazpacho- basic recipe
4.5 lbs tomatoes
1 cup vodka (I'm assuming this is optional)
2 T lemon juice
1/2 T horseradish
1 T worcestershire
kosher salt to taste
1/2 to 1T tabasco (Can be added later to each serving)
1 gypsy pepper, diced
1 avocado, diced
fresh cilantro, basil, or parsley, chopped

Divide tomatoes in half. Roughly chop 1/2 and place in blender with ingredients up to kosher salt. Puree and strain. Dice the remaining tomatoes and gypsy pepper very small, and add to strained puree. Chill.

To serve, ladle into small bowls, making sure to get both soup and diced tomatoes, and add tabasco to taste. Top with avocado and fresh herbs. Creme fraiche would also be nice on top if you have it. I like this soup best topped with chilled crabmeat or shrimp. This time, I used the full tablespoon of tabasco in the whole batch of soup to be chilled. It was not too spicy for me, but I would have left it out if I had guests, because I think children would eat the soup without it. Too hot otherwise. Also substituted wasabe for horseradish. Either works.

Zucchini-Cheddar Breakfast Biscuits

Once again, from the Garden Fresh Vegetable Cookbook, by Andrea Chesman.

Zucchini-Cheddar Breakfast Biscuits
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 tsp salt
4 oz high-qualit bacon, preferably applewood smoked (I used diced Niman Ranch ham)
3 cups unbleached AP flour
1 T baking powder
2 tsp baking soda (I skipped, by accident)
1/2 tsp black pepper
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut up
1 c grated cheddar
3/4 c buttermilk

Combine the zucchini and salt in a colander and set aside to drain for 30 minutes. Squeeze out any excess moisture (inside a towel or paper towel) and place in a small mixing bowl. You should have about 1/2 cup zucchini.

Cook the bacon until crisp, drain and chop.

Preheat oven to 400.

Sift dry ingredients. Cut the butter in until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add the cheese, bacon and zucchini and toss with a fork to mix well. Stir in buttermilk to form a stiff dough.

Transfer to a lightly floured board and knead briefly until smooth. Pat out or roll out to 1 inch thick. Stamp with 3 inch round cutter and place on a baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden. Serve hot out of the oven.

This time, I followed the recipe only vaguely. I was halfway through my regular biscuit recipe when I spied the remaining zucchini and remembered that I wanted to try this one, so practically everything is different. They still turned out tasty, and I will try the real recipe soon. I even skipped rolling these out and made drop biscuits instead. Good for breakfast, lunch, or savory snacks.

I really enjoy this cookbook, and it has become one of my standbys.

Zapple it!

Before I forget: if you end up with an overgrown zucchini from the garden, try zapple-ing it! This only works with a big, woody zucchini. 3 inches in diameter or more seems to work well.

From the Garden Vegetable Cookbook, by Andrea Chesman

Zapples:
Peel and core the zucchini, then cut it in half and slice in thick slices (imagine apple pieces).
Cook 4 cups of zucchini in 1/3 c fresh lemon juice (don't add more liquid, the zucchini will give off quite a bit of water).
Once mostly tender, remove from heat and add 1/2 cup light brown sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg.

Puree for zapplesauce (cold applesauce from the fridge, spiked with cinnamon is such a nice, relatively healthy treat to eat on a hot summer day), or use to make zapple muffins:

Muffin batter
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c butter softened
1 c sugar
2 lg eggs
1/4 cup buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients together in one bowl, cream butter and sugar in another, add eggs one at a time, beat until well combined. Add dry mixture and buttermilk to butter-sugar-eggs alternately, starting and ending with flour mixture. Stir in zapplesauce until just evenly distributed. The batter will be stiff- an ice cream scoop is good for portioning.

Bake in greased muffin cups at 350 20-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on wire rack.

For zapple pie, use 6 cups zucchini, 1/2 c lemon juice, and stir in 3/4 c sugar (rather than 1/2c), 1- 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp nutmeg and 2 tablespoons instant tapioca or cornstarch, and use as you would apples. The starch is necessary, because they will give off a lot of liquid. I would also undercook them, leaving the slices a little al dente, before using in pie, or they'll go to mush.

I know this sounds like something your loony, overzealous hippie gardening neighbor would make, but I tried it before I put this up here. I made a zapple tart and took it to work. Everyone kept coming in and telling me how great the apple tart was. You should have seen their faces when I revealed the zucchini surprise. They could not believe it. Hopelessly garden geeky, I know, but when life gives you... well, three foot zucchinis, you've got to make lemonade, if you know what I mean.

Lisa's Beautiful Figs

Ahhh, I think I finally got my cooking mojo back. I haven't felt inspired recently-- too many other things on my mind. Summer seems to have burst upon us in a flurry of stone fruit and tomatoes, and I just wasn't ready for it. But today as I work, I am roasting a turkey breast (for sandwiches through the week) and soon will be baking a plum upside-down cake. Probably the first of several this summer. It's such an easy and pretty dessert, especially with dark red plums that melt their colors into the cake. It should be delicious: it has a stick and a half of butter in it! But it's total comfort food. Have a salad and don't worry about it.

My friend Lisa, who doesn't like figs, has a beautiful, squat, old fig tree in her backyard that produces gorgeous, fat, ripe figs, which she graciously shares with me. I think these will be grilled tomorrow and dotted with blue cheese and maybe a little fresh basil from the veggie box. I love them wrapped with bacon or pancetta, or prosciutto, too, but it just seems like too much fuss on a hot day to sit around wrapping sweaty pork over figs.

I hope I wasn't too cavalier about suggesting that you ignore the salmonella issue and tomatoes. Buy fresh and local whenever you can. I still believe that there is something fishy about the whole thing, but I'm not sure what. And anyone with a compromised immune system, small children and the elderly of course cannot be so glib about the possibility of contracting a disease.

Sweet corn is out, as are tomatoes, which will lead to some of my favorite simple salads. Sometimes, early in the week when I have some time to prepare, I might boil five or six eggs, some beets, cook up some beans, and maybe some carrots, and dress all of the vegetables with a little olive oil and rice vinegar so that we can have interesting cold salads for the rest of the week. It's so nice to have all of the elements already prepared crisp and cold in the refrigerator. Add a little tuna (just a little) or cooked chicken, or sliced cured meats-- or just the eggs, and it's a pretty satisfying no-fuss cold dinner. One of my favorite early summer salads is arugula, sweet corn shaved off the cob, shaved pecorino or parmesan cheese, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil, or just arugula, prosciutto and the cheese, dressed the same way. Chive blossoms are a pretty accent if you have them.

Still having trouble with email. Still dealing with impossibly slow download times and various other maddening technical difficulties which may prevent me from communicating. But today turned out to be such a nice day that I'm not going to get upset about it. As soon as the cake is in the oven, I'll come back and try to call tech support. I hope I get a Canadian.

This Week in the Garden

Soup Tuesday

Today, between working and catching up on the blog, I am making leek and potato soup, recipe courtesy of chocolate and zucchini again.

To start with, I had a chicken carcass in the fridge from a hickory-roasted rosemary chicken that Mike made a couple of days ago. There was too much flavor in that thing to let it go to waste. So I caramelized some mirepoix vegetables in my big stock pot (thank you Grandma and Grandpa). In English, that's an onion, two carrots and a stalk of celery, which is what I had on hand. I tossed in the carcass and boiled it up with approximately 12 pint glasses of water (that was the measuring unit I had on hand as well). Forgot entirely to put in the peppercorns, juniper berries and bay that I usually throw in, but there was so much in there already with the rosemary, garlic and hickory from the chicken that I don't think it needed it.

While it was boiling, I cleaned and chopped my leeks, then sweated them in a saucepan with olive oil, butter and salt. When they were done, I put them aside on a plate and about 10 small yukon gold potatoes took their place in the same pot, which was then filled to cover with the warm stock. I boiled the potatoes in the stock until they were soft, dumped the leeks back in the pot, added some more stock and pureed with my new stick blender (thank you Monty). Then I added more stock to get the right consistency, a little salt and fresh black pepper, and voila, dinner is made. Some nice bread and a salad oughta do it. Finally, I have cooked my way out of my veggie box leek back-up.

I see now from checking out the recipe that I could have boiled the leeks and the potatoes together in the stock and saved a couple of steps, but this was the way it worked out. Pretty tasty, very easy.

Oh Yeah.

The silver lining to weeks of drizzle:
The two things I miss most about the old place are the miles and miles of forest paths to walk, and our super-secret patch of giant chanterelle mushrooms. Looks like Mike has discovered a new spot. We feel so smug when we walk into the grocery store and see these selling for $25-35 a pound! Last year was so dry that either chanterelles didn't happen, or we missed the one window of opportunity. I think I remember Mike saying he found one small dried-up one. This year, he found one a few weeks ago that was huge but had seen better days. We thought we'd missed it again. Hooray!

Fall

If you can't tell how dark those apples are, they are so dark that someone saw them in my basket and said, "Wow, are those apples?" They are called Arkansas Blacks. They taste a little like a cross between a Granny Smith and a Red Delicious. I still prefer Fujis. But they were so beautiful I couldn't resist them.

Produce of the Day Extravaganza

A missed gem-- I wish I could remember the name of this beautiful watermelon. And figs, figs figs. End of summer, beginning of fall.

I started taking photographs to document the flowers and the produce of each season, so that I could paint them all in watercolor. Then I found that I loved just taking the pictures. When I paint, it tends to be quick and simplistic. A little bit naive. Although I am an excellent pencil drawer, if I do say so myself, when I start working with color, I want to get right into it. Color enthralls, but it also distracts. Some artists can see in color, and reproduce it. (See Robert Chunn) For me, color is so fun that I want to skip past the accurate rendering of the object.

I am shite at flowers. So many details, so many beautiful colors. My eye struggles to see depth and volume, whereas with fruits and vegetables, I can still sense the orb, or the stalk, almost the weight of the object.

But my idea was to start documenting what was around each month, with the idea of eventually doing a calendar/cookbook. Since I didn't grow up with the seasonal connection to food, (aside from summer peaches, that is) I wanted to make a calendar and cookbook that helped other people like myself. I found a cookbook that does a fantastic job of this: The Garden Fresh Vegetable Cookbook. THIS IS A GREAT COOKBOOK. But, alas, it does not have photos OR art. Not even simple line drawings which, by the way, I could provide for you if you need them. When I was a restaurant manager, I drew all of the coloring pages for children myself. A pizza on a paddle, a regional map of Italy with all of the foods identified, a field of mustard and an explanation of why it is important in the Napa Valley. My pizza is still used at some of the restaurants.

But, as usual after a glass of wine, I have wandered far from the path. Maybe it is the smell of a plum-blackberry upside down cake in its last five minutes of baking that is distracting me. Maybe it is the fact that I have just purchased the espresso painting from Robert Chunn While writing this post. That's right, it's mine now, and you can't have it.

Maybe it is the fact that I spent the day with Maggie and Molly, and we had such a nice time that I've had a halo effect on the rest of my day. I'm going to go post a picture from that so you can see.

Summer Personified

This time of year, beautiful tomatoes are in everything. This was part of our weekend breakfast: eggs over easy on buttered toast with drippy slices of fresh tomato from the garden and a couple of basil leaves. Now that I've made pesto again, we'll spread the toast with the green paste before the egg goes on and then top it with the tomato. I can't give you an exact recipe for pesto, because I've never used one, but here is how I make it:

Basil Pesto
Ingredients
6 garlic cloves
Approximately half a bag or 4 oz of pinenuts
(though you can use almost any kind of nut and it turns out just fine)
Basil- 2 bunches or as much as you have
Parmesan cheese
Olive oil
Salt- just a pinch

Tools
Food processor

Method
1. Peel garlic, place in food processor, spin until all of the garlic is stuck to the sides
2. Add nuts, spin until there are no more big chunks
3. Add basil, filling the bowl. If you have lots, you may need to do this more than once.
4. Pulse several times to get the leaves to start falling into the blade zone at the bottom.
5. While you are doing this, drizzle olive oil into the top of the processor slowly. The basil will start to incorporate into the nut/garlic mixture. Continue until you've blended in all of your basil leaves and you have a wet paste.
6. Add some cheese, blend, then check your savory balance. If the cheese wasn't salty enough, add more cheese, or if it is already thick enough, a little salt.
7. Use your spatula to spoon into small air-tight containers and freeze for long-term use or refrigerate for short term use.

Note: this pesto is not "blanched" meaning the basil is not put into boiling water and then pressed dry before blending. What this means is that it will only be vibrant green when first opened. I don't recommend using it on pasta unless you don't mind it turning brown. Better on tomato sandwiches, salads and cold dishes, or stirred into winter soups. If you want to serve on pasta or gnocchi and keep that vibrant color, you will have to blanch the basil. If you open a container in the fridge, press plastic wrap down on the surface or pour a little extra olive oil over the top to keep the air out.