Pesto for me is seasonal – a summer treat using basil from my garden. It can be frozen to have year-round (although I’ll admit that, when I’ve done this, I’ve usually forgotten that I have frozen pesto and it got too old to use).

I’ve been making pesto since my kids were little, although they initially needed a bit of incitement to eat food that was green. I was teaching an evening class in the city once a week and Lou let the kids stay up until I got home. They would watch me eat, not infrequently begging food from my plate. One night my meal included pesto – the kids gobbled it up and I announced that they were no longer to tell me that they would not eat green food.

Another pesto memory – Our son Moish played in a traveling soccer league during several summers. One night each weekend, everyone would eat together – kids at one table and parents at other tables. While his teammates were ordering pizza or hamburgers, Moish would come over to ask if we could share a Caesar salad and spaghetti with pesto.

These are my two favorite pesto recipes.

Classic Pesto
The recipe yields enough sauce to heavily coat 8 ounces of pasta. I use cooking water from the pasta to reduce the amount of oil. And I use lots of pine nuts.

INGREDIENTS
1 bunch of fresh basil (2 ounces of leaves)
1 large clove of garlic, cut into chunks
¼ cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS
1. Cook the pasta. Drain, reserving ¼ cup of the pasta cooking water.
2. While the pasta is cooking: Combine basil, garlic & pine nuts in a food processor. Pulse until coarsely chopped.
3. Add oil in a stream and process until fully blended. Add some of the reserved cooking water until desired consistency is reached. Immediately mix in the cheese.
4. Spoon pesto over the pasta and toss to coat.
SERVE with additional Parmesan cheese.

ALTERNATIVES:
– Substitute walnuts for the pine nuts.
– Substitute flat-leaf parsley or leafy greens (arugula, kale, spinach) for all or some of the basil.

Tomato-Basil Pesto

This is a lower-fat version of pesto, using tomato instead of olive oil. You can can use whole or diced tomatoes, but don’t use pureed tomatoes or tomato sauce. The recipe makes enough pesto to heavily coat 1 pound of pasta.

INGREDIENTS
1 large can tomatoes, drained (28 ounces)
2 bunches of basil (2 cups)
Pine nuts (¼ cup)
Grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS
1. Cook the pasta. Drain.
2. While the pasta is cooking: Combine the tomatoes, basil & pine nuts in a food processor. Pulse until blended. Mix into the cooked pasta.
3. Spoon pesto over the pasta and toss to coat.
SERVE with the grated Parmesan cheese.

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Sarita Eisenberg

Sarita is a co-VP for Programming and a co-chair for Shomrei's Social Action Committee. She is also co-editor of ShomreiWeek (Shomrei's weekly newsletter) and the Kol Emunah Blog. She holds a Ph.D. in Language Science and until recently was a professor in the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Montclair State University. She lives in Montclair with her husband Lou Hammerman.

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