Use Your Food Processor To Make Fresh Homemade Pesto In Minutes!

What is Pesto?

Use Your Food Processor To Make Fresh Homemade Pesto In Minutes!

Use Your Food Processor To Make Fresh Homemade Pesto In Minutes!

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Use Your Food Processor To Make Fresh Homemade Pesto In Minutes!

Use Your Food Processor To Make Fresh Homemade Pesto In Minutes!

Many people think of Pesto as a raw green sauce with very specific ingredients, namely basil, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and pine nuts. While that sauce is indeed a Pesto, there are many other sauces that qualify.

The word Pesto is actually the past participle of the Italian word Pestare, which means to pound or crush. The term can apply to any sauce which has crushed herbs in an oil base. Such sauces are traditionally made by hand with a mortar and pestle. In fact, the words pestle and pesto both come from the same Latin word meaning "to crush." I break from tradition here, since a Food processor gets the Job done just as well in much less time.

The sauce much of the world thinks of as Pesto, is more accurately called Pesto alla Genovese or Pesto of Genoa Italy. Many regions of Italy have a Pesto they call their own, using ingredients commonly found in their particular region.

Below you will find a recipe for a basic Pesto alla Genovese followed by Pumpkin Seed Pesto made with fresh spinach leaves. The latter recipe comes from the region of my kitchen.

You can take the basic recipe and alter it in countless ways. Any type of nut can be substituted for pine nuts. Any type of leafy fresh herb can be used as well as any type of grated hard cheese. Play around with flavor combinations and find your favorite.

Pesto Alla Genovese

Ingredients

1/3 cup of pine nuts

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

2 cups of firmly packed fresh basil leaves (no large stems)

1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano cheese (your Food processor can grate it for you)

Directions

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until lightly browned. This step intensifies the flavor of the nuts, but can be skipped if you want a completely raw sauce.

Put the pine nuts into the work bowl of your favorite food processor fitted with the multipurpose blade. Pulse until finely chopped. Add the garlic cloves and repeat.

Add the fresh basil leaves to the food processor work bowl and pulse until they are chopped. Turn the food processor to "on" and slowly drizzle the extra virgin olive oil through the feed chute while the machine is running.

Add the Parmesan Reggiano cheese and pulse until combined.

That's it! Your Pesto is ready to be enjoyed. You could use it as a Pasta sauce, pizza sauce, vegetable dip, or spread for toasted bread. You could top chicken with it or use it as a dip for cooked shrimp. Pour some over roasted potatoes or baked butternut squash. The possibilities are endless.

Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Ingredients

1/3 cup of raw hulled pumpkin seeds

2 cloves of garlic

2 cups of baby spinach, firmly packed

1/3 cup of pumpkin seed oil

1/2 cup of freshly grated Romano cheese (use your food processor to grate)

Directions

Place the pumpkin seeds into the work bowl of your favorite food processor fitted with a multipurpose blade. Pulse until finely chopped. Add the garlic cloves and repeat.

Add the spinach to the food processor work bowl and pulse until well chopped. Turn the processor to "on" and slowly drizzle the pumpkin seed oil through the feed chute while the machine is running.

Add the Romano cheese and pulse until combined.

Use Your Food Processor To Make Fresh Homemade Pesto In Minutes!

Benefits of Using Food Processor

We might have lot of guests for our Party. Being the host, you are required to be ready when the first guest arrives completing all your tasks. But most of the times we might be still in kitchen doing the final touch or decorations. Our first guest would step in and lend a helping hand to complete the process. We would feel bad in getting a third hand. It is a common problem, but there is a unique solution. Get one Food Processor or Salad slicer immediately.

Benefits of Using Food Processor

Benefits of Using Food Processor

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Benefits of Using Food Processor

Benefits of Using Food Processor

They are real kitchen assistants. They are Fast and efficient. You need not ask your playing kids to assist you. Nor do you need to call your husband to call off his favorite team's game in the TV to help you in the kitchen. Your family would be amazed to see you cool during the time your prepare Food for a big Party all by yourself. These slicers come electrical or battery operated ones. Choose the one that suits you well. Whichever model you choose they are definitely going to save your time and reduce the number of hours you stand in your kitchen. They are easy to clean and good to be used in a dish washer. They come with interchangeable blades to get the thickness of your preference for your Dressings.

You need not slice each carrot, cucumbers separately with utter care to make them all in equal sizes and shapes for the Dressing. There are efficient salad makers, Food processors which has high productivity and durability. It is a simple investMent but fruitful for life time. Moreover you can be on time to welcome your first guest near the door. Sure you would continue to host lot of parties and keep on inviting guests with the help of these little extended hand appliances.

Benefits of Using Food Processor

Prevent Food Poisoning - Follow Safe Practices

Seventy-six million Americans will suffer a Food poisoning episode this year. Three hundred thousand victims will require hospitalization, and Food poisoning will kill about five thousand. A large percenTAGe of these poisonings could be prevented by following the very basic practices of food hygiene for keeping food clean, and keeping food handlers clean.

The majority of food poisoning episodes are caused by viruses or bacteria. These are commonly spread by particles of animal or human excreMent, by bodily fluids such as blood and urine, and by dirt that sticks to animal carcasses and to fruits and vegetables. When animal manure is used as fertilizer for fruits and vegetables, the risk of contamination is increased. Harvesting crops and transporting animals and crops offer other opportunities for exposure.

Both meat and poultry processors and plants that handle fruits and vegetables have industry-wide standards for cleanliness and safety. Plants that follow these standards greatly reduce the risk of food poisoning. When food safety inspectors follow up on contamination and food poisoning reports, they usually find serious lapses in hygiene. In January 2009, Salmonella contamination of peanut butter and other peanut-based products required a nationwide recall. Health inspectors who tracked the contaminated products back to the processing plants found appalling failures in basic sanitation, including a leaking roof, molds, fungus, bird feathers, dead cockroaches rodent droppings and dead rodents.

Both the Food and Drug Administration and the US DepartMent of Agriculture urge farms and food processors to maintain their own industry-approved standards for cleanliness and safety.

Food handlers in institutional kitchens, restaurants, and retail grocery stores have an equally strong mandate to maintain good food hygiene. In these settings, anyone who handles, prepares, or serves food should always practice sound food safety procedures. The keystone of those procedures is also the simplest: wash your hands. Anyone involved in any part of food preparation and food service should wash both hands thoroughly and scrub under fingernails before touching food. Hand-washing is even more important after using the bathroom. If a food handler has an eye infection or an upper respiratory infection, or cuts on Wrists or hands, that person should not handle food at all until the illness or infection is over, or the cuts healed.

When a worker moves to a different kind of food, especially from raw food to cooked, or poultry to fruits or salad greens or other raw vegetables, they should wash their hands thoroughly before touching the new food.

Utensils, knives, pots and pans, work surfaces and anything else that comes into contact with food should also be cleaned as thoroughly as you'd wash your hands.

Cold food stored longer than two hours, cold foods should be refrigerated at temperatures lower than 40°. Keep hot food at 140° higher. Store cooked food in wide, shallow containers that will allow heat to dissipate, and refrigerate promptly.

Kitchens that follow these commonsense practices will greatly reduce the risk of food poisoning. A restaurant, store, or institutional food server who fails to follow these practices may be found guilty of negligence. If you or a loved one has suffered a serious food-poisoning episode, and you believe negligence was involved, you should consult an experienced food safety attorney to determine whether you have an actionable claim.

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