Homemade Pesto and Salsa

Apr 30, 2010 by Lindsay

Remember when I showed you my new landscaping and herb planters? Well I am glad to say that my herbs are still alive and I have been able to make use of some of them already!

Here are the recipes I used.

I used a bunch of my basil to make pesto using THIS recipe. One thing that I learned is that you do in fact need a food processor. I don’t have one and tried to use my blender instead and it did not work well. The basil leaves and pine nuts did not get chopped well.

So what did I do with my pesto you ask? Well I had some chicken, tomato and italian cheese on hand and after picking up some really tasty thin sliced italian bread from Publix I came up with this.

I cooked and cut the chicken into chunks, placed some on each sandwich, added tomato and cheese and baked it at 250 until it was crispy. I used the glass bowls to help smoosh the sandwich together like a panini. While the sandwiches were baking I almost polished off snacked on the extra pesto and bread We had this for dinner with a caesar salad and I loved it! This will definitely be served again soon!

The next recipe is another new favorite.

Last Friday I made a trip to our local flea market for some fresh fruits and vegetables and got the ingredients to make some salsa!

You will need a bunch of big tomatoes, red onion, jalapeno pepper, salt, pepper, lime juice and a really cute little helper with a handful of cilantro!

Just dice up all your ‘maters, half an onion, one jalapeno, and add as much pepper, salt, lime juice and cilantro until it tastes like you want it to! WARNING – DO NOT EVER EVER EVER cut a jalapeno with bare hands!!!! I learned this the hard way. Wear rubber gloves, or plastic bags on your hands or something…anything! My hands burned for hours and after trying everything to relieve the burning (washing hands in milk, lemon juice, rubbing alcohol, etc.) I just had to let it wear off. But just trust me it was bad, like make you want to rip your skin off bad….I think you get the picture.

ENJOY!