Walk by Maple Hill East, West, or South and you’ll be treated to the intoxicating, earthy/sweet aroma of perfectly ripe Thai and sweet basil. With an abundance of basil leaves and a Thursday afternoon, Emmy Crossfield and kids participating in the Outward Bound program decided to make good use of the fruitful herb harvest and make homemade pesto. I was lucky enough to get a taste.
The first step in making pesto was sorting the small leaves out from the large (and much tastier) large leaves.
After discarding the small leaves, we washed the large leaves.
And we dried them too.
We then julienned the basil leaves (cut into thin long strips) and then we cut the leaves again in the opposite direction.
We measured out three cups of fresh basil leaves.
We then put the leaves in a basic food processor.
We added in one cup of olive oil.
We also added two teaspoons of minced garlic.
We then blended the mixture for around 1 minute.
And tada homemade pesto sauce for everyone!