I am proud of my European-South African farming heritage with its ideals of rural life: self-reliance, hard work and community and in this way of life I was taught PANTRY COOKING, which means to:
- use,
- conserve,
- preserve,
- save
all farm produce possible for use at a later date. To this end I have created a brand new PANTRY RECIPE for a Basil Pesto made with Home-made Ricotta Cheese instead of Expensive Pine Nuts. Read on to find out more about it and welcome to my niche of rustic cooking that celebrates farm industriousness and creativity.
This kind of food preparation requires the very Western, Christian values of fore-thought, planning and long-term-thinking that I promote. This ‘conservation thinking’ is all about saving time, money and effort in the long run
Consequently, In this recipe I substituted my home-made Ricotta Cheese that I made with left-over sour milk, (thereby being satisfyingly thrifty by saving the milk from being thrown away and being doubly thrifty by not having to buy expensive pine nuts to make my Basil Pesto).
As long-term thinking is in my DNA, I always think of the the next generation and what I can leave them to help them on. The pantry recipes I learned from my Ouma and Mother are something I have longed to share and pass on. Read about how our pantry cooking traditions are passed along ALL IN THE FAMILY.
I posted recently about how to make Ricotta cheese from left over sour milk so that people do no throw away good milk (even though sour) that can be turned into a meal. South Africa is going though economic austerity, and we can make what we have last longer by using simple pantry techniques.
“Farming is not just land; its the backbone of our way of life.”
This morning, walking through my vegetable garden, I picked some basil and made home made Basil pesto – and in a resourceful mood, I substituted pine nuts from the traditional recipe with my home made ricotta cheese.
Its delicious spread on toast, salad or tossed over fresh pasta.
This is an anecdotal recipe so the recipe and method are sort of in one section. Its supposed to be an easy to make item, no stress, no fuss.
Recipe
The ingredients I used are:
2 cups of loosely packed, fresh basil leaves,
1 cup of crumbled ricotta cheese (made from left over sour milk – recipe here)
1/2 a cup of extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt to taste
Gather those ingredient on your workbench an the follow these instructions:
Break the leaves off the stems of the basil plant and placed them in a mixing bowl with the crumbled Ricotta and salt (I grind sea salt by hand in a pestle and mortar). Pour half of the olive oil over the leaves and cheese (reserve the other half to add if your mixture is too dry), and then use a hand-held stick blender to blend the pesto. Add garlic for taste if you wish, (I eat less garlic these days so I left it out).
Remember to pour a little olive oil over the top of the mixture at the end to prevent it from discolouring.
Keep refrigerated.
