When I was little, my Grandma had a little strip of garden bed across the back of her house and along the fence. She always had a lot of fresh parsley and tomatoes. When we were in the yard, she would pick a handful of parsley and cup it in her hand, stick her nose in it and inhale deeply. Then she would hold it out for me and I would take a deep breath of that fresh aroma. She cooked with a lot of parsley and you could smell it in the kitchen.
Every time I pick parsley, I take a deep breath of it and it’s so peaceful and one of life simple pleasures. So we want fresh parsley for cooking year round. Earlier I explained how to freeze it for recipes that call for chopped parsley, but another thing I do is make a pesto. It’s similar to basil pesto but will lend a different flavor to soups, meat dishes, or anything where you want to cook in a more complex parsley flavor in a paste.
You can get ice cube trays in different shapes, and somewhere along the way I picked up a star-shaped ice tray. I use it to freeze my pesto stars and then they make a nice little gift for a neighbor or friend that visits. You can certainly use any ice cube tray and have parsley pesto handy over the winter. Just pop them out of the tray after they freeze and put them in a zip plastic bag and label it.
Parsley Pesto Stars
2 C fresh parsley
½ C walnuts (or whatever nuts you want, if you want to use nuts)
2 cloves garlic
2 T parmesan (optional)
½ t lemon juice
¼ t salt
1/2 C extra virgin olive oil
Put everything except the oil into a food processor. Turn it on and drizzle the oil in while it’s mixing. Freeze in ice trays. Pop out frozen pieces and zip in a bag to keep frozen.
