No real fancy photos this time, but I truly believe this is one of my better recipes. A simple and fast red pesto -very basic really- but with such an intense flavor.

Having this in your fridge literally opens up a world of possibilities. Add it to steaming hot pasta, toss around and you instantly have a simple side-dish. It turns sauces and soups into something special. Spread on top of bruschetta, top with a spoonful juicy, fresh, diced roma tomatoes and some torn up basil leaves and you have a great party snack or appetizer.

Ever bake bread yourself or make your own pizza dough? Add one or two tbsp of this pesto, a little Parmesan and maybe some diced shallots to your dough and see what happens. You can even add it to mayonnaise for a great dip! The possibilities are literally endless.

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I wanted to make a Farfalle al pesto rosso tomorrow, so I making my pesto a day ahead since I know the flavors will be even more amazing then.

Ingredients:

1 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup black olives
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
2 cloves garlic
Few chili flakes
Salt & pepper

Optional: pine nuts
Optional: Parmesan

Directions:

Now let me start by saying that the best pesto genovese (green) you’ll ever taste is made by chopping everything by hand. Yes, by hand. Kitchen gadgets simply do not play a role in that. It’s fantastic. A sharp mezzaluna or a decent mortar, great ingredients and you will learn what a real pesto is all about. You just can’t buy that in a jar. Unfortunately only very few people still make it by hand these days. And well, seriously, since it’s pretty darn hard to make a pesto rosso by hand, and the fact tomorrow I’m gonna mess up the pesto anyway, I’ll join the culinary barbarians :)

You can experiment with your spices, but for me, this blend just seems to work best. I’ve also used 4 corn pepper mix. What’s really important is to use a good quality extra-virgin olive oil. You can also add pine nuts and/or cheese, but I seldom do. I often use my pesto rosso for cheese based sauces and don’t want a cheese overkill.

Break out the food processor, blender, magic bullet (yes, they’re still out there, I know they are) or whatever gadget you use to blend/chop/puree things with. I’m going for the spice mill that came with my food processor. Simply put everything in your food processor or blender.

Pulsate until you have a paste, but be careful not to turn it into a puree. You still want to have some texture in there. That’s really all there is to it. So simple, so good. I really should have been born in Italy, I think. Not only for the gorgeous men :)

I just look at this plate and when I think of all the things I can do with this, I have to refrain from running, not walking but running, straight into my kitchen for a cooking marathon, and then eat it all.

If you won’t be using all of it immediately, you can store the pesto in the fridge for quite some time. If you used cheese in your pesto, you’ll be able to store it in the fridge for about 3 days. Without cheese you can store it for roughly 2 weeks. I always grab a really clean bowl, flatten the pesto and coat it with a thin layer of oil to keep the air out and wrap with foil. You can also freeze pesto, but in my household it’s usually long gone before those 2 weeks are up.