homemade

Don’t have a food processor, well that is alright by me, because I didn’t need one. After finding a recipe online for an Italian Grilled Cheese, which consisted of making your own pesto, I was determined to do just that. Over the week I slowly gathered the ingredients the blog post told me to get.

This is what I got:

3/4 Cup Basil Leaves
1/4 Cup Oregano Leaves
2-3 tablespoons Olive Oil
1/4 Cup Walnuts
1 clove of Garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Finally I decided I am going to make this pesto and it is going to be good, then I hit the speed bump. Recipe calls for putting all this stuff in the food processor and blending it. That was it, only problem being, I didn’t have a food processor and I didn’t want to go by one. Come to think of it though, there are other things i could use one for, but I digress. I wasn’t going to give up though, I Googled around to see if anyone had written about making pesto without a processor, sure enough I found someone who had. It isn’t overly complicated to figure out how to do, but I wanted to confirm.

What I had to do was chop everything, finely. As finely as I possible could and as I did that mix it as much as I could in a bowl. I rotated through ingredients to make sure the pesto was being mixed properly, or it gave me the reinsurance it was. While mixing in the ingredients I was also adding in parts of the olive oil to moisten up the mix. Finally once all the ingredients were in the small bowl I once again beat the living crap out of it to make sure it was mixed and also crushed up enough.

At this point I proceeded to taste test it. It actually turned out pretty good. I did find though that it was rather garlicy, as well as salty. I would cut back on both of those next time.

I wasn’t done yet though. I smeared the pesto on a slice of bread with thick sliced of mozzarella cheese and baby tomatoes and threw it all in a frying pan to grill. By the way, if you also happen to have a Jamie Oliver fry pan like I do, be warned when you heat them up, they retain heat very well. I nearly burnt one side of my sandwich.

Of course then the only other thing to do is enjoy it… or clean up the mess you made.

This morning was a breakfast of combined ingredients found in my fridge. The combination of things that might not normally go together to make in a magnificent breakfast.

The ingredients:

three large eggs, free range if you can
half a cup of milk
handful of spinach
spoonful of cream cheese
a little bit of cheddar cheese
and of course rounds of ham

Using one frying pan I cooked up the ham first. Once it was done I put it in some tin foil to keep warm. I then greased the pan and turn the heat down low. I then mix the three eggs and milk in a bowl and add some salt and pepper. I chopped up the handful of pinch into finer slices. I then mixed everything together, including the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, eggs and spinach into the pan. I let it slowly cook for a while until almost all the liquid was gone.

Photo May 22 10 30 04 AM

Photo May 22 10 30 20 AM

Of course my plans for making a great egg sandwich were squashed when I realized that my loaf of bread had gone bad. And I wasn’t about to pick mold off of pieces of bread. Instead I happen to have a bunch of tortilla shells in my fridge. So egg wrap it is.

Photo May 22 10 40 51 AM

Photo May 22 10 41 01 AM

Although three eggs and ham was a little too much for this one tortilla shell, it did offer more flavor. There is something that a tortilla shell offers that toast just cannot.

Have you ever tried to make an egg wrap?

How to make homemade pesto, my way

Make an Egg with what you got