Sauces/Dips

When we moved to a new house this year, one of the main things that I wanted was a raised bed for our vegetable and herb garden. I haven’t had much success in the past, so this year I was optimistic. We put in three basil plants, and they just blew up! The thing with herbs is that if you want them to grow more, you need to pick them. So, I picked most of the leaves off of the plants, and realized that I had more than enough to make some pesto happen.

Pesto is something that I’m fairly new to. I really didn’t know what pesto was until I started reading food blogs. Once I learned, I thought that pesto couldn’t be an everyday meal. It just looked and sounded SO fancy. I was REALLY missing out here, y’all. All you need to do is throw your ingredients in a food processor, and let it go. It’s just really easy, and adds such wonderful flavor to whatever you add it to. Heck, you don’t need to add it to anything…eat it by the spoonful. 🙂

A trick that I learned from a few Twitter friends that pesto doesn’t NEED pine nuts (who knew those things were so dang pricey?!). Walnuts were the perfect substitution to pine nuts, and I totally couldn’t tell the difference!

Pesto
Source: Ina Garten

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup walnuts
• 1.5 tbsp. fresh chopped garlic (about 5 cloves)
• 2 1/2 cups of fresh, packed basil leaves
• 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Place the walnuts and garlic in a food processor and pulse the ingredients for about 15 seconds. Add the basil, salt and pepper to the food processor, and turn on the food processor. While everything is chopping, slowly add the olive oil in through the top of the food processor until everything is well pureed. Add in the parmesan cheese, and pulse for about another minute to make sure it’s well incorporated.
2. Serve immediately or place in a container with a small amount of olive oil on top to prevent the pesto from browning.

When I made my first batch of caramel, I was so surprised at the taste. I was ready to taste a more flavorful Kraft caramel, but instead, homemade caramels tasted completely different. Completely. Homemade caramels are in a league of their own.

The same goes for caramel sauce. The homemade stuff tastes NOTHING like Smucker’s, and this stuff is much easier to make than caramel candy. No thermometer needed (Wahoo!), and it comes together fairly quickly. There’s still some of this precious sauce left in the refrigerator, and it’s taking everything in me not to finish that jar with a spoon. Diet be darned!

Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
Source: Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 6 tbsp. salted butter (in tbsp.-sized slices)
• 1/2 cup + two tbsp. heavy cream, at room temperature

Directions:

1. Add the sugar to a 2-3 qt. sized pot, and melt over medium to medium high heat. As the sugar starts to melt, whisk or stir to ensure that the sugar doesn’t burn and heats evenly.
2. Cook the sugar until it melts to a dark caramel color. Add the butter tbsps. at the same time and stir it in. Then, pour in the heavy cream. You’ll notice that the pot is going to foam up so do these steps carefully to avoid burning yourself.
3. Remove the pot immediately from heat and whisk it until you get a smooth sauce.

Note: You can either use it right away or store it in the fridge up to two weeks. Popping it in the microwave for about a minute will make it it’s original consistency again.

I’ve chosen the two winners of the Butterball turkey gift certificates. Thanks to all of you who entered!

EDITED:

Due to the lack of response from the original winners, I had to re-draw for the Turkey gift cards!

cara….who said:

I try to get as much done as I can the night before and we rent an extra fridge!

AND

Kayla…who said:

My tip is to make your SIL host so you can just show up with your pecan pie and call it a day.  

For the two of you who won, to redeem your prize, please email me within 48 hours at niftyfoodie@gmail.com! Congratulations!