Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The Making of Pesto

Free fresh basil.  Loads of free fresh basil.  What's a girl to do?  Well, first off, I had to make the high fat, high calorie, slap some cellulite on your butt, Lemon Basil Pasta.  I love that stuff.  In fact I earned a few more dimples from it.  So worth it.

Even after making the pasta dish, I still had a gallon ziplock bag full of basil.  It left me with one choice.  Make my first ever batch of pesto.  A little research on Pinterest, okay a LOT of research on Pinterest, led me to this recipe (except I used walnuts).  Funny how I searched on Pinterest and fell into the arms of my beloved...PW.
TPW_7471
{via: Pioneer Woman}

I digress.

The point of this whole story is the process of making pesto.  It actually has nothing to do with the pesto, but what I had to do to get it.

Since I was making it from scratch I didn't want to just throw in bagged Parmesan cheese.  I purchased Parmesan cheese sold in the specialty cheese section and grated it myself.  It really wasn't that bad, especially with the hubbie's help, and I was able to have enough to fill a Mason Jar for later.

I have to say, I will NEVER go back to pre-grated Parmesan cheese ever.  The flavor doesn't even hold a candle to the hard block (or triangle).  The flavor and the smell.

After cleaning up all the appliances from the pesto and cheese grating, I cleaned the counters and washed my hands.  Even with all the cleaning, I still smelled something funky.  Really, really funky.  I couldn't figure it out.  It wasn't just in the kitchen.  It was everywhere I went.  Bathroom, bedroom, garage, car, EVERYWHERE.

Then I had to sneeze. I lifted my hand up to my nose and then it hit me.  Hit me like a fart in an elevator.  I about passed out.  The funk was on my hand.  It smelled like butt!  Despite all my hand washing, I could not get the smell out of my fingers.  Thankfully, friends on facebook came to the rescue and the same trick that worked for getting the garlic smell off my fingers worked for the booty smell.  A little bit of Dawn and stainless steel rid my fingers of the cheese.

So even though I will never buy package Parmesan cheese again, I refuse to live with a hand that smells like butt.  My resolution?  Buy stock in Dawn dish soap.


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