Fresh basil pesto + exploring local grocers

A week or so ago we decided to take a little walk around our neighborhood. Not down Hastings or Commercial, the two main streets around us, but around our little residential 'hood. I soon realized that barely any place in a city is purely residential: there are a few little grocers and a hidden cafe and pub or two very close to our family oriented neighborhood. One block (one block!) from our home is a little Italian grocer. Full of pasta, sauces, sweets, cheeses, sausages, olives, and kitchen paraphernalia this little gem was a treat to browse through. We decided to make our own pesto at home and bought Pecorino romano, pine nuts, really good quality extra virgin olive oil, and a bunch of fresh basil. I was hoping for one of those little basil plants, bit I'll have to find that somewhere else.

I chopped everything by hand with my shitty inappropriate knife and it was all delicious! The difference between chopping the pesto by hand versus whizzing it in a food processor is the flavour, i think. Because all the ingredients are chopped to a slightly different size and consistency, there is immense variety in each bite. When it is all put in the food processor and blended together, each ingredient comes out roughly the same size, leaving bites uniform (although still delicious). Or maybe i'm a budding food snob with too much time on her hands. Either way, dinner was delicious.

We had this pesto with ravioli and it was delicious. So good i didn't take a picture. The next day we had leftover pesto with gnocchi (and San Pellegrino) and it was even better, letting it sit for a while made the flavours really deepen.

If your curious, I used:
~fresh basil leaves
~freshly grated pecorino romano
~pine nutes
~lots of garlic
~and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil once you've chopped it all up and made the pesto "cake"


I can't wait until spring/summer when i can have my own little basil plant on my kitchen windowsill. What herbs have you grown fresh? Which ones did you have good results with and which ones died/where plant divas?

(I'll post about my birthday soon! For now, thank you all so much for the love and very generous gifts, it was definitely a special day)