My son started his 3rd year of college last weekend. And this year he opted for no meal plan so he didn’t have to tack on extra to his growing college debt. He has a very good head on his shoulders. And he is quite capable. Heck, he is working on THREE degrees at the same time.
But anyway…
For those that know me, you know that I attended culinary school and have a great appreciation for cooking. (On my own terms that is….) I’ve been wanting to have a YouTube educational food channel for some time. I just was afraid to put myself out there.
(Story continued below…)
AND, because I don’t wanna be THAT BLOGGER that puts in a million pictures and stories before sharing the actual recipe, I’ll get to the meat of the post that you probably came for: THE FRESH PESTO RECIPE! And if you’d like to read my story, well you can find that after the recipe.
Fresh Basil Pesto
Equipment
- Food Processor
Ingredients
- 4 c basil leaves
- 1/2 c pine nuts
- 1/4 c olive oil more may be needed
- 1/4 c parmesan
- 1-2 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- to taste salt
- to taste pepper
Instructions
- Toast pine nuts over a medium-low heat for a few minutes until pine nuts are a pretty golden brown.
- Process all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.
- Taste and adjust seasoning with salt as needed.
- Add extra oil if you want a thinner pesto.
Notes
So back to my story…
As I was saying, my son headed back off to college for the start of his 3rd year this past weekend. He has absolutely ZERO meal plan. That means he has to find a way to fund feeding himself while he is away from his mama’s cooking.
While we were discussing his needs and how he can create delicious foods in bulk on a budget, the mention of videos came up. Sure, I can send him recipes and such. But he wants videos of me cooking so he can follow my steps as I take them. He wants to SEE those steps!
He understands that there is more to cooking than just following a recipe. So having a video will help him understand the nuances that recipes just don’t typically talk about.
Then the concept of “MOM!! What do I do!?” started to develop.
I had long wanted to do cooking videos on YouTube for a long time. As early as 2020 I knew I wanted to do cooking videos. Heck, I have pictures floating around in some of my social media memories of multiple monitors and a special computer set up on the kitchen island.
Even reaching back to 2012, I knew I wanted to share recipes and such online. It hadn’t quite pushed into thoughts of educational videos yet, but it ideas were definitely being tossed around.
After I gave up direct sales in 2023, I decided I was going to make those educational videos! We even invested in a very nice new desktop with amazing processing power for my future video editing needs. But it was feeling forced. Something just wasn’t sitting right with me. I wasn’t feeling comfortable about putting myself out there.
So enter August 2024, my son wants educational videos.
And now I’m FINALLY making those educational videos on YouTube happen! MOM!! What do I do!? has been born! Well, it’s been only one video so far. I’m working on editing another video after I publish this. And I already have at least 3 more audio requests from my son on things he wants me to make videos for.
And that first request he sent in? Fresh Pesto.
