Lemon Balm Pesto
Plus my favorite pasta salad recipe--the only pasta salad I will actually eat
I’m not a fan of things like potato salad, macaroni salad, or even pasta salad for the most part. Years ago, a friend of mine brought all the ingredients for a pasta salad to my house and I watched as she put it together. Tri-colored pasta, cheese cubes, tomato, black olives, and Italian dressing. I remember telling her, “I didn’t know you could make pasta salad like this.” Granted, I hate black olives and don’t usually eat tomatoes, but those were easy enough to pick around, and what I found was that I quite liked the taste of pasta, cheese and Italian dressing! Since then, I sometimes put my own spin on this simple pasta salad. My favorite combination has cucumbers in it and I add tomatoes in, because it gives it a much better color with that pop of red in there.
But let’s talk about the main recipe and the title of this post.
Why lemon balm?
It was an accident, really. It’s possible I planted a small lemon balm baby outside the second year we lived here. I had an indoor hydroponic system that winter, and needed to make room for other plants. So I took several outside and just stuck them in the ground and forgot about them. None of them survived except a red leaf lettuce my dog kept peeing on. The next year, I was looking at my beds and found a strange plant coming up in the back of a bed that we let the dog make his own. I decided to use one of those plant identifying apps and it was lemon balm. I am not even 100% certain that I put one outside, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. But, I certainly didn’t plant it at the very back of the bed, right up against my house! So if I did put it out there, it reseeded itself further back. I dug it up, moved it to another area where I could keep an eye on it, and two summers ago it seemed to love it’s new home.
It wasn’t until last year that I began to research what you could do with lemon balm. My husband loves pesto. I’ve made it several times with basil, both from the store and from some I grew. It is easy, quick, and adds a great flavor to what could otherwise be bland at times. A friend told me I could make pesto with the lemon balm, so a quick Google search to verify and it was on. And it turned out great! I couldn’t believe it. So I did more research about whether or not lemon balm is perrenial or annual. Basically lemon balm can reseeed, but it does not come back every year. This year, the lemon balm is insane! It’s like this bush now that takes up half of a bed. And in addition to that, it reseeded so well! I keep finding lemon balm babies in the weirdest places in the bed. And I think at this point because it looks beautiful and smells excellent, I’m going to leave it where it is coming up and utilize it as ground cover.
Anyway, here are the recipes cards I made and a picture of the pasta salad with the lemon balm pesto in it. I really hate when I look up a recipe and have to read an entire book just to get to the recipe, and I realize I have done the same thing. I get it now. Sometimes a recipe needs context!
Jamie
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Jamie
We have a lemon balm plant that is really full too this year. My daughter loves pesto so I am passing on the info. Thank you.
🤍Amy