Right now, the dill is taking over my herb garden in its lovely, flavorful and feathery bloom.  My attempts to use it don’t usually make a dent in the amount growing, even as I leave plenty to seed next year’s crop, or to share with the next interested gardener.  Mostly, I have been cutting it into salads.  I could also add it to butter, or make pickles, or hang some upside down to dry.  The dill is everywhere, self seeding from beautiful, zebra-colored seeds given to me a few years ago by a patient who also grows startlingly lovely lavender roses. 

The other day I was listening to the radio and heard someone say “dill pesto.”  I perked up and jotted down the ingredients: dill, cheddar cheese, scallions and walnuts.  Wow.  Now we’re talking!  Pesto is one of those things that I formerly associated only with basil, which I adore in the most celebratory sense of the word.  But my horizons were about to be widened.  I checked out “dill pesto” on line, and found a recipe that included parmigiana, pine nuts, and garlic, in other words, dill-substituted basil pesto.  That was not what I wanted.  If I were to make that recipe, I would forever compare it with the basil version.  The idea of a completely different set of ingredients appealed more. 

I pulled out the mini-food processor (an attachment to the immersion blender, thank you, Mom and Dad) and collected my ingredients.  I packed in ¾ cup dill, chunks of a piece of soft (room temperature) cheddar about 1 x 2 x 3 inches, ½ cup pumpkin seeds (nut-free house), and 2 very small onions (1-inch diameter) that came from East Side Veggies, my local CSA.  The result looked nice, but a bit dry, so I added 1 tablespoon of olive oil and set the processor awhirl again.  Then I scooped the pesto into a little dish, added a small spoon, and let it sit for a while to allow the flavors to blend.  An hour later, the contrast between the warm pink salmon and the kelly green pesto became a feast for our eyes, and the gentle, insistent flavor of the pesto turned our beautiful salmon, baked under a heaping pile of sliced raw onions, into a very special celebration.  The leftover pesto awaits scrambled eggs this morning.  Gotta go.

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