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A taste of pesto for sunny-day flavor By Jan Roberts-Dominguez Aug 25, 2010 12:00 AM A A Once summer hits its stride, I'm keenly aware that the fruits and vegetables we wait all year to enjoy are short-term treasures. So it's always a race against the clock to satisfy my flavor hankerings before I'm back in the produce aisle, gazing dejectedly at imported tomatoes, road-weary corn and stratospheric-priced basil. Which is where pesto — my favorite summer extender — comes in. As long as I have supplies of it lurking in my freezer, I'm able to give my winter meals a dose of sunny-day flavor. Indeed, those early Italians from the great seaport of Genoa were a canny lot. When they first merged fresh and vibrantly flavored leaves of basil with a bit of olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and Parmesan and Pecorino Romano cheeses, they were capturing the essence of their favorite culinary herb for long-term enjoyment. Traditionally, pesto's favorite applications are three: as a floating green island on the surface of a hearty minestrone, on pasta and on potato gnocchi. But in practice, it can appear in a far wider range of dishes. In our household, the recommended ways with pesto are many: Add a tablespoon or two of pesto to purchased or homemade tomato sauce. Smear on homemade pizzas. Swirl some pesto on bread with a bit of mayonnaise and make a sandwich using cold, roasted chicken, turkey or ham, adding lettuce and tomato if you like. Spread pesto under the skin of chicken before roasting or combine it with chicken broth or a mild vinaigrette and serve over steamed vegetables. Alternate sliced tomatoes and fresh, young mozzarella on a platter then add a drizzling of balsamic vinegar and small dollops of pesto. Swirl a bit of pesto into a fruity olive oil and serve as a dipping sauce for bread chunks Spread on halved Walla Walla Sweet onions and broil. Toss with freshly cooked pasta (duh!). Combine with chunks of grilled chicken breast, diced tomatoes and chopped green onion for a quick salad or pocket-bread filling. Combine with shredded cheese, spread on a split and toasted loaf of French bread and broil. Slice tomatoes paper-thin and place on an earthy, firm-textured slice of bread that you've slathered with a mayonnaise-pesto blend; add some thin slices of sweet onion and top with another slice of bread that you've coated with some more of the mayonnaise mixture. In case you haven't fine-tuned your own pesto recipe over the years, I'm providing mine. But don't stop there. Pesto is definitely one of those forgiving dishes that stand up to a cook's creativity. Goose the garlic. Scale back the pecorino. Make this sauce your own. Just make plenty of it, so simple tastes of August can be frozen in time. Jan Roberts-Dominguez is a Corvallis food writer, cookbook author and artist.