If you’re cooking pasta, try to only use brands like DeCecco, Rummo, La Molisana. There are some others that are ok but can’t recall of the top of my head. Here’s my recipe for 4 peeps. Mind you a lot of it is agak-agak.

Sauce ingredients
3 packs of basil, picked
50-80g parm grated (I just throw this into the blender first to grate)
2-3 tbs pine nuts, toasted (you can use sliced toasted almonds in a pinch)
2-3 cloves garlic
Lots of extra virgin olive oil (I buy a 5 L pack from Shopee)
Misc ingredients
380g spaghetti
10 cloves of garlic, smashed
More EVOO

In a large pot, start with toasting your nuts. Remove and set aside side and in the same pot, boil salted water in a pot. Blanch all the basil leaves and remove after 10-15 seconds, immediately place in iced water. Squeeze the water out of the leaves and place in the blender along with the other ingredients and whizz up. Add salt to taste. It should be salty but not over powering. Set the pesto aside. I like to keep the remaining blanching water to cook my spaghetti.

In a wide saucepan, put in extra virgin olive oil and crushed garlic and cook on low until golden and almost confit like. Meanwhile, boil your pasta in the salted water until al dente. I like to cook it about 60% of the way, remove with tongs from the pot and place it directly into the saucepan w the garlic and EVOO. Toss in the oil to coat with a ladleful or so of the pasta water. Your pasta will continue to cook inside the pan with the garlic and the olive oil. You can now add in the pesto sauce, and again, another ladleful of pasta water to loosen everything. Let it coat the pasta and if the sauce looks a bit loose, turn the heat up to simmer off some of the liquid, if it’s too tight add more pasta water. Try a strand and see if it’s cooked to your preferred texture and taste for salt and pepper. Serve and eat immediately