To balance your comment: I just use whatever basil I happen to have bought from the shop, whatever nuts or seeds I have lying aroung (almond, pumpkin seeds...), I always have extra-virgin olive oil and parmesan. It takes me maybe 5min start-to-finish to make enough pesto for a couple people, or I can buy more basil to make a bigger batch to freeze.
It's not super-cheap (I use good olive oil), but I'd definitely call that "for the faint of heart": pesto is one of the easiest sauces you can make for pasta and is very forgiving (you can vary ingredients, texture, it's ). You don't need to make pesto by the kilogram :)
