Pesto

[Rachan]

Pesto made easy!


Igredients
Coriander or Parsley or Basil leaves (lots ~ 700g)
Olive Oil ~ 200-250ml
Lime or Lemon juice ~100-150ml
Garlic ~ 2-3 cloves
and Celtic Salt ~ 1/4 teaspoon

Blend all in food processor or blender.  I like to add about 1 cup olive oil with garlic and salt and gradually add leaves and then the lime or lemon juice towards the end.  With coriander you can use the roots as well.  And I prefer using lime to lemon overall. I don't use nuts because I like it tasting light.

Experiment with other leaves
I'll probably try it at some stage with nasturtium, mustard, dandelion, cat's-ear, milkweed leaves as they are edible weeds that grow freely here.  Might even try it with grass leaves!  Other tamer possibilities are mint/peppermint, kale, the dark-green outside cabbage leaves, spring onion leaves - any dark green leaf is what I'd be looking for.

[Helen]

Hhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm! YUM! I remember this pesto.   Thanks for sharing the receipe!

[Helen]

I made a pesto today that was yummo  thought you might like this one too....

1 large red capsicum
small clove of garlic
juice one lime
hand full of almonds
1/4 tspn salt
small splash olive oil

wizzed it all up, and served it dolloped on a green salad.

though in all honesty i am finding nuts a bit heavy at the moment - so am looking for a lighter alternative to chunky things up - any suggestions???

[Rachan]

 I was thinking of something similar the other day Helen, but with red chillies instead of capsicum.  Maybe I could tone it down with capsicum.  I was wondering though, do you soak the almonds first?  I couldn't decide whether to soak it or not so might try both ways to see what the difference would be....?

 As a substitute for nuts I haven't tried it either but sprouted mung bean, perhaps only a day or two old, might maintain both nuttiness and chunkiness in the pesto...

 Someone suggested that the pesto I make is closer to a salsa verde (green sauce) than a pesto especially because I don't add nuts.  Personally I don't really agree but then I'm not sure that I've ever had salsa verde - sounds interesting, I'll have to look into that idea for a recipe adaptation.

[Helen]

Hey yeah - chillies sounds YUM!!!
For the capsicum receipe I actually had soaked nuts in it - but I've done it with both.  The soaked nuts make it a little softer and to me it has more of the texture as if there was coconut in there (does that make sense) - but i could be just weird because for some reason soaked and ground up almonds to me tastes, smells and has the texture of mature coconut flesh.

And as for the salsa verde thing - I don't care what its called - the green pesto ROCKED!!!
I personally really liked it being without nuts - i'm sort of envisioning as I type a capsicum, chilli, coriander concoction - next time i come across some organic coriander hmmmmm.... maybe with some fresh ginger in there as well - but i could be going completely off the page now 

[Rachan]

That sounds good.  I'm going to be experimenting with some pestos this week. I want to have a stockpile of them in the fridge. I tried the capsicum with soaked almonds the other day and I see what you mean about coconut texture, very chewy!  I love ginger but I find the flavour of it gets a bit lost as a pesto ingredient so I tend to separately add it finely chopped to salads.  Perhaps I'll try mixing it in to the pesto once the pesto is blended up though.  I made nasturtium pesto yesterday using baby nasturtium leaves, it's turned out better than I imagined, and slightly creamy too.  Will post some pics next week.