Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Recipes: Homemade Pesto


I've probably posted this before, but its always a favorite... Super quick, and great served cold on sandwiches and cold pasta salads.

I change up my pesto depending on what we have, and flavors I want to add (sun dried tomatoes are great if you have them).

I used pre-packaged gnocchi and this dinner took me less than 20 minutes to make using tons of fresh ingredients.




PESTO:

-Large bunch of Basil (I used 3 small bunches in this batch, the more the merrier)
-1 cup of pine nuts (I store mine in our freezer)
-generous amounts of Olive Oil (about a cup, you can do more or less depending on the consistency you want)
-Salt/Pepper to taste
-Vegan Parmesan Powder to taste
-Bragg's Liquid Aminos to taste
-1 cup of Nutritional yeast
-LOTS of garlic (or to taste)
-4 Fresh green jalapenos (if you like spicy)

Blend and you're done. You can add walnuts, onion (don't over do it- remember its going to be raw), parsley, sun dried tomatoes, various vegan cheeses, and or roasted garlic/pine nuts (instead of raw).

To make my pesto batches last longer, I mix a half of jar of tomato sauce in for my pasta dishes. In this case I did it for gnocchi. While I waited for my (salted/oiled) water to boil, I sauteed some onion and garlic for added flavor to my sauce. Garnished with fresh tomatoes.