Hey! This is going to be a quick one! I want to start sharing some more recipes that I find particularly easy, or particularly delightful!

I’ve been tinkering with pesto here and there for a while and I think I’ve finally perfected my recipe! If you prefer the recipe in video format, you can watch me make it here. I have started a YouTube channel if you’re interested 🙂

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of basil leaves (although you should consider 3 cups of basil and 1 cup of spinach!)
• 2 cloves of garlic (peeled, mince if you like but the blender will do it’s job just fine)
• 1/2 cup of almonds or pine nuts or walnuts. I prefer almonds. Roast in a frying pan if you have the time and want extra yum. Medium heat in a frying pan until you can smell them or they start gently browning.
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt (this is totally personal though, some people like more or less salt).
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon (lime is good too but I think lemon is better, just to add a little acid).
• 2/3 cup of lite olive oil (also a personal thing, I like the milder flavor for pesto, extra virgin will work just fine but may add a little bitterness).

Instructions:

Combine basil, garlic, salt, and lemon in a blender or food processor, slowly add the almonds (I put them all in at the same time, it just depends on your machine). Then add the cheese, blend more. Once everything except the oil has been added and blended you’ll want to slowly add the oil while it’s blending. Once you’ve put the oil in, go ahead and give it a taste to see how it turns out.

Basil leaves vary in size and intensity so you may find you want to add more garlic, or salt, or cheese, or whatever to get it to the right flavor balance. My recommendation is to play with the flavor until you get it perfect… Pesto is hard to mess up though so have fun, try adding different ingredients and see what happens!

Once you’re done… this is what you end up with:

This goes great with pasta, on pizza, on bread… truly you could probably eat it with chips, be creative! I keep half of mine in the fridge and eat it for a few days and then I freeze the other half and use it later!

Enjoy!

Dan