I love making pesto at home, it is so quick and easy to do and much more flavoursome than shop-bought product. Like I’ve said before the best thing about making these ingredients at home is that you can adjust them to your tastes so they are perfect for you and your family.
Ingredients:
- 2 x 30g packs Fresh Basil (You end up using about 55g as you want to cut off the stalks)
- 150ml Good Quality Oil (I use either Extra Virgin Olive Oil or Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil)
- 50g Pinenuts
- 60g Parmesan
- 1/2 Lemon – Zest & Just
- 1 Clove Garlic
Method:
- In a dry pan, toast the pinenuts on a gentle heat until they are golden brown, be patient with this as they can go from golden brown to burnt very quickly, I tend to keep moving them around in the pan, once at the desired colour, remove from pan and allow to cool a little.
- Trim the stalks of the basil a little, I usually cut them just above the rubber band which is holding them together.
- In a small blender add all the ingredients and blend until you get your desired texture.
- Add in more lemon juice to taste and season with salt and pepper.
This will keep in the fridge for about 3-4 days, to keep longer you can either cover the pesto in oil as this also acts as a preservative, this will keep in your fridge for about 7 days or you can pour into an ice cube tray and freeze, once frozen release from the tray and put into a freezer bag until you want to use them.
If you don’t have any pinenuts, cashew nuts work well, if you want to make it vegan you can replace the parmesan with some nutritional yeast to give you the cheese flavour or add a bit of umami to again give the savoury flavour
- Per 100g – High in Vitamin E
- Per 100g – A Source of Vitamin B12
- Per 100g – A Source of Zinc
Lincolnshiregirl 