Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Spinach Pesto


I forever trying to sneak good stuff into our food when the boys aren't looking.

I  L.O.V.E.  pesto.  I love it because it's a raw food.  Nothing cooked in there!

Now I'm not a raw foodist per se, but I do love to eat a lot of raw food when I can.



Pesto can be a combination of a lot of things.  I recently made an arugula pesto.

I had a plethora of organic baby spinach just yammering to become pesto.  If you have a food processor or blender, pesto making takes under 5 minutes.

All you need is spinach, some fresh basil, olive oil, salt, some kind of nut (I use almonds, but you can omit nuts), some grated cheese (if you like, I use pecorino romano.)



Place a bunch of handfuls of spinach in the food processor.



Add a big handful of fresh basil.  How much you use is up to you. The more basil the more basil flavor you get.



Add a handful of almonds, some cheese, and salt. Just a little.





Give it whirl and drizzle the olive oil while whirling.

So technical. I know.

I don't like measurements, can you tell.  Cooking is an art.  Cook by feel.  Add as much as you want to. The only caution is how much salt you use.  It's better to under salt stuff and taste test it.  You may not need any.



Add enough oil till the pesto is a little runny.



Pesto is fantastic on so many levels, on so many applications.





Can't you almost smell it?



It's so pretty and fresh and raw.

And tasty.

I was at the supermarket the day I made this pesto and happened to see some Wild Pollock on sale.  It was just calling for a layer of pesto on it while baking.




It was delicious.  It was healthy.  It was gone.

Enough said.

Spinach Pesto
Baby Spinach
Basil Leaves
almonds
Pecorino Romano
Salt
Olive oil

Combine ingredients in a food processor and drizzle oil in till you achieve your desired consistency.

This is company worthy.
Go ahead, wow them.
The Lunch Lady

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm getting basil tomorrow.. my spinach is yammering at me from the fridge... it needs some friends. :) Thanks. I've never made pesto before.

kate said...

yum! i need a food processor.

The Lunch Lady said...

@Kate...blender?