Pesto is one of my all-time favorite ways to bring a burst of green goodness into our meals. Color is so so important, not just because it activates the senses, but because deeply colored fruits and vegetables carry loads more phytonutrients. This kind of food IS medicine.
I love basil and grew up with an incredible organic garden that still produces it in astronomical volumes every summer (thanks to the love and care my dad pours into it). After the growing and the harvesting, when the fragrant branches come indoors, my mom takes over with the rituals of washing, drying and stemming vast quantities of the plant, the seasonal motions that have now been a part of the scene for decades.
The traditional Italian pesto is obviously mouth-watering. Hard to go wrong with that.
AND ~ I pretty much only make pesto with basil in the middle of the summer. Basil is amazing and also super expensive when you’re not growing forests of it in your yard.
My version is ~ surprise surprise! ~ a basic template which I adjust according to the season and what’s around. And my standard these days is quite a bit different from the traditional basil-pine-nut-parmesan spread.
Getting a bunch of green goodness into our systems on a regular basis is high up there on my list of priorities. This easy green spread is also one of my favorite vehicles for getting edible weeds from our yard into our diet in a super easeful manner.
Lamb’s quarters, dandelion and mustard greens, and wild arugula abound in our yard. The incredible orach is now well-established as well. These plants contain tremendous intelligence from our ecosystem ~ from the microorganisms in our local soil ~ thanks to their rooting systems that access a host of other nutrients than that of the more delicate plants that we often spend our energy cultivating.
This translates to a much more robust, adaptable immune system. That seems more important than ever these days. It is a joy to tune into how our own yard is offering such deep nutrition, from such oft-overlooked sources.
I make a batch of pesto at least once a month, usually more often.
Here’s my approach:
-Green stuff: Some combo of flat-leaf parsley & steamed kale, collards or chard. Also whatever else inspires me. Arugula, dandelion greens. I was delighted to discover sweet pea greens (the tender tops of productive sweet pea vines) from my favorite farm-stand last year. My motto is basically: A new green? Great. Let’s try it in pesto!!!
-Nuts or seeds: my go-to is toasted sunflower seeds for ease and affordability. I also love to do pumpkin seeds, walnuts or almonds. We use pistachios for the rare treat.
-Olive oil, high-quality is so important.
-Garlic: more often than not these days, I roast a whole bulb and use that, or sauté several cloves in olive oil. The flavor is much mellower this way. Sometimes I do a combo of raw and sautéd.
-Salt, pepper
-Occasionally I add some pickled jalepeños &/ or a dash of their juice. The kind I get isn’t particularly spicy, just flavorful.
Lightly steaming greens like collards, kale, chard or even spinach, tends to make them more digestible. It also increases the availability of their nutrients. Adding a healthy fat such as grass-fed butter, ghee, olive or coconut oil once they’re done provides a means for absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins that dark leafy greens are laden with. This is the standard way I prepare kale & similar greens.
To steam, wash the greens and strip from the stem, add to a cast iron pan, no oil needed. The water from washing them is usually enough to steam. If they’re already dry just add a few Tbsp. of filtered water. Cover and cook on medium-low for 5 minutes or so. Add a dab of butter or ghee or high-quality oil after turning off the heat. Set aside in a dish to cool before adding to the food processor.
You can do all steamed greens or a combo of these with parsley. I usually do a mix of both.
For the parsley, all I do is wash, dry it (wrap it up in a clean cloth) and loosely stem it. Honestly, I leave plenty of stem in there. It’s all getting blended anyway! There’s nutrients in the stems too, y’all! Stems that I don’t use, provided they’re clean, go into my bag of scraps for my weekly batch of vegetable broth.
If I’m toasting the seeds, I just put them in a dry cast-iron and toast on medium-low for 5-7 minutes, jiggling the pan occasionally. I watch closely, being careful not to overheat those delicate oils. Another option is to put them in a dry cast-iron in the oven at 350 / 375 for about 5 minutes.
You don’t have to toast the nuts, it just brings out some nice flavor. Sometimes I skip this step!
Either way, I let them cool before adding to the food processor.
Same with the garlic, whether I’ve roasted a whole bulb or lightly sautéd some cloves. I put all these things to cool in the fridge for several minutes as needed. I truly don’t put hot ~ or even warm ~ anything into plastic anything.
I skip the traditional parmesan more often than not these days. It’s tasty but I don’t eat a lot of cheese. I go with what my body wants, has tolerance for, and what qualities I’m trying to invite into my system. I’ve found the nuts & oil do just fine. Sometimes I add some nutritional yeast which folks often use to substitute for cheese in general. But not always.
So.Here’s the general template:
1 bunch of parsley, half a bunch of kale or other greens (or vice versa)
1/3 – 1/2 c. nuts or seeds
1 bulb of garlic, roasted, or 4-6 cloves, lightly sautéd
Olive oil.
Once all ingredients are cooled as needed, they go in the food processor and I run it while adding olive oil to the desired consistency. I add fresh ground pepper and some salt. The invitation to test the latest batch is enthusiastically accepted with a lot of subsequent hovering in the area.
Adjust as needed from there.
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How to enjoy the pesto? Let me count the ways…
Pasta is definitely a standard pairing, of course. It makes me feel 100% better to bring balance to the less-than-impressive nutrient profile of pasta with a fresh green sauce like this that everyone loves.
We like to use it as a base in addition to or instead of red sauce when we make homemade pizza.
Minestrone soup in the fall and winter is nowhere close to satisfying without pesto on top. Ok, that may an exaggeration. No. Actually I don’t think so. It’s a hard sell to skip the pesto, once you’ve experienced this degree of perfection.
Pesto + soup is a revelation in general.
Another favorite is having it with polenta. Oh my. 
Variations.
My latest creation is:
the standard mix of greens, olive oil and garlic
plus a roasted red pepper or two and pistachios.
This is next-level delicious.
My son has boldly asserted now that I make the best pesto in Albuquerque. Scratch that, he said: best pesto in the fourth dimension.
I mean, what more could one hope to accomplish at this point? Not much, I think. Not much.
Also.
When arugula ~ cultivated or wild ~ abounds, which is quite often in our yard, I make a version with this spicy green and mellow out the flavor with sun-dried tomatoes. This creates an incredible balance and makes for a fantastically nutritious alternative.
Recently a friend showed up with a huge surplus of cilantro. I made a batch of cilantro pesto with a little nutritional yeast, some pumpkin seeds and a bit of lime juice to bring things together.
Ok, you get the idea, I think.
Now go forth and blend up your own batch of delicious green goodness. I hope you are inspired to try something new. Thanks as always for tuning in 🙂
