The Ex Expat

24 August

The other day we were planning on having a quick chicken and pesto dinner, only to discover that we’d forgotten to buy pesto and the emergency jar had gone off. Home made tastes much better anyway - the basil on our balcony was growing madly, and luckily we almost always have a block of Parmesan in the fridge, but we didn’t have any pine nuts in the house. So I just experimented with adjusting the ingredients a little to make nut free pesto. You could hardly tell the difference, and considering I always need to roast the pine nuts as the husband is allergic to raw nuts, this is a lot less hassle. Would also work great for anyone who can’t eat nuts at all.

Ingredients (makes half a small bowl full)

• 1 clove crushed garlic
• 2 large handfuls fresh basil
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• a squeeze of lemon juice to taste
• salt and pepper

Directions

• Mix together the garlic, basil, Parmesan and olive oil and use a food processor or hand blender to puree. I like to crush my garlic before hand to avoid any large bits in my pesto.
• Add lemon juice to taste and season with salt and pepper.
• That’s it, were you expecting more instructions?