Day 51: Vegan Pesto

      I have always loved pesto, but up until now I would just buy it at the store and plop it into my pasta. Now that I have become vegan I realized that I can't do that anymore since most of the premade pesto sauces have parmesan cheese in it. So today I have decided to try and make my own pesto sauce from scratch.

    I took the basic recipe from the book "Living Among Meat Eaters" by Carol J. Adams, that I discussed on day 44, and tweaked it a bit. The pesto recipe was simple and easy to make, the only down size is the pine nuts tend to be a little bit expensive some times.


Pesto
2 cups lightly packed fresh basil
3 medium-large garlic cloves
1 cup of toasted pine nuts
2/3 cup olive oil
pinch of salt

    Step 1: Put all ingredients, except salt, in the food processor. process until creamy, but not completely smooth. Salt to taste.

    Step 2: Just before serving with pasta add little hot pasta water to awaken the flavors. Also since pesto sauce is only good for a few days, if you have more sauce than you need at the moment you can freeze it in an ice cube tray for further use.

(makes about 1 1/2 cups)