Go Nuts! It’s Almond Pesto
Usually made with basil leaves and pine nuts, pesto is a simple but delicious combination of flavourful leaves, oily nuts, hard cheese, olive oil, garlic, salt and lemon juice; any ingredients meeting this description can produce a really versatile, delicious pesto.
Basil, known as the king of herbs can easily be grown in a pot. Basil grows quickly in hot weather. If planted in a large pot, with afternoon shade and watered when the leaves begin to droop it should grow well.
The oily nuts in pesto would normally be pine nuts but we have some almonds growing in our Spanish garden. Almonds have a thick leathery hull, inside this is a hard woody shell, then finally, the yummy edible seed. The hard woody shell can be a really hard one to crack (see the broken nutcrackers pic ooops). However they are no match for a lump hammer.
To make Almond pesto;
3 cups of fresh basil leaves
½ cup almonds
½ cup grated parmesan/ hard cheese
1 garlic clove (2 if you love garlic)
Squeeze of lemon
Sprinkle of salt and ground black pepper
Approx ½ cup of olive oil (to your desired consistency)
Keep the olive oil to one side, place all the ingredients into a food processor, pulse the ingredients whilst slowly adding olive oil until the pesto is oozing. Taste and add more salt, pepper or lemon if required. Spoon into a jar and store in the fridge, Yay!
Looks great and yes, I’d go for 2 cloves of garlic in mine:) We’ve got basil growing in a window sill pot and use it most days but not in pesto yet…so this is a winner in my book, I will get my youngest involved and give it a go. I haven’t got the almonds in the garden;) but I know a shop that does:) wonderful post.
mainy x myrealfairy
#fortheloveofBLOG
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Thanks Mainy, it’s great to have fresh basil isn’t it! Both our boys love picking the basil and getting involved in cooking…especially pushing the buttons on gadgets. I hope you enjoy! x
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ooh looks super delicious, it’s so easy to make – I really need to give this a go! #forhtheloveofBlog
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Thanks is really easy and delicious. Give it a go 🙂
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I love pesto and this looks scrummy. I did try and make it once but it was far too oily and ended up just buying it. Perhaps I should give recipe a go. Thanks for linking to #fortheloveofblog
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Thanks for commenting! This is a pretty easy recipe to follow. Add half of the oil in first as it helps the ingredients to blend then add the rest in bit by bit, you can stop when it gets oily enough for you!
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Yum! Looks super easy to do. I love pesto, and almonds! x #fortheloveofBLOG
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Thanks Emma. It really is super easy. Just blitz and enjoy!
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This looks so good we have basil growing in our kitchen but unfortunately no almonds in our Sussex garden !!! We love pesto but have never thought of making our own and I love the idea of changing it up with the almonds
Thank you for linking up with #FoodieFriday
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Not long ago i tried making conventional pesto for the first time and it was so much better than shop bought jars. Im definitely going to try this almond pesto now it sounds fab!
Thank you for linking to #foodiefriday
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I’ve never tried to make pesto but I do love it! Although almonds don’t love me sadly! Thank you for linking up to #ablogginggoodtime 🎉
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That pesto sounds amazing – never thought about using almonds! x
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Thanks for your comment Mads almonds make a really creamy pesto!
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I never really thought of making pesto before. We always have tons of almonds in our house #ablogginggoodtime
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Great, give it a try, the almonds marry well with the other ingredients well.
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I never knew pesto would be so easy to make. We eat a lot of pesto para on our house so it might be fun to give this a try. I laughed when I saw you were using a hammer to smash into the nuts!xx #KCACOLS
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Easy and delicious. Great to use fresh almonds, but those woody shells are way too tough for ancient nutcrackers 😉 !!
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This sounds delicious. Pesto is one of my very favourite foods – I am addicted to basil! Thanks so much for linking up at #KCACOLS. Hope you come back again next Sunday
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Thanks, the fresh basil is so pungent!
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I love pesto and have made it before with pine nuts, but never with almonds. Will definitely be giving this a try! #KCACOLS
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It’s great. You just need to decide what you will use it with, enjoy
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I would DEFINITELY go for 2 cloves of garlic, haha, I love garlic. In all honesty, I’ve never had pesto before, but I do love almonds, so I totally want to give it a try. Thanks so much for sharing ❤ #KCACOLS
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Garlic is great in pesto,we like 2 cloves here too…the more the merrier! We love our Almond Pesto with chicken, gnocchi, pasta etc etc…
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Look at the size of that basil! I love pesto and almonds, I’ll have to give this a go.
#KCACOLS
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Thanks for your comment. Give it a go I’m sure you’ll love it as much as we do!
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So simple and looks yummy! Thanks for sharing #KCACOLS
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