Kale Pesto

I love kale – really love it. I’d normally simply fry it up in some olive oil, with lots of salt and pepper, and eat it as a side to just about anything. I can eat mountains of the stuff – but I was today years old when I discovered that even I have a limit.

I’d seen some bags of pre-cut kale reduced to 10p in the supermarket, and being the thrifty Scot that I am, I snapped ’em up.

After a day or two of eating my way through them I decided to call it quits, but as always, didn’t want the leftovers to go to waste, so I thought I’d give this a wee bash. And it just so happens to be quite delicious.

I didn’t use pine nuts in this pesto as David is horribly allergic to them, so I opted for sunflower seeds instead. They make a most acceptable alternative in my opinion.

As always, this recipe is very easy to customize to your own tastes, so please use it as a starting point and tweak away till you get it how you like it.

Recipe

Roughly half a bag of chopped kale, hard stalks removed (I flung in a handful of baby spinach I had too)

2-2.5 cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Sainsbury’s Unfiltered Organic is lovely)

1/4-1/2 tsp salt

3 spoonfuls of garlic paste (roughly 2 fat cloves)

juice of one fresh lemon

100-150g sunflower seeds, depending on how crunchy you want it

1 cup nutritional yeast (adjust to make it more or less cheesey) OR

Vegan parmesan-style cheese (Violife do one)

water to loosen the pesto

Place everything in a food processor and blitz until you’re happy with the consistency. You can add more or less oil, substituting it with water if you’re watching your calories. Every single ingredient can have the quantities adjusted until you get the flavour you like.

Any green herb can be added to this – parsley works well, as does coriander. Green leafy tops of carrots are also absolutely delicious!

I can guarantee a lot of pesto heavy recipes over the next few days, as this stuff is just too good to waste!

I hope you try it, and have fun making it your own!