1. Gather and clean your leaves. Take them off the stems and spin in your salad spinner.
2. Most greens can be used fresh. If you're making nettle pesto, you should blanch and plunge in ice water and drain (this will remove the stinging from the leaves). Place leaves in a food processor along with 1/1 to 1 clove of garlic and about 1/2 T of sea salt. Turn on the processor and pour in olive oil until the leaves are processed according to your preference. If you run the processor too long, it will turn to mush. I keep adding leaves until the batch is pretty full (about 2 - 3 cups).
3. Add a few pine nuts (maybe 1/8 c) and a handful of grated parmesan cheese. If you're using garlic mustard, I recommend walnuts.
Taste and add more salt or garlic if you would like. But be careful - the garlic strengthens with time as the mixture ages.
This can be kept in the fridge for a week or so or you can freeze it. The quality isn't as good when frozen but it sure is nice to have basil pesto pasta in the middle of winter!
- Follow RecipesDream
- Follow @us
