Happy Labor Day Pesto and Potatoes
It’s Labor Day, and I’m trying to take a break from thinking about plastic. Because you know what? Once you have your systems in place, it’s easy to eat great food without worrying about plastic waste. For example, what I’m eating right now…
It’s a snack, for sure, inspired by my favorite pizza in the whole world, Potesto from Pizza Rustica in my neighborhood. But unlike Potesto pizza, my little snack today is 100% vegan.
I’ll tell you the ingredients but not the amounts because I just tossed everything into the food processor and kept adding and tasting and adding and tasting until it seemed right to me.
- 1 very big bunch of fresh basil (from the farmers market)
- Several handfuls of roasted almonds (also from the farmers market. I used almonds because I don’t like the taste of pine nuts, although I can’t really explain why. I don’t like hazel nuts either, for a similar unexplainable reason.)
- 2 cloves of fresh garlic (farmers market)
- A whole lot of organic olive oil (from Whole Foods bulk container — we bring and fill up our own glass bottle)
- Juice from several lemons (farmers market)
- Salt (cardboard carton)
Garnished with assorted cherry tomatoes, also from the farmers market. I dump them out of the green plastic basket at the market into my own bag. Most of the vendors at our farmers market will take back and reuse the plastic baskets that hold berries and cherry tomatoes.
Spread on top of baby potatoes which have been boiled and chilled in the refrigerator. From the farmers market, of course. Lately, I’ve been enjoying keeping a bowl of little boiled potatoes in the fridge to snack on.
That’s it. This pesto is very thick and super yum. And I just thought a food post was appropriate today since I’m going out in a few hours to see Julie & Julia with a friend. Sometimes, life is good.
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Great tip about using a different nut. I actually LOVE pine nuts [or pignoli, as they say back in Jersey] but have not made my own pesto because of the cost. They are WAY too expensive. I will have to try this. After finding a food processor that actually works.
I always use walnuts in my pesto..pine nuts cost too much, and I've never seen a recipe using almonds or hazelnuts!
You can also add a handful of parsley if you're coming up a bit short on the basil.
I think I know what you mean about hazelnuts. They give my tongue and the roof of my mouth the heebie-jeebies, the same as when I've sucked all the ice cream that could possibly be left off the little wooden spoon that came with it, and then bitten the spoon in half in hopes of getting one last taste of ice cream. This was when you could get a waxed paper dish of ice cream that came with a paper lid and the wooden spoon.
I used to get that hazelnut feeling when I did poppers (relax, it was over 30 years ago) except then it was in my sinuses, rather than in my mouth.
Thanks for your good idea of keeping boiled potatoes handy for snacks.
mmmmmm. I just harvested a ton of basil and some baby potatoes from the garden… giving me ideas!