Cashew Pesto

I have all these other recipes that have been sitting in my notebook and pictures sitting in my phone.  Do I post these? No.  Instead you get the results of my experiment with pesto.  Let me start of my saying how much I love pesto.  It is one of my favorite things.  I also love hummus and adore Sabra’s garlic pesto hummus.  Anyway I digress.

Here in St Lucia pesto isn’t as popular.  You don’t find lovely broad leaf sweet basil in the supermarket.  However, my mom showed me the local variety of basil that grows here.  Walking through the market last week I bought a huge bunch to  add to my tomato sauce.  I also had some raw cashew that I intended to use in some energy bars.

I decided that it was time to make pesto.  After quick internet search, I found out that others had made pesto using cashews before and I was off.  Here’s what I came up with.

 

Ingredients

2 cups basil leaves

3 garlic cloves

1 cup raw cashew

juice from half a lemon

1 cup olive oil

salt to taste

pinch of cayenne pepper (optional

 

Directions

 
1. Place basil, garlic and cashew in food processor.
2. Process until ingredients are roughly chopped.
3. Add lemon juice and1/4 cup oil and process until well mixed.
4. Keep adding olive oil 1/4 cup at a time until the desired consistency is reached.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.

My pesto had a slight after taste and wasn’t as sweet as I remembered. After researching online I realized I used holy basil. Well at least I think I did. The pesto was still pretty yummy.

Have you ever made pesto before? What is your favorite way to use basil?