How to Make Homemade Pesto: The Easiest, Tastiest Way to Enjoy Your Greens

Spring is the greenest time of the year. I'm a foodie. My husband is a foodie. My son not so much. Actually, i always had difficulties in accommodating him with certain foods. And by saying difficulties, I mean he's been one of those kids to only have 4 main things to eat, in a specific way, with the same taste, for the last 4 years, since he started having his own will. As you can imagine, it was not easy for us to navigate this situation. We are food experimentalists, our idea of a night out always includes some new restaurant to indulge, we love trying new things as much as we love taking a bis on our fav dishes.

Therefore, being both a foodie and a naturopath mom, i always took account of the link between the food that we intake and our wellbeing, and tried to mask different nutrients and assemble them in a form that will be accepted by the little one. I basically played lego with a veeeeery limited number of ingredients, for the last 4-5 years. In other words, my brain is wired around ingredients and dishes that will be both healthy and nourishing and also tasty and friendly for my son's "new food reluctance".

Pesto was the One thing that always had my back, the One thing that I could rely on, no matter what, where or when, easy-to-make, ensuring a decent quantity of daily nutrients and also making every dish a bit extra.

Pesto can be made out of literally any green that you can think of. Just to name a few, some of our top notch stars are the classic basil, of course, parsley, kale, spinach, nettle, wild garlic, arugula, and of course mix-and-match between them all, depending on whatever we have left in our fridge.

I will try to be a bit specific about the quantity and the process, although I never think through the process. Whenever I make it, I don't even taste it, I know exactly how it turned out just by the smell, hence, my friends call me "The Queen of Pesto ", not to brag about it that much.

So, for a 200 ml jar we will need approximately :

• 250-300 grams of greens of your choice (kale, basil, spinach, parsley, dandelion leaves, etc)

• 50 grams of shredded good quality parmesan;

• 1 clove garlic

• salt & pepper to your taste, the good ones ( i usually use Celtic salt or Pink Himalayan)

• zest from 1/2 organic lemon ( here you might need to adjust it depending on the choice of greens that you are using and also according to your taste ), some greens are more bitter, others are already sourish by nature (like parsley)

• and a handful of nuts of your choice ( cashew nuts, sunflower, pine nuts, walnuts, pumpkin seeds)

*I like to be creative and flexible regarding the nuts input, as i feel it's a good way of introducing the exact type of fat that you need for your body constitution. Vatas will do better with a little more oil content like walnuts and cashews, while Pithas and Kaphas do better with seeds, rather than nuts.

• OPTIONAL: recently, in a moment of deep presence in my cooking, I had the intuition of introducing hemp seeds in my pesto and it has made a huge difference. Firstly in the texture, because some greens like spinach for example have a more watery texture and the hemp seeds balance it and make it more dense, and secondly, a punch of extra protein is always wonderful in a mostly vegetarian lifestyle. Also, my son doesn't eat meat and dairy at all. Therefore, you can add extra 100 grams of hemp seeds, you'll thank me later.

• organic extra virgin olive oil, poured from your heart, a loving 100-200 ml, depending on how much you want to get out of it, again this is, again, up to you (I found it in my experience to work very well with pumpkin seed oil also)

How to Make Pesto:

The process is very simple, you just throw all the ingredients in a good speed blender, my best friend in the kitchen, my go-to for almost everything that I make as a quick dinner for 3.

And voila. And that's it. In 10 minutes you get a jar of Pure Green Gold.

Pesto is more than a dressing or a taste enhancer.

From an Ayurvedic point of view Pesto is considered pure medicine for our body.

Herbs and spices are 'Materia Medica' of Ayurveda, they are preventative and mixed in the right way, according to your Doshic constitution or imbalances they can alleviate, nourish and sustain the entire digestive process, assimilation and elimination, turning into a powerful immunity and antioxidant booster. If you want to go next level with your home made pesto and turn it into real food for your mind, body and soul, I will give you below 3 examples, right for each Dosha:

• Vata pesto would be the traditional basil one( for its warming and nervous soothing properties),garlic, parmesan, lemon and pine nuts or even walnuts, and of course organic cold pressed olive oil or sesame oil. Dense, heating and stimulating;

• Pitha pesto would be a mix of cilantro, dandelion and spinach, a citrusy bitterish, taste that can cool down the excess fire in Pithas, lime juice, hempseeds, pumpkin seeds, some fresh paneer or ricotta, and a bit of garlic for the taste, if you want to completely give up on garlic because of its stimulating properties, you can successfully replace it by adding a bit of asafoetida. This is an Indian spice, widely used in the traditional oriental kitchen. Of course, top up with olive oil.

• Kapha pesto would be a punchy arugula one mixed with dandelion, because of its bitter and slightly spicy properties I find it a good match for stimulating the Kaphas. A selection of hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds together with some dry garlic, lemon juice, a good pinch of Celtic salt and I would add here also a punch of TRIKATU( this is a traditional spice cocktail made out of equal parts of powdered dry ginger, black pepper and long pepper, which is amazing to use throughout the whole Kapha season). For this one I would skip the cheese, topping up with some good organic cold pressed sunflower oil or pumpkin seed oil.

Life is simply better with Pesto in our plates.

We like to eat it with oven backed potatoes, roasted veggies, pasta, noodles, flat breads, salty pancakes, you name it. I just can't imagine anything that doesn't go along with it .We're obsessed with it. It makes everything so next level and I hope that trough this blog post I will find some more crazy Pesto lovers, JUST LIKE US, so let's meet and greet !!

Enjoy your greens, people!

I wish you Well.

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