Pesto Sauces - So Yummy and So Healthy!

[shelley]

Pesto sauces are a fantastic way to do blended foods. Remember I posted a link to this article on why it's important to blend foods, especially raw foods:

http://www.askshelley.com/editor/editor/blended%20foods.htm

For this type of work, it's best to have a small food processor. Less scraping out afterwards than when using a blender or large food processor, better consistency too.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005LA9F/qid=1121117424/sr=8-6/ref=pd_bbs_6/103-8537244-8320655?v=glance&s=kitchen&n=599858

Now most people think pesto is a sauce made from basil. Actually, it's ANY sauce made from ANY green. A pesto sauce usually has the following in it:

Olive oil
salt and pepper
Some kind of green (basil, radiccio, kale, spinach, baby greens...)
Some kind of raw nut (pine, sunflower, walnut...)
Grated hard cheese (parmesan, romano)
herbs (garlic, etc.)

Traditional pesto goes like this:

cup of fresh basil
large handful of pine nuts (I use sunflower - cheaper and easier to find)
about 1/4 cup of parmesan
3 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to taste
as much olive oil as you need to keep things semi-liquid, usually at least half a cup.

I blend the nuts and garlic first, then add some oil, the basil, add more oil, add the cheese... taste a lot to see how it's going...
You can eat it raw or heat it up a tad to smooth out the garlic and marry the flavors more.

Another pesto goes like this:

Cup of radiccio
large handful of walnuts
romano cheese...
same as above.

You can make these sauces even richer by adding heavy cream or half and half.

You can also make great sauces for dipping or covering chicken or pasta from jars of roasted red peppers, or red and yellow peppers, available for cheap at Trader Joes. This is also a wonderful substitution for tomato sauce, so you can use it with ground beef too. I use it in my Skillet Meals in place of tomato sauce, since a good tomato sauce takes all day to make, and this takes only 10 minutes tops.

For dipping:

jar of red yellow peppers (usually 13 ounces) drained and sliced a bit.
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon of dried basil
2 garlic cloves or to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Blend until smooth, dip veggies, bread and cheese or use as a spread on crackers and sandwiches.

For pasta or chicken, do the same thing but leave out the balsamic and add a tablespoon or two of cream (cream is optional - it tastes fine without it candida people!)

Happy eating!

[namqch]

Is pesto ok for cleansing on candida diet ?

[namqch]

nevermind. i got my answer. I can eat cheese after being on candida diet for 1-3 months.

[cjb]

I make my pesto cheeseless, and you can't even tell. I use walnuts, olive oil, lemon juice, and sea salt. In summer, I do basil, in winter, spinach. You can put a batch of this in a lasagne with some wild mushrooms, maybe some tempeh, and lots of veggies and not even miss the cheese.