Presto! Pesto!

          Why are pine nuts so expensive! Crazy! Luckily you only need 1/3 cup for this recipe and a couple of tablespoons of pesto go a long way. Generally I buy pesto. We like Presidents Choice Splendido pesto the best. This is the first time I made it and we really liked it! My mom gave me a basil plant so I thought that it would be perfect to make pesto.
        Basil has some great health benefits. It is FULL of vitamin K, which helps blood to clot. It is also a good source of magnesium which promotes cardiovascular health. Pine nuts suppress your appetite, are energy boosting and contain anti-oxidants.
        Pesto usually calls for parmesan cheese but a good substitute is nutritional yeast. It will give that cheesy flavour and is super healthy (draxe.com).
        I'm working on cutting cheese out of my diet. I find that to be the most challenging part of eating plant based. It's not so difficult here at home but when we go out to restaurants or to someone else's house to eat it can be tough. It's hard to walk that line between being irritating to others while trying to balance your own morals and ethics.
       I want to keep this blog light so rather than going into why many people are avoiding dairy I thought I would just leave this link if anyone was interested in reading. 
  Anyways, on to the pesto recipe!

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh basil (packed)
3 TBSP pine nuts
3 cloves of garlic
2 TBSP lemon juice
pinch of salt
4 TBSP nutritional yeast
3 TBSP olive oil
4 TBSP water (add more if needed)

Directions:

In a blender mix all ingredients together. Add more water if needed. Serve!

This recipe came from the minimalist baker. 

Coral approved!