Almond Pesto

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With roasted vegetable pasta

Lu and I recently came across this new company, fruitfellas, who are better known as Rob and Gav, two lovely lads who for a mere 20 quid will deliver a box of gorgeous, colourful fruit and veg straight to your door. If like me you don't have a car, this is a godsend as it eliminates the need to carry tesco bags up a hill with your arm muscles straining and the bags cutting into your hands. Also, the produce is fresher & nicer than Tescos, and straight from the markets of Dublin to keep everything nice and local, kinda.

We got very excited about or box of fruit and veg, and, finding out that you can also get fresh herbs we ordered a silly amount of basil and flat leaf parsley. One week later, said herbs were still sitting around the kitchen looking slightly the worse for wear. 'We could make pesto if only we had some pine nuts' said Lu 'No way', I'm never eating pine nuts again, I'm too scared of getting Pine nut mouth' said I.

This pesto is subsequently made with almonds, which worked out perfectly. I don't know whey I never tried it before. Much cheaper than pine nuts too which I have seen at an aforementioned super market for €8 a bag!

Almond pesto

NB- I didn't really measure anything, so this is a kind of guesstimate recipe. Use your instincts about how pesto should look and you will be fine

Ingredients

1 big bunch Basil

1/2 a big bunch Flat leaf parsley

about a double handful of flaked almonds (i dunno, about 1 cup in American measurements)

about 100 ml olive oil

2 oz Parmesan cheese, finely grated

1 small clove garlic (or half a big clove)

salt and pepper

In a food processor, whizz up the herbs and almonds. Then add the olive oil slowly while you whizz until the mixture reaches your desired consistency (you know, pesto-like) stop whizzing and transfer to a bowl. Add the Parmesan and crushed garlic clove and mix with a fork. Add salt and pepper to taste, and more olive oil if you think it is too stiff.

We made a delicious pasta with this pesto.

We roasted some vine tomatoes, whole cloves of garlic(in their skins) red peppers and broccoli (that we had blanched in boiling water) all for about 40 mins. Then we cooked some pasta, threw in all the veg (took the skins of the roasted garlic first!) and a couple of big dollops of the pesto. Man was it good! It was so good I decided that Lucy and I are true culinary geniuses (genii?)

Speaking of which, I will be blogging a recipe from my new Julia Child cook book very, very soon, so get ready for butter, and lots of it.