Pesto + Kale + Potatoes
Just to be clear… this is not a pesto made from kale. I never understand how people can replace basil with cilantro or some random green like kale and still call it pesto! Basil is irreplaceable in my book.
So I was needing a good dose of greens, but I didn’t want to eat them plain. And I had some extra basil leftover from my tomato basil soup… so I made pesto.
Vegan Pesto
- 1 tightly packed cup of basil leaves (rinsed clean)
- 3-4 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 cup walnuts
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1/4-1/2 tsp sea salt, depending on personal taste preference
So there are a couple ways you can do this…
The easy way: Blend it all up in a food processor. Done.
The less easy way: I wanted to try making it like an Italian grandmother (click here for link), because that just sounded too appealing! So I followed her directions for the basil and garlic, but when it came time to incorporate the parmesan, I just grated some walnuts in a rotary cheese grater and added that and the nutritional yeast and salt to the minced basil mixture.
Then I steamed a bunch of kale in 1/3 cup of water till the water was mostly gone:
Then I combined the two… and voila!
I highly suggest serving this with leftover mashed potatoes and/or cauliflower, then you can be all fancy and call it “Pesto Colcannon”:
gwen cooks 