[Recipes] Food as Medicine - Making Many Kinds of Pesto
I’m a firm believer in food as medicine and I especially like using different healing herbs!
A perfect dish for using a variety of herbs is pesto.
You can make your standard pesto with basil, cilantro, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic and Parmesan cheese but you can do so much more in pesto!
Try adding a variety of different herbs in with your pesto.
I like adding rosemary, lemon thyme, oregano and I use parsley instead of cilantro but you could use both.
Pat Crocker, author of the book “Healing Herbs Cookbook”, was the first to introduce me to this idea of putting a bunch of different herbs into your pesto.
Pesto does not have to be made with a basil base, it can also be made with rosemary as the base or pumpkin seeds or calendula or spinach or roasted garlic and red pepper or arugula which is one of my favorites.
RECIPES
Here’s a pesto with a lemon theme -
Lemon Basil Pesto
Ingredients:
3 large cloves of garlic
1/4 cup of unblanched almonds
2 cups basil leaves firmly packed
3 tbsp. chopped fresh lemon herb leaves (lemon thyme, lemon balm, lemon verbena or lemon basil)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp. lemon juice
Directions:
Mince garlic in a food processor or blender (I use a Vitamix.) Add almonds and process until coarsely chopped. Add basil, lemon herb, cheese and lemon zest; process until minced. With machine running add olive oil and lemon juice Process until blended.
Or try one with the edible flower - Calendula.
Calendula Pesto
Ingredients:
2 garlic cloves
2 ginger squares in syrup or 1/2- inch piece of fresh ginger root chopped
1/2 cup unblanched almonds
1 cup fresh calendula petals
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup fresh thyme leaves (I prefer the lemon thyme)
3/4 cups freshly ground Parmesan cheese
3/4 cups olive oil
Directions:
Mince garlic and ginger in a food processor or blender (I use a Vita-mix.) Add almonds and process until coarsely chopped. Add calendula, basil, thyme and cheese; process until minced. With machine running add olive oil. Process until blended. Season to taste with salt and pepper if desired.
For the garlic lovers...
Roasted Garlic and Red Pepper Pesto
Ingredients
2 heads of garlic
1 tsp olive oil
2 cups roasted red peppers, strained
1 cup fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup red pepper marinade (see recipe below)
Directions:
Cut 1/4 inch off top of each garlic head. Remove outer loose skin. Put into a cassole dish, tops up. Drizzle with olive oil. cover and bake in preheated oven at 375 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
Squeeze garlic cloves from heads and put into a food processor or blender. Add red peppers, basil and pine nuts. Processes until finely chopped. With motor running add marinade. Process until blended smooth.
Red Pepper Marinade
1/3 cup olive oil, 3 tbsp. balsamic vinegar and 4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced. Whisk together to pour on roasted peppers or use in the pesto recipe above.
MEDICINAL QUALITIES of garlic, basil and olive oil.
These came from a prior post
BASIL - which contains eugenol, citronellol and linalool which lowers inflammation through their enzyme inhibiting properties. This in turn may help lower risk of heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel conditions. Eugenol specific anti-inflammatory action in the digestive tract aids in digestion.
GARLIC - has the action of being anti-microbial, antibiotic, cardio-protective, hypertensive, anti-carcinogen, reduces blood pressure, anti-coagulant, lowers blood cholesterol levels and lowers blood sugar levels.
OLIVE OIL - will provide a lipid base that can absorb harmful toxins in the body. It is also high in high density lipoprotein which eliminates “bad” cholesterol. It reduces the artery-clogging low density lipoprotein.
This was to be my first Dtube video joining in on the fun as part of the Natural Medicine community @naturalmedicine but for the life of me I can't get a video up on DTube!
If anyone here can help me I'd sure appreciate it!
I love engaging with folks here so please feel free to leave any comments or questions,
if you found this post beneficial an Upvote is appreciated.
Please don’t hesitate to follow me here on steemit at @porters
I make many pints of garlic scape pesto to be used medicinally when I have a cold or flu.
M-m-m! Garlic scape pesto would be wonderful!
You must grow a lot of garlic to be able to put up a lot of garlic scape pesto.
I don't know if I could resist using it only for medicinal purposes, I tend to eat up most of my pesto right away.
I do manage to freeze some for winter use but this year I'm doing more growing indoors with pesto makings included.
I grow around 300 plants, but a lot of that is for the next year's seed. And a good amount does get snacked on... :)) I freeze all I make in the jars.
Wow! that's a lot of garlic!
Do you have pictures of your garden?
How many acres do you plant?
The big garden is 6% of an acre, the other 2 are each 2% of an acre, so 10% of an acre for veg and New Herb gardens. I have no idea how much of an acre the flowerbeds are, but there are 37 of them....
I've not updated this lately, but these are the gardens:
http://goldenoakfarm.us/BonzosPics/PublicAlbums/GardensAlbum9June2014April2015//index.html
Thanks for sharing your photos. Your gardens look fantastic! Everything looks so lush and healthy. I like how you used some chicken wire to hold your mulch in. It almost looked like a raised bed.
I see you were growing your beets in pots inside. Were you growing them for greens? or would you eventually put those out in the garden?
The big gardens did eventually become "raised" beds because I built so much soil over the decades. they are about 4" higher than the surrounding soil.
I have an awful problem with germination due to sandy loam. My husband jokes we have a 20 minute window between mud and dust. Even with all the organic matter the soil dries out too fast for good germination.
So I start nearly everything inside, including beets. Those beets are a variety known for their nice greens and excellent beets. So to answer, yes, and no to greens. And yes to going out to the garden. :))
Good on you building all that soil!
We have sandy loam and I found it easier for germination but then we don't get the winds here because of the shelter of the trees.
Interesting about the beets - they sure look healthy!
Do you sell produce off your homestead?
Congratulations on your Natural Medicine video - you are the recipient of 1 SBI! Woohoo! Good luck with Dtube next time, we know you had some trouble - but we still think this is worth supporting! xx
Wow! Thanks so much! I am determined to get that DTube thing working for I want to add it to my repertoire of ways of posting and using the #NaturalMedicine tag. I know once I break through and get it figured out it will be easy after that.
I love the pesto because my grandfather used to made me when i was a child. And i like the strong flavor with the garlic.
Thanks you for the receipe i will try soon.
Hope you the best
Lovely that the pesto makes those memories of your grandfather return.
I'm just blown away by how many variations you can have.
Did you see in the comments that @goldenoakfarm makes pesto from garlic scapes. If you love garlic you would probably like that.
I think you would need a lot of garlic scapes to do that.
My daughter-in-law grows lots of garlic but she pickles her garlic scapes and they are delicious!
Great post @porters! I absolutely love pesto and herbs!
I often use and/or make pesto and absolutely adore the taste of basil. This lemon based is something I have to try, thanks for sharing the recipes 💚
pesto is one of my favorites. thanks for sharing your recipes. :)