Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Spaghetti with tomato & almond pesto

It's been a long time since I made pesto, cos I haven't bought Parmesan or pine nuts for a long time, and the Thai basil outside in my garden are not thriving well. But who says pesto has to be made with Parmesan or pine nuts, it can be done nicely with any cheese and any nice nuts or even seeds. This time, I actually made them with tomato, so it isn't a green pesto but a red pesto. Tastes equally nice, if not nicer!
 
Again, this pesto sauce is very versatile. I served it with pasta and season with lots and lots of grated Cheddar. My son and I are huge fans of cheese. I've also served it with breakfast pancakes I made this morning and made it into a breakfast pancake lasagna.
 


 
Here's my son, who had gone nuts over the roasted almonds I'd prepared for this pesto sauce. I wasn't very willing to let him snack on them cos there are still  risk of choking even though I did chop them into little pieces. But we've run out of snacks or bread or cakes at home!! Nothing!! Not even fruit! Darn. And he seems hungry. So I let him, in the end. He loved them!



Here's the recipe for the very versatile and delicious tomato pesto, you can make double or triple portions of this, and it'll keep for 10 days in refrigerator.

  • 1 tomato, chopped
  • 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2tbsp roasted almond or raw almond
  • few basil leaves/ Thai basil leaves
  • 1/2 cup of basil oil (see photo below)
  • 1-2tbsp Parmesan (I don't have this, so I omitted them, but I serve this sauce with lots of grated Cheddar) 
  1. Steam everything, except for the oil and cheese until the tomato turns soft.
  2. Blitz in a food processor, slowly drizzle in oil and Parmesan, until it achieves a creamy consistency. May adjust with more or less oil to get the consistency wanted.


Organic basil oil, also known as pistou in Provence, its full bodied aroma makes it great with salad, or homemade vinaigrettes and sauces like this.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...