Parsley Pesto

Pesto is a quick to assembly addition to any meal. Initially made from basil, nuts and Parmesan cheese, it is now up to our imagination to use any herb or leafy vegetable to create our pesto. Parsley is abundant in chlorophyll, a good source of protein, contains three times as much Vitamin C as oranges and twice as much iron as spinach, it contains Vitamin A and is a good source of copper and manganese.

Ingredients

• 50g flat leaf or curly parsley

• 40-50g walnuts or nuts of your choice or sunflower seeds

• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced (not needed when wild garlic leaves are used)

• Juice of ½ - 1 lemon

• Natural sea salt - pinch

• Extra virgin olive oil as needed

• Honey or agave to taste – optional

• 30g fresh parmesan or sheep cheese, grated- optional

 Method

1. Place the parsley into food processor and blend for a moment. Add walnuts or nuts or seeds of your choice, garlic and a pinch of salt and lemon juice or use a hand held blender and pulse into a coarse paste. With the motor still running, slowly pour the olive oil into the feed tube of the food processor to make a smooth paste.

2. You can make it thicker if you want to use it as a spread or thinner for adding it to pasta, rice or potatoes.

3. Season with sea salt and add dash of honey or agave and more lemon juice to taste if you like.

4. Pour into a bowl and stir in the finely grated parmesan or sheep cheese – if you use it.

 Pesto tastes delicious on pasta, rice, with vegetables, on bread, in wraps, in hummus or as an addition to soups and stews.

 Wheatfree, Sugarfree, Dairyfree if Parmesan is omitted

Note In springtime you can replace parsley with ramsons or wild garlic or use ½ and ½ . Ramsons have similar properties to those of the garlic, only greater. Bears, after hibernation, seek it out to cleanse their system. And in addition it’s good for memory.

The green, shiny broad leaves are very similar to those of the Lily-of-the-Valley. The smooth, light green stem, with its head of white flowers, grows to a height of 30cm. Ramsons grows only in shady and damp woods and can be found between March and May. Its pungent garlic odour that has given it the name wild garlic, is smelled long before the plants are sighted and prevents them for being mistaken for the Lily-of-the-Valley.

Tip Instead of wild garlic you can also use 1 big handful of MIXED WILD HERB leaves like dandelion, Herb Robert, silverweed, chickweed, sweet cicely or alternatively Swiss chard or spinach.