Recipe: Walnut Pesto

So things have been pretty busy for the past few weeks. The elective protocol was due in and we had our Oral Medicine exam. Thankfully I passed the exam despite the fact that I was off uni for the entire week as I managed to catch a horrible cold. I suppose it is good to know that I can still pass an exam without revising for the two days before! Although I don't think I'll plan on it being a regular occurrence.

This recipe is for homemade walnut pesto. It is really delicious. Pesto is so easy to make as long as you have a blender - any will do, even a stick blender which you use to make soup works really well. Pesto is also really expensive to buy, especially fresh. However if you make it in batches it is much cheaper and luckily it freezes well. Traditionally pesto is made with pine nuts, fresh basil, garlic, olive oil, parmigiano-reggiano and pecorino - but I decided to leave out the cheese and substitute the pine nuts for walnuts.

Estimated cost per portion: £0.15
Estimated calories per portion: 88

Ingredients; Makes roughly 12 small portions (to just coat the pasta) or 6 larger portions

• 4 cloves of garlic
• One 28g pack of fresh basil
• 40g of shelled walnut halves
• 100ml of olive oil
• Ground black pepper and salt to taste

Directions;

Its's so simple steps aren't needed. Put all the ingredients into the blender and blend together! 

I divided my batch into half - one in the freezer and the other in the fridge. It will last for ages in the fridge as long as a little layer of olive oil is kept onto. After every time you use it you just top the oil up.

Walnut pesto and halloumi sandwiches are king.

L xx