Basil-Cashew Pesto

• Estimated Time: 15 minutes
• Difficulty: Easy
• Servings: 10

I experimented with home-made pesto sauce and was blown away by how much better it tastes than the bottled/aged stuff from the store.  I ran out of pine-nuts one day and still wanted to make pesto so I discovered that cashews work just as well and also preserve the green color better once you cook it.

This is sauce is handy for dinner in a hurry.

Ingredients

1.5 cups basil leaves

2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup cashew nuts

1/3 cup olive oil (approximately)

1/2 tsp salt

Preparation

Roughly chop the garlic and cashew nuts.  Then put them at the bottom of a spice grinder.  Add some basil leaves on top.  Add half the olive oil.  Grind until the whole thing is a smooth green paste.  Add more basil leaves and more olive oil and grind again.  Until all the leaves are incorporated and you have a bright green paste.

I have used tiny containers to freeze 2 serving portions of this sauce separately.  But an ice-cube tray works just as well.  Once frozen pop out the cubes of frozen pesto and store in a small zip-lock bag so you can use your tray for other things.