As Summer came to an end and the basil started to go to seed, we picked what we could to make an allergy friendly basil & sunflower seed pesto. Our crop was quite large, 10 cups of basil & with our school grown garlic. Sunflowers seeds are a great allergy friendly substitute for the usual pine nuts or cashew nuts. They are creamy and have a nutty taste. If you can, use home grown, school grown, a neighbours, or store bought organic.
To make a good quantity you will need:
5 cups of basil leaves
150gms sunflower seeds
1/2 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves
salt & pepper to taste.
Whiz (food process or stick blender) seeds, garlic with a little olive oil and a handful of basil leaves – keep it kind of rough then empty into a big bowl. Take all the basil leaves and whiz them up roughly and add to the seed mix. If you have kids in the kitchen with you there are lots they can do to help. Pick off the basil leaves, peel the garlic, put ingredients into the mixer, pour into bowls, stir and of course EAT IT!
Mix together & add salt and pepper, pour and mix in remaining olive oil or to your liking and serve with rice crackers on toast on pizza…… enjoy!
Pesto works well with so many things so use your imagination. Keep your pesto in a sterilized sealed jar or keep covered with oil to prevent mould forming. Yes, you can freeze it to!
We saved as many seeds from our Basil crop as we could, by letting a few stalks go to seed we will be able to plant another bumper crop again next spring.
