SOUL FOOD PESTO

SOUL FOOD PESTO

I just bought a mortar and pestle, and I am delighted with it! The first thing I made in it was this delightful pesto. A lot of commercial pesto's have cheese in them and it sometimes overpowers the delicious taste of fresh basil and pine nuts.

Ingredients

1 big bunch of basil

1 small garlic clove

1 70g bag of pine nuts

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 teaspoon sea salt

4 tablespoons of olive oil

Directions

Lightly toast the pine nuts on the stove top, this should take about 4 minutes maximum, watch them because you only want a very slight brown tinge. Remove the leggy stalks from the basil and roughly chop the small stalks and leaves (with scissors) in to the mortar, add the pine nuts while they are still warm, and throw in the garlic, olive oil, sea salt, and lemon juice. Give it all a good bash and grind....this is the part that is good for the soul. Obviously this would be good for pasta, but I decided to serve this for breakfast on toast with a grilled tomato on top.