Day 3 - Avocado Pesto

Pinterest Day 3 - Avocado Pesto

The Pinterest recipe I looked at today is Creamy Paleo Avocado Pesto at Stupid Easy Paleo

The Reasons:

I am really tired - already, I just want to eat something else and not cook at all. But I'd kind of like to keep making food from Pinterest for a while until it's more of a habit to do this every night. This recipe seemed like something not-too-difficult that I could try out.

The Ingredients:

What I can use:

avocados

basil

lemon juice

salt

olive oil

What I can't use:

garlic

pine nuts (if I can pick these, I can use them, but I have no source currently.)

The Challenges: 

1. Limited basil supply. I can use what I've grown, but the heat and grasshoppers have eaten most of it. I've got at best 1/2 a cup. So, I'll be doing a half-recipe. 

2. Otherwise, not a whole lot. I can use a lot of the ingredients. And while it would be nice to have the garlic, I think basil is quite nice on its own, so I'm okay with simply leaving it out and seeing what happens. I also don't mind the lack of nuts, although the extra creaminess that comes with them is sometimes nice. 

What did I do?

I made a half-batch of this, leaving out the garlic and pine nuts. I'll like to see how it tastes like that, as a sort of base, so I can decide whether it's worth adding on more ingredients to alter the flavor, or whether I like it as-is.

So, I blended up 1 avocado, 1/2 cup fresh basil, 1 pinch of salt, and the lemon, when juiced, seemed like a lot, so I used a little less than half a lemon.  I blended these all up, then added less than 1/4 cup olive oil.  

All ready for blending

The small food processor had a hard time with so little basil and it took a while to get it all chopped up. The extra time made it REALLY creamy, which ended up quite attractive.

The result:

Very nice. Very lemony, so again, I think maybe a bit too much lemon. But I liked the texture, and the flavor was still nice. We topped the Rosemary liver burgers I made earlier in the week with it. Tasty.

Seriously - this was yummy

I'd definitely make it again.

How would I change this:

I'd like to play around with the lemon and see how it tastes. The lemon overpowered the basil quite a bit, and I don't know if that is better or worse than the basil flavor coming through more.