CELERY PESTO

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CELERY PESTO 

Celery pesto is a fantastic alternative to traditional pesto. Using cheaper, readily available ingredients, this is a cost-effective and healthy twist on a classic recipe. 


Dad's Cuisine - Celery Pesto
Pesto is one of those recipes that I have always found particularly intimidating, and to be honest, a bit posh. Its ingredients - parmesan, pine nuts, fresh basil and olive oil - are on the expensive side. As a busy working Mum, most of those items are not a part of my staple diet (which generally includes pasta, rice, chocolate and wine. Lots of wine.) But I came to discover the joys of making pesto because I was making tomato soup for Dad.

The recipe called for a single stick of celery. Now, we are not big celery eaters in my house, but Dad really wanted tomato soup and I really wanted him to eat some vegetables, so I dutifully bought a bunch of celery. Having detached the single stick required and chucking it into the pan to make the soup, I started munching my way through the rest of the bunch with the help of a big jar of peanut butter (hey, it’s packed with protein). 

After this magnificent feast and with the tomato soup bubbling away nicely, I was left with a huge bunch of celery leaves on the counter. I don’t like to waste ingredients so I decided to try my hand at pesto, replacing the basil with celery leaves. I didn’t have any parmesan or pine nuts either, but I did have grana padano and unsalted cashew nuts.

The cashew nuts add a creamy texture and balance the zing from the celery leaves and garlic. I suggest leaving this celery pesto in a sealed jar overnight before tasting as it can be quite bitter when made fresh. You can keep it for up to a month in the fridge, but ours never lasts for more than two days. It's fantastic on crusty bread and can be mixed with pasta for a quick and tasty mid-week supper.
Dad's Cuisine - Celery Pesto on crusty bread


Chuck all the ingredients in a bowl and let your hand blender or food processor do the rest. 

Large bunch of fresh celery leaves
150g Grana Padano cheese
300ml olive oil
2 cloves garlic
100g unsalted cashew nuts
Half a lemon (zest and juice)


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Comments

  1. Jilali2 April 2018 at 20:38

    I didn't know we could do it with celery :-) ça a l'air trop bon

    ReplyDelete

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