The Trouble with Pesto

The trouble with pesto is that as tasty as it is, I really hate having garlic breath afterwards.  This makes pesto a poor choice for take-along lunches for work.  Nevertheless, I love pesto.  I find it a much tastier way to enjoy pasta than a traditional tomato sauce.  Also, sometimes tomato sauce upsets my somewhat cantankerous digestive system.  Pesto you find in stores or restaurants will typically have cheese in it, so if you want vegan pesto you will most likely have to make it yourself.

Pesto is really quite easy to make, particularly if you have a food processor.  A few cloves of garlic, a handful of fresh basil leaves, freshly squeezed lemon juice, some nuts (ideally pine nuts, but walnuts will do if that's what you have on hand), and a good helping of nutritional yeast, and you're away to the races.  You can also add any other fresh herbs you have on hand, spinach, kale, whatever you like to the processor, and blend!  Typically, pesto is quite oily as people will create a sauce of it by adding olive oil, but I've been trying to avoid unnecessary extracted oils (I get all the healthy fats I need from nuts and seeds).  I recently made myself a batch of pesto, and to thin it out, I used the starchy pasta water and it turned out perfectly.  I'd like to show you a picture, but I ate it all before I got the chance!