Presto its Pesto!

It was another cold and rainy winter evening after work and all I wanted to do was to be outside where the sun was shining and have a picnic! Then I started envisioning what would be included in my picnic lunch. Bread and cheese of course, perhaps a pasta salad with possibly a pesto sauce? Mmmmm... I could now taste the pesto, I frantically did some googling to get some recipes and made a quick trip to the supermarket close by. Most of the pesto recipes I came across required pine nuts and I didn't have any and could note seem to find any in a rush. But I have Almond Butter which is divine on bread with jam. So I thought replace pine nuts with almonds... and soon started on my adventure creating Pesto my way!

Rhode Island where I might have had my imaginary picnic!

Ingredients:

3 or 4 cloves garlic (more or less depending on how spicy you like it)
1 bunch of basil (about a cup, once washed and chopped)
Olive oil (a few tablespoons)
1/4 cup almond butter (more or less depending on the consistency you want)
Grated Parmesan cheese (a few tablespoons)
Salt and freshly crushed black pepper

Method:

Chop garlic into smallish pieces. Wash basil leaves and coarsely chop. Put garlic and basil into a blender and give it a few pulses. Season with salt and pepper. Add almond butter and Parmesan cheese and give it one or two pulses. Next through the small opening of the blender pour the olive oil in a slow steady stream as the blender is on low to medium speed. Do not pour all the olive oil in at once. Taste and adjust seasoning. Please note that this was an experiment so the quantities for the ingredients I have listed are approximate!

I enjoyed my pesto sauce with whole wheat linguine pasta. The pesto sauce seemed to coat each string of pasta. It was delicious. When I serve this to friends, I will probably add some cherry tomatoes sliced in half for color. I think a crisp white wine would go well as well. I also used the leftover pesto sauce the next day as a spread on bread for a quick cheese sandwich.