Cilantro Arugula Pistachio Pesto

This is a recipe that I feel almost guilty for calling a recipe.  A delicious pesto can be made to order following the below formula; just fill in your favorite herb, greens, nuts, oils and flavorings:

Mix-n-Match Pesto Generator Recipe

• 2 cups or so of herbs (basil, cilantro, dill, parsley, arugula, watercress, spinach)
• 1/2 cup nuts (pine nuts, pistachios, walnuts, almonds, cashews, macadamia)
• a bit of savory flavor (optional - Parmesan, miso, nutritional yeast)
• a bit of tangy flavor: (lemon juice, vinegar, lime, olives, jalapeños, onions, garlic
• Oil! (olive oil, avocado oil, walnut oil, thai chile, sesame oil)

Use whatever stuff is growing wildly on your doorstep or appears in abundance in your shopping cart. 

You can mix your fashionable new pesto in with pasta, top a pizza with it, slather it on bruschetta, fold it in with omelets, create a new a salad dressing, etc!

You can also make a pesto with roasted tomatoes, beets, or marinated veggies like olives, artichokes, peppers.  Go crazy.

If you’d like a more specific pesto recipe, try some of the tasty looking ones below, which I’ve culled from very reliable sources:

Yummy-looking Cilantro Pesto and a Classic Basil Pesto from Elise at Simply Recipes
A raw pesto dish - Basil Pesto over Zucchini “Pasta” by the fantastic folks at What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway
Beautiful Asparagus Pesto by 28 Cooks and a proven hit low-fat version by SusanV at FatFree Vegan. 
And here’s 28 Cooks Basil and Habanero recipe.  So pretty! 
Great minds think alike!  Check out the Pistachio Arugula Pesto at VeganYumYum
Mmmm! Beet Pesto from Alanna at Veggie Venture.  What a great way to use your CSA veggies!  And here’s her concurrently-posted Arugula Pesto.

My very own recipe for Cilantro Arugula Pistachio Pesto has a taste reminiscent of guacamole and has proven to be just as addictive.  The tartness of the arugula stands up to the assertiveness of the cilantro, and the heat from the jalapeños and mellowness of the avocado oil round this out into a sauce you want to eat right from the spoon… which is just fine until you have a dozen dirty spoons sitting in your sink.

Time: 20 minutes
Makes over a cup of pesto

Cilantro Arugula Pistachio Pesto

1/2 cup pistachios
1 bunch of arugula, roughly chopped and stems removed
1 bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped and stems removed
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
1 small jalapeño, deseeded and minced
juice of 1 lemon
big pour of avocado oil
big pour of olive oil

In a blender or food processor, pulse the pistachios a few times to break them up into small pieces. Add the arugula, cilantro, onion, lemon, and a pour of avocado oil. Try blending and add olive oil until the pesto is liquid enough to blend smoothly. Depending on your intended use you can add more oil or keep it nice and thick. (If using on bruschetta keep thick, but add more oil if you’d like to mix it in with pasta.)

This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Pasta, Pizzas, & Grains, Appetizers & H'ds, Summer, Harvest, Spring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.