Thai Basil Pecan Pesto

By July 1, 2015

Kevin got a new photography toy! They call it a beauty dish. It’s supposed to distribute light perfectly across the model you’re shooting. [source] Don’t let the name of the product fool you, it will not drastically improve the beauty of your subject. Especially if that subject just started up with spin classes after a 3 month hiatus, is busy getting ready for her trip to India, and just completed a 16 hour work day. (pretty sure I was in the middle of a sneeze in the third picture. So attractive, but so totally me) Then we moved on to playing around with his wireless triggerinig system… Pebbles was brought into the mix too. Recommendation: your model should be an actual model. Oh, and their retinas should be stronger than the average human. Those lights burn, baby! Once I recovered from the trauma of chasing blue honeycomb shapes around with my eyes, I became hungry and skipped off to the kitchen; yes, literally skipped, to create something I’d never attempted before. Do you ever get an overly creative recipe idea and just run with it without doing any research? Do they ever turn out right? Mine don’t. Ever. Case and point – chia butter. I thought it was a good idea, too! But combining chia and honey in a food processor will break the motor and result in the stickiest seed butter you’ve ever seen. Or there were the flax cupcakes Don’t let the pretty pictures fool you as they did me. Replacing the flour in a recipe with ground flax seed will give you the blandest cupcakes known to man. Thankfully the cream cheese icing was delicious. In my defense, not all of my creative ideas have been a total bust. I combined pureed pumpkin and coconut butter randomly and ended up with the best no bake treat I’ve ever made… but I digress. So what had me skipping to the kitchen? A savory coconut flour pizza crust! It was going to be epic. High in protein, fiber, thin, crunchy and perfect. It was thin… but far from perfect. It was mushy, too sweet, burnt and tasted horrible. I couldn’t bring myself to throw out the whole pizza, so I scraped off the toppings, added it to a bowl of greens and enjoyed a pesto and shrimp salad instead. There were little pieces of coconut crust in the mix, sort of like soggy croutons at the bottom of an old salad. Mmmm… Thankfully the Thai basil pesto I’d whipped up for the sauce of the pizza ended up stealing the show, making my evening in the kitchen worth it’s while.
Thai Basil Pecan Pesto
Author: 
Recipe type: Vegan, Gluten free, Dairy free, Sugar free, Yeast free, Corn free, Grain free
Prep time: 
Total time: 
Serves: ½
 
The Thai basil gives this pecan based pesto a warm licorice taste. Thai basil has an identifiable licorice flavor not present in sweet basil and holds its flavor much better when cooked in higher temperatures. It exhibits small narrow leaves with purple stems and makes a great addition to green smoothies!
Ingredients
  • ½ cup raw pecans, walnuts, or a mixture of both
  • 2 cups Thai basil
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 clove fresh garlic, minced
  • ¼ teaspoon himalayan rock salt or herbamare
  • ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
  1. Place nuts in the bowl of your food processor and pulse until broken down, about 30 seconds.
  2. Add basil, lemon juice, garlic, and salt. Pulse to mix, until basil leaves have been incorporated with the nuts.
  3. Add olive oil and process until combined and until pesto has reached desired consistency.
View Nutritional Information (once on page scroll down) Any ideas on what I should do with all the leftover pesto?

This entry was tagged: pecan, pesto


Happy Keto Body Promotion - 12 Week Video Program

Hi! I’m Leanne (RHN FBCS)

a Keto Nutritionist, host of The Keto Diet Podcast, and best-selling author of The Keto Diet & Keto for Women. I want to live in a world where every woman has access to knowledge to better her health.

Read more about me...

Weekly Meal Plans