Nicole Is Cooking

Yes, after a long delay, I am back.

This is an original recipe I put together back in October when my friend Beth came over to be my guinea pig for dinner one evening. I am a fan of pesto but sometimes a lighter (as in lower fat) alternative is not a bad thing which is why pesto is in quotes here… it is not by formal definition a traditional pesto (basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, Parmesan or Pecorino cheese).

In the spring I started playing around with arugula in pesto for two reasons- it has a nutty flavor and a high moisture content. If you are trying to cut fat from a traditional pesto, you can then leave out the pine nuts but still retain a nutty flavor and also eliminate some of the oil without eliminating moisture. It won’t taste exactly like a traditional pesto (which was not what I was aiming for) but it does give you the same qualities and it is a satisfying alternative.

Other than the use of arugula and eliminating the use of pine nuts, this pesto contains the ingredients of a traditional pesto. Ultimately, we settled on the following proportions:

3 cups fresh basil
6 cups arugula
1/2 cup Parmesan
1 Tbsp olive oil
garlic cloves to taste (yep, forgot to write down how many we used but I think it was around 9)

It ends up approximately the same consistency of pesto, just a less oily looking.

We ate it that night with some polenta stacks and sautéed fresh vegetables (and yes, the arugula, basil, garlic and sautéed vegetables were all CSA items).

As you can probably tell from the recipe, it was also a large batch of “pesto”. I wanted to freeze some so the remainder went into ice cube trays so I can enjoy it throughout the winter. It is the next best thing to having it fresh!