Belonging to a fruit & veggie coop, I get really excited every Wednesday. Wednesdays are the day that we go to pick up our produce bin. The way our coop works, we don’t have control over what fruits & veggies we get each week. Instead, each week there is a huge variety of in-season produce overflowing in our bins. Hubby loves it because he juices pretty much every fruit & veggie and I love it because I can cook to my heart’s desire and experiment with new recipes and concoctions.
One week we received a huge bag of Basil as well as a huge bag of fresh spinach from our coop. Immediately I knew that I wanted to make pesto. But I wanted to add some additional nutrients into the pesto. I found a recipe for Basil Pesto and it was one of those moments where I heard angels singing from heaven when I realized we could add spinach to it. Basil is full of Vitamin A, K and folate and spinach is chock full of Iron, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Folate and Beta-Carotene so I figured combining the two greens would give hubby and I lots of vitamins and nutrients in just one meal!
The pesto recipe below goes perfectly on pasta, stuffed in chicken (make sure you see my upcoming recipe for this!), on sandwiches, pizzas, and so much more! Picture above is a veggie sandwich that is SO tasty and easy to make. Spread the pesto on both slices of bread, add any fresh veggies you like (pictured is fresh spinach, tomatoes & cucumbers), add mozzarella cheese and voila. A super easy vegetarian sandwich that is tasty and good for you!
Basil Spinach Pesto Recipe
(estimated 30 min to prepare)
Ingredients
1 cup of basil, packed
1 cup of spinach, packed
4 cloves of garlic
½ cup of pine nuts
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
¼ cup of lemon juice
Directions
1. Place all ingredients in to a food processor
2. Process to desired consistency. You may need to scrape the sides of the food processor to insure that everything gets chopped nicely.
3. Store in a glass jar
Enjoy!
Go HERE to see additional Recipes posted on Addicted to Saving
This recipe is adapted from Kalyn’s Kitchen
Thanks for coming to Addicted to Saving! Here’s a little bit about me so you can know who’s behind all these posts!
My name is Liza and I began my money-saving journey in the Spring of 2009 as a way to stretch a limited household income. I had lost my job and my hubby was self-employed. I launched Addicted to Saving in November of 2009 and it has grown by leaps and bounds. Since then, my hubby and I have struggled with the ups and downs of two failed adoptions and are now LOVING being parents to our little man Asher who we brought home from Ethiopia in August of 2013. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to help you save money. My goal is that you will have FUN and become empowered to save more and more money each week..
Yummy! I have made various forms of pesto over the years, but I don’t want to pay out money for Pine Nuts that never seem to be on sale, so I began using almonds and it works really well!
I have been looking for a good pesto to make at home! I didn’t want to use arugla, so now I know spinach works good too. Thanks! 🙂 So you don’t need to put any olive oil in this??
Great catch Jenn! I use EVOO 🙂 1/2 cup. 🙂
Love the idea of adding spinach!! I use walnuts instead of pine nuts, or a mix, to help keep the cost down.
I love substituting different nuts from pine nuts too! Pine nuts are so expensive! I haven’t tried walnuts but I’ve used almonds and even cashews. Yum.