One thing I do miss a teeny bit about my pre-vegan days is delicious spreads and dips. Most supermarket varieties are packed with either parmesan or cream cheese. And wellll.. hommos can get a bit old. So I thought I’d have a play around at creating my own! This semi sun dried tomato pesto is delish!
Here’s what you need:
- A small tub of sun-dried tomatoes - I think mine was around 220 grams
- ¼ red capsicum
- I used 3 lil home-grown cloves of garlic, but maybe just one if it’s the bigger, supermarket variety
- 30 grams pine nuts
- A few tablespoons olive oil
- A few fresh basil leaves
- A little pepper, and maybe some salt if you’re not saltaphobic like me
First, I chopped the capsicum into medium-sized pieces and roasted it, with the garlic and a little olive oil, until it was cooked through.
Now of course you could just pop it all in the blender and it would only take a few seconds, but I rather like any excuse to use a mortar and pestle, so I went with that option. It’s also a bit more chunky too, which is nice. I put the capsicum, garlic, basil and tomatoes in and smooshed them around until they started to turn into a paste.
Then pop in the pine nuts and keep bashing, until most of them are broken up. Stir in some olive oil, until the pesto is the right consistency.
Yum!
I popped mine in a wrap with nothing but salad and avocado and it was deeelish! It’s equally good alone as a dip, or mixed through pasta.
