I’ve had a lot of kale on my hands and not enough basil, so decided to mix it up a little bit and made a Kale Basil Pesto instead of the traditional pesto.   When creating and eating new recipes, sometimes I think of my grandson and wonder, will he like foods like pesto, hummus and Cream of vegetable Tomato Basil Soup?  I hope he does, I can’t wait to spoil and cook lots of yummy food for him.

I’ve been seeing a lot of my grandson lately, which is a very good thing.  It’s so fun to see how he grows and changes every week,  not that he needs to add to much more in the pounds department.  He tipped the scales to 21 pounds at his 6 month appointment, lets just say he’s a healthy “little” guy.  My daughter has waited until he was 6 months to start  introducing foods to him, doing it slowly to hopefully  help ward off any food allergies. His first food was avocado,  his reaction gave us all a good laugh,  it wasn’t his favorite, I think the funny faces he made gave it away,  however he did like the watermelon.  When I am eating something, I find myself wanting to share a bite with him, that day will be here soon enough when we can do that freely.  Before I know it, he will be helping me in the kitchen, or at least getting in my way.

Let’s get back to the Kale Basil Pesto.  It’s a little tough to grow basil up in my neck of the woods, we don’t quite get the heat that it needs to flourish.  We grow it in our greenhouse and that helps, unfortunately I didn’t plant enough this year, so to stretch that basil out a little farther, I decided to add some kale to the pesto.  Kale grows like a weed and I can’t seem to make enough smoothies to use it all so why not add this nutrient dense food to this flavorful pesto?

I find that I don’t miss the parmesan in my pesto, and don’t think you will either, this Kale Basil Pesto adds excellent flavor to wild salmon or any vegetable dish like Summer Vegetable Medley.   Stir it in some spiralized zucchini noodles or with tomatoes and basil on top of your favorite pizza crust, the ways to use the Kale Basil Pesto are endless in your meals.  It freezes well too, just pour it into an ice-cube tray and freeze, then put frozen cubes into a container and put in freezer to use the cubes as you need them.

If you provide sides of this pesto, which is full of healthy fat, fresh herbs and the superfood kale,  along side any meal,  your friends and family won’t miss the traditional non-healthy condiments they so liberally apply to their foods.

In hopes of making much more of this Kale Basil Pesto, I  planted more basil.  I’m hoping it will have a crazy growth spurt before the end of the growing season, here’s to lot’s more of  the sun shining and garden’s growing.

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