So, my daughter’s nursery told me one day, that we can’t bring lunch that contains nuts as there is now a little person in the nursery with nut allergy. Now, my daughter is VERY picky, I suspect, that she thinks, that she can get away with this, just like her brother. Her brother has ASD and with that, serious eating problems. Basically, all he eats is pizza, pasta and some cereal. My 3-years-old daughter figured, if her brother can live on pizza and pasta, so can can she. There are fights, that tired mothers, who tried everything (and I mean, REALLY tried – in fact, still keep trying, but on different ways) to feed her precious moppets decent and healthy food don’t fight anymore. I just go with the flow now.
Anyways, currently my picky daughter’s favourite meal is macaroni pesto. She doesn’t like pasta with tomato sauce like any normal picky eater. No, she only eats pasta with pesto. (Which hopefully indicates, that picky daughter already have a good taste, even if it’s somewhat restricted. But there might be hope.) So she gets pasta with pesto about twice a week, sometimes more. For her packed lunch, because I cannot put the nursery staff through food induced meltdowns, she gets her favourites, an that includes pesto with pasta.
Now, since we can’t take regular pesto, I had to make a a nut-free version of it, and since I’m trying to make a new dish, might as well try to make it vegan so that it would be suitable for mostly vegan me and wannabe vegan husband too. Daughter eats her bodyweight in butter, chicken and cheese anyway.
So, I came up with this vegan and nut-free version. Nutritional yeast is not a big deal to source (this gives the sauce the cheese-like kick in the taste), sunflower seed butter can be trickier, but health shops sell it, mine is from Indigo Herbs of Glastonbury.
It’s super simple: throw all ingredients in the food processor and whizz. In the fridge, it would definitely last for a week. I usually freeze my fresh pesto. It thaws quickly and stays fresh for ages that way!
This is a great version for vegans and those with nut allergy.
- 50 g fresh basil leaves
- 1-2 clove garlic depending on how much do you like garlic
- 1 tbsp sunflower seed butter
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 50 ml extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
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Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth.
1 comment
Like the idea of sunflower seed butter as a substitute, will try this out.I can luckily eat nuts & love pesto made with walnuts or pistachios too.
If your daughter eats peas could try a pea & mint pesto as an alternative.. Happy pesto making!