Spinach Pesto Recipe

On Sunday I was hungry for pizza and wanted to try out a recipe for pizza crust made from flax meal (see the next post).  My favoite pizza is basil pesto, artichokes and feta cheese. sadly, I didn't have any jarred pesto so I had to improvise.  I've been on a spinach kick lately; someties for dinner I will saute spinach and roasted garlic and just have that for dinner.  Yummy and good for you at the same time. Can't beat that!

I went on a search for an alternative to basil pesto.  I found the following recipe for spinach pesto. It is made the same way you would make basil pesto.  Another easy recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups washed, torn spinach leaves, stems removed, well packed. This was 2 bags of spinach
• 3 garlic cloves, halved
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts
• 1/2 teaspoon dried leaf basil, crumbled
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/8 tsp. salt

Preparation:

Place a few spinach leaves, garlic, pine nuts, basil and a little oil in blender or food processor container. Cover and puree until leaves begin to look crushed. Continue adding spinach leaves a few at a time with small amounts of oil to blender, using a rubber spatula to help to combine pureed mixture. Add Parmesan cheese and 1/8 tsp. salt. Cover and process until spinach pesto mixture is smooth.

I added a little more salt and basil to this recipe. I also found it tasted much better after it sat in the refrigerator for a bit.  Granted, it's not basil and doesn't have that taste but it's not bad and serves as a stand in.

The recipe was originally posted on About.com's Southern Food.