Vegan and Gluten Free Leek and Roasted Almond Pesto

Vegan and Gluten Free Leek and Roasted Almond Pesto

(Yes, shown with gluten-filled pasta, and milk based cheese.  It's what we had on hand. So sue me!)

Sometimes it can be hard to stick to eating with the seasons.  For me, this is never more true than when we have a craving for pesto in the middle of winter!  Vegetarian pesto, difficult to find at the best of times, almost impossible in the south of France, is one of those staples that has gotten us through many a bout of extreme essay writing in Scotland.  So, its not that surprising that it’s a food we crave when stress rears its ugly head, which it has been doing a lot lately! 

Since its expensive to buy in Scotland, and just hard to come by in Japan and France, we started making our own pesto years ago.  Swiss chard makes a particularly nice one (recipe to come soon), but pretty much anything green and delicious can be used to make a good veggie substitute.  Although I thought we’d tried just about every possible green by now, for some reason leek had never come under the blender – until now! 

This pesto has that delicious, slightly sweet flavour that leek is so prized for, combined with a really nice crunch and richness from the almonds…I will definitely be making this again, and I hope you will too!

Vegan and Gluten Free Leek and Roasted Almond Pesto

Makes enough pesto for 4 – 6 portions of pasta, depending on how heavy you like it!

Total time: approximately 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 medium leek, washed and finely chopped

½ medium onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped or mashed (optional)

1 handful of roasted almonds

Salt and pepper, to taste

Good quality olive oil

Sautée the leek, onion, and garlic (if using) in olive oil until golden-brown, then transfer to a food processor, or blender.  Add the almonds, salt and pepper, and more olive oil (we added about 1 tsp, but its up to you!) and blend until smooth.  We like to leave the almonds a bit chunky, since it gives a nice contrasting texture.  Mix into pasta, rice, dollop onto soup, or whatever you fancy!  A dusting of vegetarian pecorino (because they have that readily available in France, for some reason, even though there isn’t any vegetarian pesto to be had…) or vegan cashew cheese (recipe to come) or just some more ground pepper should do the trick!