Whether your children are allergic or intolerant to nuts and dairy or your daycare doesn’t allow nuts, it doesn’t mean they can’t have pesto! Â AND who wouldn’t want to get their children into eating nutritious basil and pumpkin seeds?
I’m not one to follow a recipe, so when I saw the idea to make pesto on pumpkin seeds (pepitas), I decided to throw my own ingredients into our Thermomix and see what we got 🙂  You can’t go too wrong – I added a bit ‘too much’ lemon juice once but it was nice and tangy and the boys still loved it!  We grow our own basil, so the quantity of the remaining ingredients basically depends on how much basil we pick.  So here is a rough recipe.
Dairy Free Pesto
- Bunch of basil (about 2 cups of leaves) or try with coriander for a great ‘detox pesto’ (as in my photo!)
- About 1/2 cup pepitas or a combination of pepitas, sunflower seeds and cashews or other nuts like almonds
- Juice of 1/2 lemon or ~1tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- About 1/2 cup olive oil (ideally cold pressed, not processed olive oil) – but you may like to add more or a bit less depending how oily you want it. Â The pesto will go firmer in the fridge.
- Himalayan rock salt and pepper to taste
- 1tsp turmeric
- 1-2 tsp dulse or wakame flakes
Blend all ingredients together and it’s ready for a healthy ‘green’ sandwich filling by itself or with avocado.
Or a topping on roast sweet potato or of course pasta.  Or even add to some mayonnaise as a salad dressing or in a vege soup for flavour and texture… Or a topping on any meat?  As you can see, it doesn’t last long in our house 🙂  It should keep in your fridge for a good week.
