You will remember I've been busy shelling walnuts here at Struan Farm. I've been trying to stick to my goal of one tray a day on rainy days, of which we've had quite a few. And I've stuck to that commitment, on average. If I miss a day I shell two trays the next to make up for it. I'm starting to see that light at the end of the tunnel, only eight more trays to go!
I've also been watching my diet per doctor's instructions to try to get my blood pressure down the natural way. Rather than adopt a monastic regimen that would prompt me to go off the wagon eventually, I've tried to come up with something I can live with longer term. One weekend night each week I give myself a break and allow dessert and nibbles. I have increased my intake of potassium rich foods that are meant to help, and eliminated salt. I haven't stopped drinking red wine, since the advice on whether it's beneficial or not depends on who you talk to and what you read. It's a programme John is happy with. We've always eaten healthy foods, lots of salads and veggies, but there were too many morning and afternoon teas, nibbles and desserts.
Given that walnuts have been dominating my life at the moment I was interested to see a recipe for Walnut Pesto in the Viva section of the NZ Herald this week. We have gone through our ups and downs with basil pesto, the downs happening in reaction to having too much of a good thing after a bumper crop of basil in the glasshouse.
This pesto is served on bruschetta with blue cheese, warmed in the oven. It sounded rather too good to miss. I whipped a baguette out of the freezer to thaw, thinking this recipe would be a nice starter for Saturday night dinner. With the blue cheese in moderation, of course.
One cup of roasted walnuts, one cup parsley and one cup grated parmesan are put into the food processor with a clove of garlic, 1 tsp. lemon zest and 2 Tbs. lemon juice. Once this is processed 1/2 cup of good olive oil is drizzled in with the motor running. The pesto can be stored in a jar, although the recipe doesn't say for how long and if it needs to go into the fridge. (I wouldn't keep it for long unless frozen, and would put it in the fridge if you're not going to use it or freeze it.)
To make the bruschetta crumble blue cheese onto pesto topped toasted bread rounds, putting them in a pre-heated 170C oven for four minutes.
While it tasted good, the bruschetta was quite rich, really too rich for us. I'm thinking the pesto might be an interesting filling for homemade ravioli, or even rolled into scone scrolls/pinwheels, not that I'm indulging in the latter these days!
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.