Macadamia Nut Pesto Recipe – raw and vegan :)

For about 3 years of my life I was living in the coastal, tropical goodness of Vista, Escondido, and Oceanside, CA. During that time I somehow found a guy living on a macadamia / citrus orchard given to him by his parents who has passed on. The man had no use for his macadamia nuts so I went over there and harvested THREE macadamia nut trees. Oh my gosh… it was heavenly. Carlos (my handsome lover) came over to help me crack those nuts, and then I created some amazing recipes like this one, for …

Macadamia nut pesto – raw, vegan, and delicious

ingredients

• 1/3 cup raw nuts
• large bunch of basil
• 5 garlic cloves (more or less, depending on preference)
• grated raw cheese
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 coconut oil or other organic, unrefined oil of choice
• 1/2 large lemon – juiced

prepare the goodness

My preferred method is to chop all of the dry ingredients BY HAND with a big, chopping knife. Leave out the lemon and oil.. just chop all the dry stuff really small and mix it up real nice. Then mix in the oil and lemon and serve! If you want to make a whole lot of this, you can store it in your freezer without the oil and lemon.

Another option is to use a food processor or high powered blender to blend/chop it up. 🙂

other nut options

Macadamia nuts are expensive if you don’t have access to someone’s free orchard bounty, so you could use other nuts instead. I haven’t tried almonds, but they might make a good pesto. I normally soak my almonds before using them.

Do you have a nutty idea?

Rendering Lard, your grandma’s cooking oil

The story that vegetable oil and cooking spray are healthier for you to use in cooking than good ol’ fashioned bacon grease is, to say the least, a MYTH. It seems to me like the movement to get people using corn oil, soybean oil, and other veggie oils (canola, cottonseed, etc.) comes from BIG AG and CORPORATIONS wanting to make BIG BUCKS while spending very little. They make a crappy product for pennies and then feed the public lies that it’s good for them, that it will lower cholesterol, that it’s good for your heart… all lies.

These oils are all UNsaturated, meaning that they will oxidize and create free radicals in your body when exposed to heat. Have you ever sauteed some meat in cooking oil, later to find that the oil turned brown or even black? This is happening in your body as well. Black is carbon is free radicals.. bad for your body. Certain oils are GREAT to eat raw – olive oil, grapeseed oil, avocado oil, apricot oil, etc.. all are great for the body if eaten raw or cooked at low temps. If you are cooking on medium to high temps, it is best to use saturated fats – lard, butter, or coconut oil.

Making lard is super easy! I got 10 pounds of fat from a local farm at the farmers market, from hogs raised on grass and compost scraps mainly. It was super cheap too! I took it home, chopped it into 1-2″ chunks, put them in pyrex cake pans and into the oven on the lowest temp and just let em sizzle overnight. In the morning they still hadn’t cooked all the way down so I put it into a big pot on the stove on low, covered, and finished it that way. After that I had some floating crunchy bits that I strained out and kept for sauces. The rest I put into tupperware to freeze and refrigerate.

Next time I will do it in a crock pot. 🙂

Learn more about the benefits of lard here –

• http://divinehealthfromtheinsideout.com/2011/05/the-truth-about-lard-why-you-should-use-it/
• http://www.rodale.com/research-feed/healthy-cooking-oil
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/feb/15/consider-lard

Do you use lard in your kitchen?

This post is linked up to Real Food Wednesday at kellythekitchenkop.com