I love nasturtiums and we grow a lot of them down at the allotment, but the past couple of years I've grown them in our front garden as well. Where they completely took over. So I thought it was definitely time to try making a pesto out of them and I was really pleased with how it turned out, it made a really easy and fresh tasting meal.
I made it just how I make regular pesto so I am guessing a bit at the quantities below, I'd recommend just adding as much of things until the taste is to your liking.
INGREDIENTS:
Nasturtium leaves - I just picked a big handful, and a few of the flowers to garnish.
Juice of one lemon
2 cloves of garlic
Olive oil (about 200ml)
Handful of pine nuts
Parmesan (optional - I've made it with and without, without parmesan I just use more pine nuts and a little extra salt - you could also add a little nutritional yeast to add a bit of cheesy flavour).
Salt to taste.
METHOD: I use a food processor, you can use a stick blender or if you have the time and energy a pestle and mortar!
Add the leaves to the mixer and blitz a little, then add the pine nuts, olive oil, half of the lemon juice, the parmesan if using and blitz up to your required consistency. Taste it and add more lemon juice/salt/garlic until it is to your taste.
We ate this with some broccoli and courgettes from the allotment and a few black olives. Then garnished with a couple of nasturtium flowers as they are also edible and look lovely!