?Healthy Pesto Recipe?

Our families favorite meal! This healthy pesto recipe is the best meal.  If you want something clean and fancy for dinner this weekend, you’ll love this!  It is not just any recipe.  We have been having this one at least one to two times a month for a few years now.  We all love it.  My son, my daughter and especially my husband.  It also makes pretty good left-overs.

I want to talk about basil.  I have included a break down the health benefits from Dr. Mercola.

“Basil also is considered one of the healthiest herbs. It’s best when fresh, exuding a sweet, earthy aroma that indicates not only the promise of pleasantly pungent flavor, but an impressive list of nutrients. Vitamin K, essential for blood clotting, is one of them. Just two tablespoons of basil provides 29 percent of the daily recommended value.

Basil also provides vitamin A, which contains  beta-carotenes, powerful antioxidants that protect the cells lining a number of numerous body structures, including the blood vessels, from free radical damage. This helps prevent cholesterol in  blood from oxidizing, helping to prevent atherosclerosis, heart attacks, and stroke.

Other vitamins and minerals in basil include iron, calcium, manganese, magnesium, vitamin C and potassium. Not surprisingly, basil also has antibacterial properties and contains DNA-protecting flavonoids.  It’s the flavonoids and volatile oils in basil that give it the most health benefits, the former protecting on the cellular level, with antibacterial properties related to its volatile oils. Among these are estragole, linalool, cineole, eugenol, sabinene, myrcene, and limonene, all capable of restricting the growth of numerous harmful bacteria, including listeria, staphylococcus, E. coli, yersinia enterocolitica, and pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Some antibiotic medications which have been found to be resistant to some of these strains have been inhibited by basil extracts. One of those oils – eugenol – can block the activity of the harmful enzyme cyclooxygenase (COX). This same effect puts basil in the “anti-inflammatory” category because it provides relief from related problems, such as rheumatoid arthritis.”

Basil is something that I really think is important to add into our diets on a normal basis.  I also use the basil essential oil with an infuser in our house about once a week or every other week.

Healthy Pesto Recipe

• I buy Trader Joe’s live basil plant because it’s the best price in town. Rinse and tear leaves away from the stem. I use the whole plant.
• 2 Tablespoons of pine nuts
• 1/4 cup of shredded Parmesan (or) a vegan option is nutritional yeast. You can find it in the bulk section.
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• As many garlic gloves as you want. I usually do 3-4
• Salt and pepper