Kale Pesto

I'm planning on growing kale again in my garden this year and would like to have an assortment of recipes to use.  I found this interesting recipe here and thought I would give it a try.  I love a good pesto and why not use kale?  I also like the addition of hemp seeds in the recipe.  The pesto came out quite tasty and I'm looking forward to using the leftovers to make a kale pesto pizza on Friday.

Here's the recipe:

Kale Pesto 

ingredients:

4 cloves garlic

3 cups kale (1 small bunch)

3/4 cup hemp seeds*

2 TBSP lemon juice

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp ground pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

1/3 cup parmesan cheese

*reserve pasta water

directions:

In food processor, add chopped garlic cloves and process until it it minced.  Add kale, hemp seeds, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  As it is processing, drizzle in some oil until it reaches desired consistency.  Pesto can be thinned out by using the reserved pasta water.

Add pesto to pasta and serve.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

*can use walnuts, pecans, slivered almonds or pine nuts to replace hemp seeds

*spice this up a little by adding some crushed red pepper to the mix

*try using flaxseed oil to replace the olive oil.  Flax seed oil has many benefits, like having heart healthy Omega 3 fatty acids.  

*You can make this vegan by replacing the parmesan cheese with vegan parmesan or nutritional yeast or leaving it out all together.

*Makes enough to cover 1 lb of pasta

*I added some of the reserved pasta water so the pesto didn't get too oily.

* I had leftover pesto and plan to use it when making homemade pizza.

*feel free to add more garlic (everybody loves garlic!)

If you make Kale Pesto, let me know what you think!

Enjoy!