Bees, Basil, and Vegan Pesto

My garden has definitely matured since July. My basil is now growing faster than I can consume it, and I can't think of a better way to make use of all that excess than making pesto! Oh, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but I'm vegan. So it's vegan pesto time.



They grow up so fast.

 My first task was to harvest the basil. Not easy when you're battling a dozen honey bees. My basil was already flowering which of course attracted my bumbler friends. Not stoked on the prospect of getting stung, I would wait until the bees had moved on to another section before cutting my basil stalks down. After maybe ten minutes and a couple of fuzzy flying scares, I had my prize.

I'm growing two types of basil. Here's the classic that everyone loves (even bees).

The bees enjoy my purple basil too.

With basil ready, I pulled out my other ingredients: walnuts, garlic, nutritional yeast, and olive oil. If you've never tried nutritional yeast before, that probably means you're a normal human being. But you really should try it. It's got this salty, cheesy flavor that goes well on top of almost anything (my favorite foil is popcorn). It goes extremely well in pesto as a substitute for Parmesan cheese. You'll find my recipe at the bottom.



Pesto ingredients (from left to right): nutritional yeast, garlic, olive oil, walnuts, basil.

 I threw everything into a food processor and pulsed it as I slowly added olive oil. Towards the end, I added salt, pepper, and red chili flakes. Just like that, the pesto is delicious. However, I wanted to go the creamier route, so I added cooked chickpeas and a squeeze of lemon. Pureed together, this results in a thicker, more creamy pesto perfect for dipping or on pasta.

Everyone in the pool.



The end result! Creamy, luscious pesto.

Creamy Vegan Pesto:

• 2 cups fresh basil
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 cup raw walnuts (or pine nuts, whatever you have available)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• 15 oz. can chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 tsp. red chili flakes
• 1/3+ cup extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Puree first seven ingredients in a food processor, adding olive oil slowly. You may want more or less olive oil, whatever your preference.
2. Add salt and pepper as needed.

Garden Grove

So I started a garden in the beginning of July. The heat of the summer. Yup, I'm a genius.

I recently moved into a new house with a few of my friends, and the front yard was begging for some attention. We live on the southeast side of O'ahu where the sun shines and the water is scarce. The area for the garden was about 15x3 and covered with gravel and grassy overgrowth. After a couple days scraping away the gravel, I added a good bit of compost and turned up the soil. My soil was ready for some veggies!

I had basil, cilantro, tomato, corn, and snow peas growing in small pots and transplanted most of them. I had also bought some basil plants, a small jalapeno plant, rosemary, and some oregano to throw into the garden.

One morning I found trails on my basil and some tomato leaves. Slugs already?! Somewhere online told me that a bowl of beer would attract the slugs, drowning them before they had a chance to munch on my veggies. I tried it and I haven't seen anything on my plants since! I did catch a caterpillar munching my corn, but quickly squashed it. It's amazing how many critters are already into my starts!

I'll be posting my progress as the veggies mature.