Hey Presto...Cashew & Parsley Pesto

The weather in Melbourne has been quite splendid this November.  Plenty of rain and loads of wonderful sunshine has kicked my garden plot into full production.

Among other delicious things, the garden plot has provided an abundance of parsley.

 What do you do with bags and bags full of parsley? You made PESTO!

I have had a pretty good success rate with pesto in the past, so this little recipe is an off the top of the head number. For this batch, I hijacked Nicole Jone's kitchen, and used her whiz bang food processor. But a mortar and pestle will do.

You will need:

• a truck load of parsley 
• around a cup of cashew 
• a hand full of almonds
• 2 garlic cloves
• around a quarter of a cup of extra virgin olive oil
• a cup or so of Parmesan finely grated
• teaspoon salt and a grind of pepper

remove stalks from the flat leaf

add nuts and give it a good whiz

add the cheese, and most of the olive oil...pulsing the food processor gently as you add the oil

and hey presto, you got PESTO!

The texture of the pesto was pretty dense, so I ground some more nuts separately and folded them into the mixture.

So what do you do with this green velvety delight? Why, you made pasta of course.

And you wash it down with a nice cold beer. Spring on a plate.