Walnut Pesto with CoCoFir for extra creaminess

My dear friend arrived the other day with a bunch fresh basil. Ahhhh the smell is divine! Basil is at its best in the summer, and since some of our best summer days are in October here in Southern California, we get to enjoy the benefits of basil throughout the fall and even most of the year.

l love to make a basil pesto using walnuts instead of pine nuts. I will sometimes add avocado if I want a creamier and thicker pesto, but last night I decided to add muun chi kefir to the pesto to create a creamy basil pesto that I used as a probiotic dressing. It would also be yummy as a pesto cream on a grain free pasta or zoodles.

Walnut Pesto - Super easy and oh so delicious:

2 c. fresh basil leaves (save the stems for my stock)

1/4 c. chopped walnuts

4 cloves of garlic

1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil

(optional - 1/3 c. nutritional yeast)

Whirl all the above ingredients in a food processor. We spread this pesto on our flatbread muun chi rounds and made mini-pizzas topped with roasted broccoli, yellow bell peppers and an array of mini-heirloom cherry tomatoes. It really did look like a rainbow.

Creamy Probiotic Basil Dressing for a salad or pasta:

Add 1/2 c muun chi CoCoFir to the pesto

We added the muun chi CoCoFir to about 1/3 c. of the pesto and made a creamy probiotic basil dressing that could be used on a salad or pasta.

Basil is a great antioxidant. Sweet basil contain anthocyanins and beta-carotene which help to fight free radicals in the body that cause cell damage and can lead to arthritis, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. And of course, it's good for our guts!