This garden pesto recipe is one of those truly adaptable recipes where you can just use what you have. 

If your garden is flush with basil, make it with just basil. If you have lots of parsley, use that. If you need to mix lots of different garden greens and edible weeds, that'll be perfect too. When basil isn't prolific in my garden, I use parsley, nasturtium leaves, dandelion leaves and rocket. 

This recipe is both nut and dairy free.

This freezes well making it a great way to preserve garden greens - use straight sided freezer safe jars.

Makes: 400 - 500 mL pesto

Ingredients:

• 2 cups firmly packed greens (basil, parsley, kale, watercress, spinach, edible weeds)
• 2 medium sized garlic cloves
• 1 cup sunflower seeds (or alternative)
• Juice from one lemon (adjust as needed)
• ¼ - ½ teaspoon salt (adjust as needed)
• 2/3 - ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil plus a little extra to pour over top once in jars

Method:

Remove any hard stems from the greens. Place everything except the extra virgin olive oil into a food processor. Blitz and slowly add the oil. You’ll need to stop the food processor and scrape down the sides a few times. Continue adding the oil slowly until you get to a consistency you are happy with. Taste and adjust the flavour as needed (more lemon and/or salt).

Spoon into jars then pour over a little oil to prevent browning of the surface before applying a lid. I divide across two jars and pop one in the fridge and the other in the freezer. If freezing, use a straight sided jar leaving some headspace for expansion or freeze in ice cubes or silicon moulds.

This will last approx. one week in the fridge and around 6 months in the freezer.