Recipe: Borage Pesto

With the borage growing like crazy in our garden, I needed to figure out how to do something more with it than just add the flowers and smallest leaves to salads. I'm a big lover of any kind of pesto and think it's important to always have a jar of pesto on hand. Pesto is delicious on almost everything from the obvious pasta to potato salad, thinned out as a salad dressing, on pizza, in sandwiches...well, you get the idea. I couldn't really find a solid recipe for borage pesto, so I experimented and came up with my own recipe--it's a nuttier, deeper version of the traditional pure basil pesto. 

The larger borage leaves are prickly and not easily eaten raw. When the leaves are cooked, however, the prickers soften and become edible. Before adding the borage leaves to the food processor, I lightly sautéed the leaves in olive oil and the little water left on the leaves from rinsing. I started with about 6 packed cups of borage and ended with 2 cups, cooked. 

In the end, I created a delicious, green pesto that's being added to my permanent recipe list.

Ingredients

1 cup toasted pine nuts

2 cups basil leaves

6 cups borage leaves (cooks down to 2 cups)

1 cup olive oil

5 cloves garlic

Instructions 

1. Remove borage leaves from stems, rinse them but don't dry off.
2. Heat up a medium-sized pan, add olive oil to the pan, coating the pans surface, and add a third of the borage leaves; lightly sauté them in olive oil and the water remaining on the leaves from rinsing. Remove the leaves and put in the food processor. Repeat twice with the remaining borage leaves. 
3. If you haven't already, toast your pine nuts. (Toasted pine nuts are so much better than fresh)
4. Add all remaining ingredients to your food processor and give it some swirls until smooth. Add olive oil if needed to make the pesto more viscous. 

To Serve

I added the pesto first to warm, boiled potatoes and three, six minute eggs, and it was divine. I also like to use my pesto on pasta and pizza, thin for a salad dressing, and add as a condiment to sandwiches. 

What's your favorite pesto recipe? Do fancy another herb or green? A different type of nut? Experimented with other types of oils or cheese?