Orange Walnut Sage Pesto #FreshSage #SageVinaigrette

I seriously should have taken a picture of my out-of-control sage plant in my garden last week. After harvesting most of it and de-stemmed the leaves, I had 28 cups of sage, medium packed. Twenty eight cups!

Then the dilemma followed: what would I do with all of that?

I found a recipe for walnut sage pesto that called for lemon, but I use lemon juice and zest in my tarragon pesto. I had to seek another flavor: orange zest and fresh squeezed juice. I modified the other recipe by taking out a few ingredients and adding the zest. This weekend I created a vinaigrette for a roasted potato salad for a birthday party I attended. Before I had a chance to take a picture of the salad, it was gone!

Ingredients

3.5 cups sage leaves
1 cup Italian parsley leaves
¾ teaspoon pressed garlic or 1 clove
¾ cup toasted walnuts
2 tablespoon fresh orange juice
¼ teaspoon orange zest
2/3 cup blood orange flavored olive oil*

To toast the walnuts, heat a cast iron pan with a teaspoon of the blood orange oil, just enough to coat. Add the walnuts and stir. I toasted the walnuts for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Cool before adding to the food processor.

Place the herbs in a large food processor and pulse until the leaves are close to being finely chopped in appearance. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse to make a paste, adding more olive oil if necessary. This recipe should fill a half pint mason jar. At this point, I put the pesto in small 4oz mason jars and floated more blood orange oil over the top. I should also note that I multiplied the recipe because I filled a dozen 4oz jars and five 8oz jars. After all, I had 28 cups of sage leaves! Just for you, I measured this recipe so that you could make this at home and have a manageable amount.

For the vinaigrette, I added the juice and zest of two large oranges and about a half cup of the blood orange oil, adding 4oz of sage pesto to a pint mason jar. I must admit I did add some of the orange pulp to make the dressing thicker. Cover and shake well. To use, mix with your favorite vegetables. I roasted tiny yellow potatoes, added a finely chopped red bell pepper and sliced water chestnuts.

Bon Appétit!

#freshsage #gardenherbs #freshingredients #recipe

*Two local Boise flavored oil choices: I used Olivin for the pesto and ExtravaGONZO to float over the pesto in the mason jars. Spreading the local market!

http://www.olivinboise.com/
https://www.extravagonzofoods.com/