This is one of my favourite dishes of all times. My dad loves the sun, sailing, water and good food. He tries to spend as much time near either of them as possible. When he was on board of a ship decades ago he became friends with the chef on board. The two would talk about food, sit in the sun and smoke cigars and then in a moment of mutual happiness, the chef decided to entrust my dad the recipe of his favourite dish on board. Below is the veganised version of it, it’s simple and prepared so quickly but so amazingly good and fresh and healthy!

Prep time	Cook time	Total Time
5 min	10 min	15 min

Raw Garlic is antibacterial, cleans the blood and detoxifies the body. Garlic has been known to be a natural remedy for thousands of years, it provides countless health benefits and helps cure many diseases. Special compounds give it the sharp taste, stinging peculiar smell and miraculous properties that help against cardiac disease, cough, cold and high blood pressure. Far less is known are more recent studies that found garlic disinfects the gut and there is recent research looking into its effects in helping with diabetes and even cancer.

Basil – when eaten fresh – is considered one of the healthiest herbs. It has an impressive list of nutrients, through it containing Vitamin A  is one of them which contains the powerful antioxidant beta-carotene which protects the cells from damage through free radicals. It also contains Vitamin C and K which is needed to enable the blood to clot and thereby prevents excessive bleeding, Iron, Magnesium, Potassium and Calcium and has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.  

Olive oil mainly consists of monounsaturated fatty acids but also contains a small proportion of polyunsaturated fatty acids, including Omega-6-fatty acids (linoleic acid) which is essential for humans. The. more unsaturated fatty acids and vitamins and oil has the healthier it is but also it is those that are more sensitive to heat. In the Pesto recipe above, the olive oil is not heated so it maintains its valuable properties.

The high life expectancy of the people on the Greek island of Crete has strongly contributed to the myth that the enjoyment of olive oil increases life expectancy.  olive oil consists of 80% of valuable monounsaturated fatty acids. It can also be assured that olive oil has a positive effect on cholesterol levels by reducing harmful LDL cholesterol and increasing valuable HDL cholesterol. The fact that olive oil prevents cancer and increases life expectancy, however, has not yet been proven.

Tip when buying Olive Oil: A distinction is made between refined and cold-pressed oil. Cold pressing is a purely mechanical process in which the olives are not heated. For this purpose, the highest quality olives are used. The gentle method leaves most of the vitamins and aromas. On the other hand for refined oil usually lower quality olives are used – so go for the the cold-pressed type!

Allergy advice:
Contains nuts

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Ingredients:

Ingredients for the Parmesan:

• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 cup cashews
• 1/2 cup pine nuts (it also tastes great with cashews only)
• 1 tbsp of salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Ingredients for the Pesto

All the above plus:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 250g (spelt) linguine or spaghetti
• 2 tbsp pinenuts to garnish
• 1l water, salted with 1 tbsp of salt
• 4 tbsp of the hot water the pasta is boiling in
• 1 cup of basil leaves
• 1-2 garlic cloves (I recommend you don’t use the pre-chopped frozen garlic for this)
• 8 cocktail/plum tomatoes

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Instructions:

1. Put the pasta in boiling salted water for about 8min.
2. Meanwhile heat a small pan on low to medium temperature without any oil and pour the nuts in
3. Keep stirring and add salt (watch out to not let the pine nuts turn brown as they’ll become bitter – they should only be slightly golden)
4. Peel the garlic and add along with 1 tbsp oil and nutritional yeast to a small food processor, blitz up quickly
5. Then add the nuts and blend again for a couple of seconds until the nuts break down into tiny pieces (be careful not to over blend this as otherwise you’ll get nut butter)
6. Great you are half way through the recipe and already made your parmesan: take 6 tsp of the nut cheese out of the food processor and place on a small dish
7. Add 1 cup of basil leaves and 2 more tbsp olive oil, 1-2 big fresh garlic cloves as well as 4 tbsp of the hot water to the rest of the parmesan in the food processor
8. Then, blitz it all up give it a taste and season with salt and pepper if needed
9. Add the cocktail tomatoes to the boiling water a minute before draining the pasta.
10. Then, you have to be quick to eat before the pasta cools off as the pesto is served unheated.
11. Peel the tomato skin off and place 3-4 tbsp of pesto,  2 tsp of the parmesan and some more pine nuts & fresh basil leaves or rocket on each plate

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