And the award for the best kitchen utensil goes to..........

The humble rubber spatula. I never realised this utensil's full potential until it came to getting a gloopy mixture out of the food blender. Having only owned a stand alone blender for a few months I was seriously regretting buying it and wish I had replaced my broken stick blender with a new stick blender. The shapes I was having to contort myself into to get to all the gloopiness was no joke. So as I was pawing my way through the pages of Vegan with a Vegeance I noted with mild interest that one of the kitchen utensils listed was a spatula. "Yeah right" I thought "Like I need another useless utensil to clog up my already clogged up kitchen drawers even more!".

Well the fickle finger of fate played a role in my life the other week as I was aimlessly walking round town and nipped in to a todo todo shop (a bit like a pound/dollar store). There on the shelf was a pack of 3 rubber spatulas of various sizes for the bargain price of 60 cents!! How could I resist? So I made my purchase, went home, unloaded my shopping and placed my new set of spatulas in the utensil drawer with an air or skeptism. Haha! The last laugh is on me. I decided to make some pesto tonight as I had a bit of tofu in the fridge that needed using up and I realised it was the perfect opportunity to try out my new gadget. All I can say is "How did I ever get by without one of these before?!!" I am a complete spatula convert and so I am dedicating this post to all the spatulas of the world. We do love and appreciate you - we really do. So yeah...onto the pesto (sorry spatula - food always takes the limelight).

Besto Pesto 1/8 Cup Pine Nuts 20 Fresh Basil Leaves 80 grams Firm Tofu 2 Cloves Garlic 1/2 Cup Olive Oil Pinch of salt Dry roast the Pine Nuts in a frying pan for a minute, toss the pan and fry for another minute. Place Pine Nuts in blender. Peel and roughly chop Garlic, crumble the Tofu and place both in the blender along with the Basil Leaves. Blitz for a few minutes. Add half the Olive Oil and blitz for another few minutes. With your spatula, scrape the sides. Blitz for a few more minutes then add the remaining oil and a pinch of salt. Blitz the whole lot again until everything is smooth and there are no lumps. And HEY PESTO! Delish

I'm storing mine in the fridge over night and will use it tomorrow with pasta. YUM!