Pesto

• Traditional pesto contains basil leaves, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, garlic, seasoning -- and pine nuts. Yet, the pine nuts can easily be replaced with similar nuts or seeds. Pine nuts are easy to grind in a mortar and pestle, and have a soft, moist texture. Roasted almonds may be a little too hard, and certainly too large, to use directly in a pesto without some preparation beforehand.

Almonds

• Almonds work best in pesto when blanched, which involves placing them in boiling water for a few minutes, then removing any extra skin and husk. That makes them much easier to work into a paste. Add blanched almonds, basil and garlic to a food processor and pulse until smooth. With a little bit more work, you can use a mortar and pestle to grind the ingredients into an almond pesto.

Pesto alla Siciliana

• At least one classic pesto variation features almonds as standard. The recipe for pesto alla Siciliana includes tomatoes, ricotta cheese and crushed almonds. This makes for a pleasantly gooey red pesto paste, with the almond taste coming through against ripe tomatoes. Similarly, pesto alla Trapanese is an Italian pesto that contains almonds and parsley, in addition to basil, garlic and olive oil.

Cooking

• Traditionally, pesto is served on pasta such as tagliatelle or fusilli. Freshly made warm almond pesto on hot pasta makes a perfect meal in itself. However, more creative uses of pesto include slathering it over plump chicken breasts, stuffing it inside bell peppers, or putting a scoop on salads. Almond pesto will even make a delicious and unusual spread for toast in the morning. Anywhere you can use pine nut pesto, you can use almond pesto.