Cilantro Pesto with Pumpkin Seeds

Today's Recipe
If you don't know what to serve for dinner tonight ...
Enhance the flavor of chicken or fish with this great tasting pesto that can be prepared in a matter of minutes. Add it to fish tacoswith a few avocado slices for a taste treat. Enjoy!

Cilantro Pesto with Pumpkin Seeds
Prep and Cook Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:

• 2 cups chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 3 scallion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 or 3 canned jalapenos, depending on desired heat
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pumpkin seeds
• 2 TBS water
• 1 TBS fresh lemon juice
• 2 TBS extra virgin olive oil
• salt and white pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Chop garlic and let sit for 5 minutes to enhance its health-promoting properties while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
2. Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender. Add olive oil a little at a time at end. You want the pesto to be blended yet not smooth. It is best with a little texture. Serve at room temperature. Do not heat it.

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Healthy Food Tip
I am going on a trip and was wondering whether I should bring flax oil as I was concerned about it going rancid.

There are several variables that determine whether flax oil will go rancid (and how quickly). These variables include: 1) exposure to heat, 2) exposure to air, 3) exposure to light, 4) passage of time, and 5) quality of the oil itself. Assuming that your flax oil is in a tightly sealed, opaque bottle, variables 2 and 3 above should not be any more of a problem when you are traveling versus not traveling. Light won't make it through the opaque bottle that holds the flax oil, and air won't contact the oil any more than it ordinarily would when you open the bottle to use the oil. That leaves variables 1 (heat), 4 (passage of time) and 5 (quality of oil).
With respect to the quality of oil variable, some flax oil manufacturers add antioxidants to their oils to increase shelf life, and these oils would be expected to hold up better on a trip than oils not stabilized with antioxidants. Starting out your trip with an unopened bottle of oil would also be expected to lengthen its shelf life during your trip. The most controversial variables we have left are heat and the passage of time, and the impact of these variables depends largely on the type of trip you are planning to take.
For example, let's say you are going on a car trip for several hours and then will be staying at a hotel that has a refrigerator. Based upon these circumstances, I would probably bring the bottle of flax oil with you. (Even better, I might decide to bring an iced cooler in the car that would allow you to keep the flax oil cold en route.) However, if you didn't expect to have a refrigerator at your disposal, you would be running the risk of quicker rancidity due to excess heat exposure. What would the time frame be? I probably wouldn't keep a bottle of flax oil out of the refrigerator for more than a few days and much less if it was were going to be exposed to summertime-like heat.
You could take flaxseeds with you instead. While it would be ideal to take the whole seeds along as well as with a grinder to grind them fresh, that is probably not realistic. Alternatively, you could take the pre-ground seeds with you. They would last longer outside of the refrigerator than the pure oil because the other components help to stabilize them. There are many pre-ground flaxseed products on the marketplace that claim to offer a fairly long shelf life. Some of these products come in vacuum-sealed pouches that can be resealed after opening. While I believe that some oxidation may occur within the time frame they claim to still be fresh, I think that if you have unrefrigerated pre-ground seeds that were not exposed to excessive heat, you could probably still enjoy them for a week to ten days.
For more information on this topic, please see:

• Flaxseeds