Spiralized Vegetables with Broccoli Pesto

The lengths I go to for dieting… I wasn’t looking forward to my dinner recently as I’d decided to make pesto out of broccoli and serve it over spiralized veg, while my fiancé was tucking in to a pizza. Though as he correctly pointed out, it was a frozen pizza and he could have ordered Domino’s but didn’t as he knew it would make it harder for me - and I was the one who cooked him the pizza!

 

But when I actually started to eat my dinner I was surprised at how good it actually tasted, and I really enjoyed it. Which is not to say I wouldn’t rather have had a pizza but I have a wedding dress to get in to!

 

The recipe comes from I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson which has become a book I turn to a lot at the moment!

  

To serve one, you need:

Spiralized veg: I used half a tub of spiralized carrot from Tesco (it’s hard to put a carrot through a spiralizer unless it’s a really thick one), and I spiralized half a butternut squash to go with it.

For the pesto:

1 cup broccoli florets, steamed until tender

1 spring onion, peeled

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

2 tbsp olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

15g grated parmesan or 30g cashews, soaked in water for 1-4 hours and drained – but I didn’t have time to do this and used them without soaking and it worked pretty much fine I think. I also cheated and used both the parmesan and the cashews which made the pesto more substantial and gave it a lovely flavour.

Salt and pepper to taste

Basically I put all the ingredients in a food processor

 

Pulse until you have a thick green paste

Serve over spiralized veg, which I find best gently steamed or stir fried so it isn't raw but it doesn't take much cooking:

I'm sending this to Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. Also this recipe would be vegan if you left out the parmesan.

 

Deliciously Ella Brazil Nut and Rocket Pesto Pasta

I was given the Deliciously Ella cookery book for my birthday and have already made a couple of things from it; I’m never going to be as health-conscious as she is, and certainly don’t think it’s likely that I will ever switch to a vegan or vegetarian diet, but it’s definitely good to switch things up and every now and then eat some super-healthy meat-free meals.
 

 

 

I liked the idea of her zucchini noodles with a minted avocado sauce but I wasn’t quite brave enough to make the zucchini noodles – at least not at this point, because I don’t really like courgette but I also don’t really like avocado! But I do have a spiralizer and I reckon if I made a different sauce with the ‘courgetti’ (courgette spaghetti) it would be OK, so watch this space!

 

 

I decided therefore to cook regular spaghetti but make the sauce as I have a lot of mint growing in my garden and love to find recipes I can use it in.

 

As Ella says, this is a very rich, creamy pasta –I left out the mushrooms as I can’t stand them though Ella does say they add a “next level of deliciousness” so if you like mushrooms then do add them in.

 

I chopped the nuts in a food processor and added the avocado, oil, lime, mint leaves and salt and blended until I had a chunky sauce. The beauty is that this doesn’t need to be cooked so it is so quick. It’s nice heated through a little so when I drained the pasta I returned it to the pan with the sauce. It was surprisingly good given I don’t really like avocado and I felt very virtuous!

 

 

 I'm sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Jen's Food is hosting Extra Veg this month on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle of Utterly Scrummy; this is a great way to eat some extra veg almost without noticing!
 

 

Emily at A Mummy Too is hosting Pasta Please on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes so I'm sharing this recipe.

 

 

Salmon with Linguine and Leek Pesto

I was looking for a springtime pasta recipe and came across this recipe for salmon with linguine and ramp pesto. I'd never heard of ramp but according to Wikipedia the allium tricoccum is known as many things, including ramp, spring onion and wild leek. I don't think it's actually the American word for spring onion though as that's scallion. I had some leeks in my fridge and decided that would be close enough and I would give it a go!

I didn't have Asiago cheese (whatever that is) but did have parmesan in my fridge, and a packet of sliced almonds that needed using up. So I decided to throw the whole lot together and make my own springtime pasta!

To serve 3-4, you need:
1 leek, sliced
2 tbsp. oil
30g grated parmesan
30g flaked almonds
handful of fresh parsley
approx. 4-6 tbsp. oil
to serve: linguine
salmon fillet

Cook the pasta according to pack instructions and cook the salmon fillet in whichever manner you prefer - pan fry, poach, oven roast or even microwave. This is really just the recipe for the pesto...

Slice the leek and add to a large pan with 2 tbsp. oil. Heat until the leeks are softened but not browned.

Transfer to a food processor along with the parmesan, almonds and parsley, and pulse for a few seconds. With the motor running, slowly add the oil until it reaches your preferred consistency.





Toss through the cooked pasta and top with the salmon. Enjoy!

This had a different flavour (obviously) to pesto I'd had before but thanks to the parmesan and nuts it was still definitely a pesto, and I really enjoyed it.

I'm sending this to Credit Crunch Munch, hosted this month by Jo's Kitchen on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All. Parmesan isn't cheap but I'm sure a lot of people like me have half a packet hanging around to be used up, and as this recipe only used things I already had open in my fridge, hopefully it counts!

This recipe is a good way to sneak in some veg so I am sending this to the Extra Veg challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. The challenge was started by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy.

Leeks are in season so I am sending this to Simple and In Season, hosted by Ren Behan.

The recipe uses fresh parsley so I am sending it to Cooking with Herbs, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

 

Finally I am sending this to Pasta Please, hosted by Family Friends Food on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes as the challenge this month is for springtime pasta recipes.

Hotel Chocolat Cocoa Pasta - Two Recipes and a Review

 

 

When Hotel Chocolat offered to send me some of their cocoa pasta I was intrigued; I had no idea whether it would be sweet or savoury and what you would even do with pasta that tastes like chocolate. Luckily they had two recipes on their website so I decided to make both and write about my experience here.

 



 

They also sent me some of their cocoa pesto, which is part of Hotel Chocolat's new Cocoa Cuisine range - other items in the range include cocoa mayo, white chocolate horseradish, and cocoa and chilli oil. The pasta costs £5 for 250g and the Cocoa Pesto, which costs £8 for a 190g jar, contains rough-chopped basil, crunchy pine nuts, Italian cheese and nutty roast cocoa nibs.

 

 

There are two recipe suggestions for the Cocoa Pasta on the website, firstly Chocolate Pasta with Pesto, Ricotta and Broccoli, and secondly a Nigella Lawson recipe, Chocolate Pasta with Caramel and Pecans. I decided to make them both, on different days.

 

 

Chocolate Pasta with Pesto, Ricotta and Broccoli

serves 2

175g Hotel Chocolat Chocolate Pasta

100g Hotel Chocolat Cocoa Pesto

100g ricotta cheese

25g grated parmesan cheese

75g broccoli florets

salt and pepper

 Bring the pasta to the boil in a saucepan and cook until al dente. Drain but reserve a little of the cooking water. Meanwhile cook the broccoli - you could do this at the same time in the same pan as the pasta.



 

Here's the Cocoa Pesto, it looks very interesting!

Return the pasta to the pan and stir in the pesto, ricotta and half the parmesan and season. Add a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking water to loosen the sauce.

 Return the pan to the heat and add the broccoli; toss until combined and heated through. Sprinkle with the rest of the parmesan.

I actually used thinly sliced parmesan (using the wide blade on my cheesegrater) to put on top. This was an interesting dish with a slightly bitter flavour - I'm not sure if that comes from the pesto or the pasta. To be honest it wasn't entirely to my taste but it wasn't bad and was certainly different - I think it would be fun to serve at a dinner party and see people's reactions to the idea of chocolate pasta!

The other recipe was a dessert recipe and as I have a sweet tooth I had high hopes for this one.

Chocolate Pasta with Caramel and Pecans
serves 1
75g Hotel Chocolat cocoa pasta
pinch of salt
25g pecans, chopped
25g butter, softened
25g brown sugar
50ml double cream

Cook the pasta with a pinch of salt until al dente. Drain but reserve some of the cooking liquid.
Dry fry the pecans over a medium heat then transfer to a bowl.

Add the butter and sugar to the frying pan and heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Pour in the cream, add the pecans and pinch of salt and remove from the heat.

Toss the drained pasta with the caramel sauce with a spoonful or two of the cooking sauce if needed.

I really enjoyed this dish, I imagine largely thanks to the caramel sauce, and it didn't seem strange at all eating pasta as a dessert. I guess if you can have bread pudding and rice pudding there's no reason you can't eat pasta as a pudding!

Overall I found the chocolate pasta very interesting and more versatile than I imagined; I wasn't so keen on the pesto and probably wouldn't buy that again and the pasta is a little expensive to buy every week but I would try this again. If you haven't already checked out Hotel Choocolat's Cocoa Cuisine range then I urge you to have a look at some of their more unusual ingredients!

Nigella's Pistachio Pesto

The theme for this month's Pasta Please is homemade pesto, which is something I haven't made before. I don't often eat pesto as it seems quite oily but I thought freshly made would be more healthy and it was about time I had a go at making it! I did it for a mid-week dinner and it actually turned out to be very quick to make.

Pesto is usually made of garlic, basil and pine nuts, combined with olive oil, but the name actually comes from the Italian verb meaning to pound or to crush. So technically anything made in this manner would be a pesto - I had some pistachios I wanted to use up from this cake so when I came across a recipe for pistachio pesto in Nigella's Nigellissima, it seemed ideal.

She serves her pesto over green beans and says the following quantity will serve 6-8 as a side dish:

3 tbsp pistachios (shelled)

3 tbsp grated parmesan

leaves from a small bunch of fresh basil

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Place pistachios, fresh basil, grated parmesan and salt in a food processor and blend to a paste.

Slowly pour in some olive oil and a dash of lemon juice and blend again until you have a runny paste

Simply stir into cooked pasta. This tasted delicious though it was more oil than I would usually use so I think this would have to be a recipe I make less frequently than others.

I'll be interested to see the round-up for Pasta Please and if anyone has a healthier variant on pesto that doesn't use so much oil!

Pasta Please is hosted this month by Jen at Blue Kitchen Bakes  and was started by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.