Tuesday 10 February 2015

Super Greens Pesto Pasta with Fast Focaccia

As I said in my last post I have the week off work, I'm spending most of this time developing new recipes. I wanted to make a healthy pasta dish and this pesto pasta is as healthy as its going to get. Using no oil, this pesto is low in fat and full of veggie goodness.
I used peas, kale, spinach and basil along with garlic and ground almonds. Usually you would loosen the pesto with oil, I added a small amount of warm water to get it all going.

I roasted some mushrooms and sweet potato to go on the top and I also knocked up a little bread to mop up the pesto. Delicious, filling and very easy to make. The whole thing only takes about 30 minutes from start to finish including the bread. The bread isn't exactly low fat but it's better than processed shop bought stuff. You could omit a lot of the oil used in the bread recipe but it may be a bit dry.




Super Greens Pesto Pasta

Recipe by Andrew Donaldson
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
  • 1 cup Frozen Peas
  • 1/2 cup Fresh Basil
  • 1/2 cup Spinach
  • 1/2 cup Kale
  • 3 cloves Garlic, Peeled and Chopped
  • 1/2 cup Ground Almonds
  • 2 tbsp Warm Water
  • 2 cups Dry Whole Wheat Pasta
  • 1 cup Roasted Sweet Potato
  • 1 cup Roasted Mushroom
Cooking Directions
  1. In a food processor place the garlic and almonds and pulse until chopped.
  2. Add in the rest of the ingredients to the processor and blitz on the highest setting for about a minute. (you may need to add a little more water if it seems too thick)
  3. Cook pasta to package recommendations, drain and stir through the pesto over a low heat until hot.
  4. Serve topped with roasted sweet potato and mushrooms.



Fast Focaccia

Recipe by Andrew Donaldson
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Total time: 35 minutes
Yield: 1 Foccacia
Ingredients
  • 1 cup Water
  • 2 Cups Flour
  • 2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 1 tsp Salt
  • 1 tbsp Olive Oil
  • 1 tbsp Garlic Granuales
  • 1/2 cup Basil Oil or Dried Basil and Olive Oil, Mixed
  • 1 tsp Chili Flakes
Cooking Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 8 (220 c or 425 f)
  2. Add the water, flour, baking powder, salt and oil to a bowl mix into a soft, sticky dough.
  3. Knead the dough until soft and stretchy (about 5 minutes)
  4. Stretch the dough into an oiled pan and pour over the basil oil, garlic granules and chili flakes.
  5. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, then flip over the bread and bake for another 5 minutes to crisp the top.

I hope you find this recipe useful, you could use the pesto in all sorts of other recipes such as pizza, flatbreads or hummus. If you make this dish post a picture to instagram with #NEveggie.

 See you soon.