The Recipe Room

Pesto is an all-time favourite of mine and one of my must-have sauces at home. There is both a green and red variety, but I prefer the green one because it is so versatile. Here is a dish of pasta with pesto, broccoli and Feta cheese that I make a lot – often in the morning before I rush to catch the bus to Uni!

A typical pesto is made by first placing garlic and pine nuts in a mortar and reducing it to a cream. After that, you add washed and dried basil leaves and grind it to a creamy consistency. Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino cheeses are then added together with some olive oil. However, if you don’t want to go to all this trouble, you can find pre-made pesto in most supermarkets. The most common one is pesto alla genovese.

You may believe that pesto is only used as a sauce for pasta, but think again! These pesto cod and chips use it as a dressing on top of seafood. Play around with pesto, and you never know what new delights you might discover!

What we need:

• 200g of tricolour pasta
• 2 tablespoons of green pesto
• 1 large red onion
• 1 large red pepper
• 1 dl of broccoli florets
• A small tin of green beans
• 10 black olives
• 100g of Feta cheese
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil

Tip! If you want to make your life easier, you can even use frozen vegetables instead of fresh.

How to make it:

1. Wash and chop the onion, pepper and broccoli into pieces.
2. Pour 1 litre of water into a saucepan and bring it to the boil.
3. Add the pasta and cook it according to instructions on the package.
4. Pour the olive oil in a frying pan.
5. Place the vegetables in the frying pan and let it all fry for a few minutes until the vegetables are soft.
6. Add the green beans.
7. Chop the olives into halves and add to the frying pan.
8. Drain the pasta when ready.
9. Add the pesto to the hot pasta and mix carefully.
10. Add all the vegetables from the frying pan.
11. Grate the Feta cheese over the pasta and stir once or twice.
12. Serve hot or store it in a Tupperware for later use.

Time needed: 15 minutes
Serves: 2
Level: Easy

Tags: black olives, broccoli, Feta cheese, green beans, Italian food, pasta, pasta with pesto broccoli and Feta cheese, pesto, quick, red onion, red pepper

This entry was posted on Friday, 15 June, 2012 at 2:02 pm by Leanne Summers and is filed under Less than 30 minutes, Main Courses, Meal for 2 people. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed RSS 2.0. You can leave a comment, or make a trackback from your own blog.