Bringing the sunshine inside on this rainy day: freshly made pesto! Our basil plants have been growing in overdrive these last few weeks with all the sunshine we’ve been having, so nothing else to it than making a bunch of french pesto. And we don’t mind at all. I made a classic pesto with olive oil, toasted pine-nuts, parmesan cheese and lemon zest.
I also made fresh pasta, cutting the sheets into wide strips, like pappardelle. But just store bought dry pasta is fine as well of course! I would recommend using a wider pasta like tagliatelle or pappardelle in stead of spaghetti so the sauce can cover as much pasta as possible. Mmmmm.
Pasta Pesto!
Ingredients
- 200 g fresh pasta or 150 g dried pasta
- Handful toasted pine-nuts to serve
- 150g cherry tomatoes, halved
- Pesto
- Big bunch fresh basil, hard stems removed
- ± tbsp toasted pine nutes
- Zest of 1/2 a lemon
- Glug of good quality olive oil
- ± 100 g grated parmesan
Instructions
Make the pesto
Blitz all the basil, toasted pine-nuts, lemon zest and parmesan in a blender.
When coming together slowly start adding the olive oil until you reach the consistency you like.
Taste and season with pepper and salt.
Boil the the fresh pasta for ±3 minutes in salty water (for dried pasta follow instructions on the packaging).
Drain when ready leaving behind ± half a cup of the cooking liquid, this will help make the sauce nice and glossy.
Mix in the freshly made pesto (± 3 tbsp) and stir well.
Serve with some extra toasted pine nuts, cherry tomatoes and some basil flowers if you have any growing. Buon appetito!
Notes
For pasta I recommend a kind that will cover well in the sauce, like tagliatelle, papardelle, penne or fusilli.
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