Arugula Pesto Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower

By hefk -
I think pesto is magically delicious. I posted a marjoram-parsley pesto recipe here not long ago and now I'm posting an arugula pesto recipe inspired by simplyrecipes.com. Of course, basil pesto is where the obsession started back in my 120 South Park kitchen in 2000.
For the pesto recipe, I took the fat down a notch this time and let the leaves and water do a lot of the work. The roasted cauliflower just sounded like a nice way to make it a more hearty dinner than a bowl of pasta. They worked well together.


Roasted Cauliflower

Preheat oven to 400

Ingredients

One head of cauliflower
olive oil
S&P

Wash head of cauliflower and pull apart lovingly into florets of varying sizes. (Cutting makes too much of a mess, pulling apart leaves you with nice big pieces)
Arrange on a baking sheet
Brush each floret with olive oil and sprinkle with S&P
Roast for about 25 minutes (I turned it up to 425 for the last 5 or so minutes)


Arugula Pesto Recipe

Ingredients

4 cups of packed arugula leaves, (I used baby arugula that was on sale. I washed the leaves and left them pretty wet.)
1/2 cup of walnuts
4 Tablespoon fresh Parmesan cheese
scant 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of chopped garlic

1 lb pasta shapes that have lots of grooves

Method

Food processor method (the fast way): Combine the arugula, walnuts, garlic, Parmesan cheese and olive oil into a food processor. Pulse until texture is what you want.

Prepare pasta according to package directions.

Combine in a cool bowl or pot.


Makes enough pesto sauce for an ample serving of pasta for four people.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dayton's Famous Pine Club Salad Dressing

By -
Well, close enough anyway. The Pine Club is probably Dayton's most famous restaraunt--not that Dayton is some culinary mecca or anything. This dressing is traditionally served on an iceberg lettuce salad with grated carrot (boring). It's a shame, really, since the dressing is so good but that's why it's better to eat it at home on the salad of your choice. I like it over a green salad with blue cheese, apples/pears and toasted walnuts/pecans, it's good with pasta salad and it's also good on Isaac's broccoli salad. Serves approximately 8. 1 C vegetable/canola oil 3/4 C cider vinegar 1/3 C white sugar 1 tsp salt 2 tsp garlic powder 1 scant tsp red pepper flakes You can mix this one of two ways: either pour it all into a mason jar, put on the lid and shake the heck out of it or do it up with your stick blender. I recommend using the stick blender. Either way it's delicious. Refrigerate leftovers and note that it keeps pretty well. I think I had my...
Read more

Pesto Tortellini Salad

By -
Why don't we just re-name the blog "Recipes Kelly Stole from Isaac's" because I seem to have no other recipes amongst my repertoire. Sheesh. Again, this is not really a recipe, but this salad was, and still is, one of the biggest sellers at the restaurant. As with all of Isaac's recipes, I've drastically reduced the quantity from the original (5 lbs. of tortellini, anyone?) 1.5 lbs tri-colored cheese-filled tortellini (or regular white ones, whatever), cooked according to pkg directions and gently rinsed with cold water 1.5 medium-ish tomatoes, diced 1/2 medium-size red onion, diced 1/3 C black olives (do yourself a favor and get some decent olives) 2/3 C or so pesto (I did a mix of basil pesto and arugula pesto) Dump all ingredients into a bowl and stir until everything is well-coated by the pesto. This is tasty when served immediately but the flavor will continue to develop the longer it sits. As usual, I added 2 handfuls of chopped asparagus but wi...
Read more

mango soba update

By gwen -
A small note to those of us trying to eat more veg, as Kelly would say... this soba noodle salad is delicious with slaw replacing some or all of the noodles. I made it with just one little bundle of noodles, a whole bag of broccoli slaw, and half a bag of cabbage/carrot mixture, and it's great -- actually provides a delicious crunch and you don't miss the rest of the noodles. I cooked the chicken in a bit of the marinade, too, and diced it into the salad/noodle/mango mixture for some protein. Yum.
Read more