Meatless Pesto Pasta

Sometimes you have those really bad weekends. You know the ones where you eat ALL the bad things you could possibly eat. Baked goods, fried foods, fatty greasy goodness. Then you get started on a new week and you just feel TERRIBLE. No amount of green tea will make you feel like your system is cleansed.

When that happens all I want to do is eat veggies, because even meat is too heavy. Enter a quick weekday meal, shall I say weekday vegetarian meal? There’s still a little cheese in it, so its still heavy enough to make me feel full. That and the pasta itself!

 
To redeem myself, I made a quick pesto. Then I sauteed some baby bella mushrooms and asparagus. Then tossed it all in the sauce, topped it with cheese and a little black pepper. Served with a piece of Texas Toast garlic bread and called it a night.

 

Quick Pesto Pasta
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Ingredients
Olive Oil
3 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced
1 onion, chopped
1 Box of your favorite pasta
Asparagus, washed and cut into bite sized pieces
Sliced baby portobella mushrooms
Salt
Pepper
1-2 cups of your favorite pesto
Parmesan Cheese
Instructions
Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a heavy 5 quart pot over medium high heat. Once oil is hot, add garlic and onions, saute until clear.
Toss in mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste, and cook until brown. Remove from heat, set aside.
In a saute pan, heat a 1tbsp of olive oil, then saute asparagus in salt and pepper, to taste, until bright green and slightly crunchy. Add to pot with the mushrooms and onions. Stir.
Boil pasta according to directions, I like to add salt and olive oil to the boil water.
Drain pasta. Add to heavy pot with the veggies, toss with your favorite pesto, and top with Parmesan cheese!
Notes
Make sure asparagus is dried before you put it in the hot saute pan of oil!
Miemonster Chronicles http://www.miemonster.net/

Basil.Pesto.Yum

Doorstep Basil(Via flickr)

My friends who are health conscious, and physically fit like to have special dietary needs. One of them being the raw diet. Wanting to be supportive and anticipating a cooking challenge, I asked if I could help “cook” (I guess the word would be prepare since there’s no cooking in raw diet). She suggested a zucchini with pesto meal. WHEEE! Challenge accepted. I’m not going to tell you how to prepare raw diet pesto, which consists of NO cheese, but I just wanted to tell you about how I make my own pesto from scratch now. I used to make it from the package all the time, but fresh is actually much better and I like the texture!   Continue reading