Green Veggie Pasta
As its spring, I am in the mood for green! This very quick and easy dish combines gluten free brown rice pasta with fresh asparagus, courgettes, broccoli and pesto to make a very yummy dish. You can of course get creative with your vegetables and can even make your own pesto. You can also get creative with your choice of veggies.
Wild garlic is in season and makes a more intense pesto- you can experiment with blending a couple of handfuls of it with a few tablespoons of olive oil and some pine nuts and/or parmeggiano. Even a dash of lemon!
Serves 2
What you need
200g pasta
1 courgette chopped into half moons
a handful of purple sprouting or regular broccoli cut into small florets.
1 red onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 bunch of asparagus cut into thirds
Olive oil for frying (or coconut oil)
A handful of pine nuts
5 tablespoons of pesto (store bought or homemade)- you can add as much as you like to suit your palate.
1 tsp salt
pepper for seasoning
Extra parmeggiano (optional)
Method
Rinse the green veg and chop
Peel and chop the onions and garlic
Gently fry the onion over a low heat until soft and translucent and then add the garlic. Fry for a couple of minutes.
Now add the courgettes, broccoli and asparagus and fry for another few minutes adding a bit of water if it gets too dry.
Meanwhile in a separate frying pan, dry roast the pine nuts just long enough for them to gently brown and quickly remove from the heat.
Put 1.5 litres of water to boil with about 1 tsp of salt. Add the pasta and cook for about 5 mins until ‘al dente’, still a little bit of bite to it.
Drain the pasta and mix into the vegetables, add the pesto and gently warm everything.
Taste and season with salt and pepper
Finally add the pine nuts , extra parmeggiano if desired and some more olive oil if too dry and serve immediately.
Enjoy!
