Spaghetti with Pea Pesto Recipe

Check out this lovely pea pesto mixed into spaghetti - just like classic pesto, only more summery!! I found this recipe in the latest edition of Waitrose Kitchen (July 2013), a really nice food magazine - it made me hungry just reading it, and I plan to try a few more of the recipes from it in the coming weeks.

I'm not the biggest pea lover, but this turned out to have a nice flavour - not too strongly pea-flavoured! The only thing I would say about this pesto is that it does have quite a strong garlic flavour - great for me as I love garlic, but if you are not so keen you could miss out one of the cloves.

According to the Waitrose Kitchen magazine, one portion is a reasonable 518 calories (if you're counting!) and of course all those peas help towards you getting your 5 a day - something I've recently been aiming to do every day.

Recipe - Pasta with Pea Pesto

Serves 4

Ingredients:

350g dried spaghetti

400g frozen garden peas

3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

50g parmesan, roughly chopped

3 tbsp olive oil

The juice of 1 lemon

25g basil leaves

Method:

1) Cook the spaghetti according the packet instructions. Once cooked, drain the pasta but reserve a cupful of the cooking water.

2) Whilst the pasta cooks cook the peas in a saucepan of boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain and leave to cool.

3) In a food processor (I used my Kenwood Mini Chopper – see here) blend together the garlic cloves, parmesan, 2 tbsp of the olive oil, the juice of half a lemon and a ¾ of the basil leaves to form a thick paste. Add the peas and blitz again until just combined. Season the mixture.

4) Put the spaghetti back into a saucepan with 6 tbsp of the reserved cooking water, the pea pesto mixture, the remaining oil and the juice of the other half of the lemon. Serve scattered with a few torn basil leaves and some grated parmesan. 

Lisa x

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Raspberry Eton Mess with Vanilla Cream

Just a quick post to share with you this tasty raspberry Eton mess I made today, which I enjoyed whilst watching the Wimbledon tennis final. A big congrats to Andy Murray for his win today - well deserved! 

I currently have an abundance of raspberries that I’ve been picking from the raspberry bush in our garden. I normally just snack on them plain, or use them in my homemade smoothies - but today I decided that I’d use some of them to make a summery dessert. And what’s more appropriate to enjoy whilst watching Wimbledon than an Eton mess?!

I found a recipe on the BBC website for an Eton mess with vanilla cream and mint (check out the link here) – it sounded lovely, exactly what I was looking for. However I did end up making a few adaptations from the original recipe. 

Firstly, the recipe calls for mixing whipped double cream, caster sugar, vanilla essence and broken meringue nest pieces. However I decided to make the vanilla cream first, and then mix it with the meringue. I also used icing sugar in place of caster sugar. So to make the vanilla cream I added the vanilla essence and icing sugar to the double cream, and whipped it all together with a hand whisk until it formed soft peaks. I then mixed the meringue pieces into the vanilla cream.

Additionally, once I’d made the raspberry coulis I decided that I wouldn’t bother straining it, as I don’t mind eating raspberry seeds. But this was personal preference - the coulis could be strained if desired.  I also added a little torn fresh mint into the coulis, just because I LOVE mint! But again, it’s personal preference.

I finished the dessert off with a few whole raspberries and some small mint leaves. And look at this tasty dessert… 

Tucking in...

This is definitely my idea of the perfect summer dessert.

Lisa x

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