food processor

Having a lovely creamy pasta with a salty flavoursome pesto on it, is something I’ve not had since I’ve been vegan, which is almost 9 years now. I decided to mess around with some ingredients and I came up with this:

Because the sauce is made from butter beans instead of cheese, it’s really filling. That protein certainly packs a punch! *flexes muscles* Kale is also a superfood and you should eat it every day, raw if possible.

Ingredients:

Pasta – I used Penne.

Alfredo Sauce

Vegan butter such as Vitalite.
4 cloves of garlic.
Sea salt.
Black pepper.
2 cans of butter beans, drained.
1 vegetable stock cube, undissolved.
Water as required from pasta.

Kale Pesto

A large handful of curly kale.
A large handful of raw walnuts.
Sea salt.
Rapeseed oil.

It’s best to start with the kale pesto so that it has time for all the flavours to infuse. Place the kale, walnuts and a sprinkle of sea salt into a food processor pulse blending whilst adding drops of rapeseed oil to gain the required consistency as pictured above.

Scrape out the pesto into a spare bowl and clean the food processor of all pesto flavours. You’ll need it for the next bit.

Get your pasta on to cook as per the packet instructions, drain and place to one side. (Try and keep at least a small glass of that beautiful starchy water. It will thicken your sauce.)

Chop and peel the garlic and fry gently in about two large tablespoons of Vitalite for 3 to 4 minutes. Once complete, pour the entire contents of the pan into the food processor. (Tip, keep tasting it to make sure it’s to your liking. My first batch was waaaaaay too salty.)

Now add the rest of the ingredients for the sauce and blend until you get a nice thick consistency. Place this sauce in the pan you fried the garlic in and spread out.

Now place the pasta in the pan and mix through. The pasta will start to absorb the sauce and reheat, however if it’s still too cold for your liking switch on the pan for a couple of minutes to heat through.

Season with some extra black pepper and the kale pesto.

This amount will feed four adults, easily. You’ll also have tons of pesto left over that will keep for up to week in the fridge.

Love and light! 🙂

Firstly let me just say, that I am really into Japanese style food at the moment. Secondly and I’m just going to put it out there, this is probably one of the best dishes I have ever made. The only thing that could have made this better was if I had used a pestle and mortar instead of a blender to make the broth paste. (Arthur our lovely ginger cat decided he didn’t like it anymore and smashed it on the floor.)

Also ASDA AKA Walmart is totally rubbish for all things Japanese, so I had to make substitutions left right and centre to make this work. It’s ok though because the bearded one absolutely loved it! \M/

We have six rescue cats by the way so whenever we are taking pictures that are not just purely of food, you’ll see a couple here and there. 😛

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 carrot, peeled and chopped.
4 large leaves of savoy cabbage, chopped.
Lemon grass herbs or paste.
10 black pepper corns.
1 large red onion.
5 cloves of garlic.
1 red chilli pepper.
A peeled slice of fresh ginger the length of your little finger.
250ml water.
Sea salt to add for your taste.
Half a head of fresh broccoli, chopped.
A handful of fresh coriander, chopped.
1 tin of coconut milk.
Sugar snap peas, de-podded.

The method:

Get your wok out and place a small amount of oil in it. Turn up the heat and place the chopped red onion and peppercorns in the pan.
Stir fry for about 3 minutes and then turn the heat off.
In the meantime deseed your red chilli and place it in a food processor with the garlic and ginger. Now add about 100 ml of water and wizz it all up to form a paste. (You may need to pulse blend here depending on how good your blender is. I’m not like other food bloggers. Vitamix has yet to endorse me, but hey if you’re listening guys, I don’t mind. :P)
Place your paste into your wok and crank up the heat again for another 3 or 4 minutes to reduce it down a bit.
Now it’s time to start adding ingredients one by one, each time stirring and covering in the tasty mixture you just made. I started with the carrots and and worked my way through the rest ending in coconut milk.
Make sure you have mixed everything in well.
Turn down the heat and allow to simmer for another 5 minutes so that the vegetables aren’t entirely raw.
Serve with some fresh coriander and chop sticks.