Pesto is such a nice alternative pasta sauce when you are tired of tomato based sauces. I tend to stay away from Alfredo sauce, not only because it's more fattening but its not really one of my favorites. This pesto uses green peas to thicken the consistency a little and to add some volume with out spending a fortune on basil, but feel free to leave it out if you are totally anti pea. Just be sure you cut way back on the olive oil and garlic.
1/2 cup fresh basil
3 cloves garlic
1 tbs pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup green peas
1 tbs parmesan cheese
salt to taste
In a blender pulse the basil, garlic, and pine nuts until coarsely chopped. Add the olive oil and peas and puree into a thick paste. Add the cheese and salt and pulse to mix.
Yields about 1cup. The entire cup is 590 calories and 58 g fat. I recommend about 1 tbs per serving which would be about 40 calories and 4 g fat.
You could put this on pasta or for a new chicken recipe you could bake some chicken breasts then spoon a little of this on top and trick your family onto thinking you made something totally new that was super complicated, even though it took less than 5 minutes to mix all this in the blender. What you have left over can go right into the freezer in an air tight bag/container. Another cool trick I learned is to spoon the pesto into an ice cube tray and freeze it then once the cubes are frozen pop them out and store them in a Ziploc bag. Then when you need a couple tbs worth you can get what you need easily and just stir them into your dish.
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