Day 6 - Asparagus Pesto Pasta

Gary decided it was time to buy a new vegetarian cookbook, so we went down to Chapter's and bought 365 Vegetarian Meal from Better Homes and Gardens. His first pick seemed easy enough and it contained mostly ingredients we already bought, so it wouldn't be a huge hassle to get rid of any left over ingredients.

Gary started out as usual by laying out all the food on the counter:

He may or may not have thought the asparagus were trees. 

Gary was very mischievous and got into a bit of a pickle:

"Little help here?"

After a lot of hard work, he finally got things going and successfully cooked up a half batch of Asparagus Pesto Pasta:

Before cooking this, Gary thought maybe a few tips would be helpful. 

• Although the recipe suggest you may either use a blender or food processor, Gary feels that a blender might not be the way to go. It took a very long time for the vegetables to blend together and even after 20 minutes, the pesto did not have the correct consistency. *Note: This could be due to the fact that there was only half of the recipe as opposed to a full recipe, however there are still no liquids to help facilitate the machine to grind up all the ingredients. 
• Gary wasn't a big fan of cutting up the garlic as it suggests. Perhaps it was due to the blender's inefficiency, but the garlic did not get mixed in with the other ingredients because it was too tough to grind in such big pieces.
• *Make sure you have enough time to go through the whole process of blending or processing the homemade pesto. It will surely take longer than indicated unless you have lots of experience and feel comfortable going at a faster pace. 

Asparagus Pesto Pasta  

Start to Finish: 25 minutes* / Makes: 6 servings

Per serving: 301 calories, 11g fat (2g saturated fat), 3mg cholestorol, 203mg sodium, 41g carbohydrates, 4g fiber, 10g protein

Ingredients: 

• 1 pound asparagus spears
• 1 cup frozen peas unthawed
• 1/4 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese (1 ounce)
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
• 1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
• 2 cloves garlic, quatered
• 1/4 teaspoon salt [Can be omitted]
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 10 ounces dried fettuccine (or other pasta of your choice)

Directions:

1. Snap off and discard woody bases from asparagus; rinse. Cut asparagus into 2-inch pieces. In a covered large saucepan, cook asparagus and peas in a small amount of boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes, or until tender; drain. 
2. For pesto,  in a blender or food processor combine half the asparagus and peas, the cheese, half of the nuts, the lemon peel, garlic, salt, and pepper. Cover and blend or process with several on/off turns until a paste forms, stopping the machine several times and scraping the sides. 
3. With the machine running slowly, gradually add oil and blend or process to the consistency of soft butter. Set aside. 
4. Cook pasta in boiling water according to package directions; drain. Return pasta to hot pan; toss pasta with pesto. 
5. To serve, top pasta mixture with the remaining cooked asparagus and peas. Sprinkle with the remaining pine nuts.