Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Pesto!

Hey!! Last night we had pesto!! Sooooo good. I had been looking forward to this for so long, too! Hooray! And it did not disappoint. The recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance. You should buy that book (and Veganomicon). Full disclosure; I did not toast/roast the walnuts and I used half a recipe for a full pound of pasta! Tee hee!

Pesto

1 1/2 C fresh basil leaves, packed
1/4 C walnuts (5)
3 cloves garlic
1 t salt
1/4 C olive oil (16)
2 T nutritional yeast
1 t lemon juice
1 lb/16 oz angel hair pasta/spaghetti/whatever
up to 1 C pasta water, reserved

Boil water for pasta.
Meanwhile, in large bowl of processor, combine walnuts, basil, garlic and salt, scraping down sides to ensure everything is blended well.
Then add olive oil in a steady stream. Scrape sides again. Pulse again.
Add nutritional yeast and lemon juice, mix well.
Scrape into a large bowl.

When pasta is ready, place one spoonful into bowl, mix well (I just put my bowl with the pesto in it next to the pot of spaghetti and use a pasta spoon to pull out the pasta, keeping the pasta water handy). Add another, along with some of the pasta water if necessary, and mix well, keep adding spoonfuls of the pasta and water and mixing well until it's all in there. Be patient. The end.

This "Meeting at Corvallis" book is sort of taking a long time, not as good as the first, or actually the second, as that's the one I read first. But isn't that always the way... At least now they're finally fighting. I love me a good fight.

No knitting. Boo.