Butterbean, Pasta and Pesto Salad

What are Mondays for, if not starting off with good intentions?

I’m not a big salad fan, but I do like butterbeans, pesto and pasta a great deal. So I decided to whip something up that would be a bit more interesting (and better for me) than a ham sandwich lunch.

This is really simple to make, and can easily be made out of leftover pasta if you happen to have made too much (which always, constantly happens to me). I am using my homemade pesto, but feel free to use any that you like. It takes 2 seconds to whip up, makes about 4 portions, and makes meal prep reeeeeally easy.

Feel free to play around with the flavours, or leave out the pepperoni to keep veggie. Speaking of veggies, I have a fairly limited repertoire of ones I actually like, so I’m happy with what I’ve put in, but feel free to go wild and add tomatoes or carrots or whatever you crazy salad-lovers fancy.

Grilled Chicken and Mozarella Flatbread

I love this meal. It feels like such a treat! I am not very good with just throwing things together and making something cohesive and edible. I'm more of a one-pot kind of person. So what I do is steal ideas from my favourite places to eat. Which is what I have done here. Don’t judge, just make it.

And the other great part of this meal is that making it can set you up really well for leftovers! For instance, I was able to use the rest of the flatbreads as a makeshift  garlic bread by cutting into slices, putting them on their sides and covering them in garlic butter. I used up the pesto with pasta and on pizza, and I roasted a bunch of peppers at the same time (thrifty!) to use on top of pizzas and to make hummus. For this reason, it is a great meal for the start of the week, because it gives you a leg up on the rest of the week! We are talking some serious “meal prep” without filling a million Tupperware containers with sad looking rice-salads.

Rocket Pesto

OH MY GOD.

You know I love pesto? I might have mentioned it like once before.

Well, I kind of stumbled upon a way to make it even better. Pepperier and lovelier and smoother. This makes an incredible pasta/pesto lunch. And honestly, it couldn’t be easier to make, like before, it is about prepping the ingredients briefly and then throwing it all in a food processor.  One trick I learned was to pour oil over the top of the pesto to make it “keep” longer.

I currently have a little pot of this in my fridge (emergency pesto!) and I can’t see that changing in the future.  I find it so useful for quick dinners and lunches – cook some pasta, stir through some pesto when the pasta is drained and still hot, sprinkle over some pine nuts and chilli flakes. I also love throwing some peas in there. Perfect!

Again, this is taken from the series “Nexus 5: My DSLR got stolen” so I am showcasing some quality phone pictures.

Makes a small tub of pesto

Creamy Pesto and Pasta

Hello long-weekenders! There is something absolutely delightful about having Monday off. And this is the perfect meal to whip up for those long, becoming warm, weekends.

So, as I said previously, I have recently been on a trip to Italy. While there, I sampled some amazing carbs food, and generally enjoyed myself for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

One of my favourite places was a small takeaway pasta place in Venice (#1 on tripadvisor!) where there were a choice of 8 sauces, 2 freshly made pastas and some extras. I have a huge weakness for pesto, and so when I saw a pesto sauce on the menu, I knew I had to sample it. It was completely unexpected in texture – creamy, saucy and thick. And of course, utterly delicious.

Of course, I had to have a go at making my own. The sauce in Venice felt much thicker and richer than if I had just added cream, so I decided to go with good old cream cheese.

So, what I have created here isn’t exactly what I had in Venice, but it’s close, and more importantly pretty delicious! A new favourite meal covering the weekday trifecta – quick, tasty, good fpr lunch the next day.