pesto spaghetti with grilled eggplant& cherry tomatoes

first came across pesto pasta when i had wild rocket’s laksa pesto almost 10 years ago. was pretty impressive at the time. 🙂

i had mostly associated pesto pasta with vegetarian, and since i only started cooking 2 years ago & i mostly prefer meats, so i had started with seafood alio olio, later experimented on pink sauce (creamy tomatoes), chilli crab pasta etc. i have not yet attempted a carbonara myself (though my son makes a pretty good one & it should not be hard to do also).

recently during my lake como, cinque terre, milan trip, i tried some pesto pasta & they were really good, especially the one at fresco in milan. so i thought i might try out a pesto recipe & if it worked out, i would include in a grand tour tasting menu (haha…just kidding) for my good friends, now planned for 1st week of july. 🙂

i looked through several internet recipes e.g. how to make a tasty pesto pasta

i tried the recipe first on a small pasta dish, as i was reminded that pine nuts were very expensive…haha. 🙂 the first attempt was top photo above, which i grilled the eggplant & cherry tomatoes first, then tossed with the spaghetti & the pesto sauce. it was very flavourful, the nutty fragrance with the spinach & basil, and very tasty eggplants & tomatoes. it was though a little salty.

pesto spaghetti with grilled eggplant, zucchini & mushrooms

on the next occasion i prepared a larger portion as 1 of 3 pastas for a 6pax homecooked family dinner. this time i included zucchini & also caramelised some button mushrooms.

for the pesto sauce, i added basil, spinach, 1 clove of garlic & 1/2cup olive oil, some salt & pepper. i used chopped toasted almonds as proxy to the pinenuts & i added some shredded parmesan. it was a really excellent pasta.

pesto spaghetti with prawns & chicken

pesto spaghetti with prawns & chicken

and i had some leftover pesto sauce. so on the next day i added prawns & chicken (first fried in butter) & tossed with the spaghetti & pesto sauce, and it was excellent too. so, no need to be entirely vegetarian, though the vegetarian version was very good on its own. 🙂

c.h.e.f andy

Ingredients:

• spaghetti (300g)

pesto sauce-

• 1 cup spinach
• 1/2 cup basil
• 20g chopped toasted almonds
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp grated parmesan

Directions:

1. cook spaghetti 1minute less than instruction, & drained in colander
2. add spinach, basil, almonds to blender & blend. then add olive oil & grated parmesan & blend.
3. add spaghetti to pesto sauce in a pan & toss. add salt & pepper to taste. serve.