Pesto, Eggplant and Mushroom Pasta

After making and devouring the Mushroom Burger with Pesto for lunch, there was still a considerable amount of pesto left over. The kids and The Lovely Wife liked the pesto so much that I decided to make a Pasta that very same night - using similar ingredients. I needed to pop down to the local Super to get more ingredients and I chose button mushrooms and a few more baby eggplant to go with the pasta.
The kids wanted Fettucine as their choice of pasta so that is what I used.

Ingredients
3 cloves garlic - chopped
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Basil
Pesto
2 baby Eggplant - sliced thinly
200g Button Mushrooms - sliced into chunks
Fettucine
Method
Fry the garlic with oregano and basil. Add in the sliced eggplant and cook over high heat till tender. Add in the mushrooms and cook till tender. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Cook the pasta and then toss in the Pesto and mix well until nicely combined. Serve the mushroom and eggplant over the pasta.

How easy is that? And how delicious did it turn out too! The whole family loved it as did I. The pasta becomes a nice green once coated with the Pesto and it even looks like it is a spinach pasta or some other sort of green pasta! Completely natural, completely healthy.



I'm sending this quick and easy dish over to Kirsten of From Kirsten's Kitchen to Yours who is hosting the ever popular Presto Pasta Nights for the fourth time it seems! Presto Pasta Nights is the brainchild of my friend Ruth from Once Upon a Feast. Now what could be better than sending in a Presto Pesto Pasta for Presto Pasta Nights? Enjoy!

A Sandwich for The Lovely Wife

The Lovely Wife enjoys her Pesto and recently when Michael made Pesto, there was a good bit leftover. Another thing that The Lovely Wife enjoys is a good sandwhich - not white bread for her though!

Also quite recently, over lunch at work, I had enjoyed a roasted vegetable sandwich that had pesto as its base and then roasted capsicum, mushroom and eggplant. I had mentioned this to The Lovely Wife. She remembered what I had told her and asked if I could do something similar.



Well, as it was, there was no eggplant nor mushroom nor much of any other vegetable in the fridge besides capsicum. So... I pan roasted some capsicum, spread the bread with pesto and then sprinkled grated cheddar cheese all over it. I considered toasting the bread but The Lovely Wife said it looked great as it was - not to mention the fact that she was hungry!



A simple enough dish to make and tasty to boot! Any roasted vegetable would go well with this and I reckon that just a plain pesto sandwich would be just as good! Sometimes its quite remarkable how something so simple can be so good...

Michael makes Pesto for a Presto Pesto Pasta

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

I've always believed in that saying and I try and put it into practice with the kids. I always like to teach them how to do something so that they learn how to do it themselves - instead of always doing it for them.

The same thing applies in the kitchen. It's no point always cooking good food for them if they never learn how easy it actually is to cook! That's one of the reasons why I've always encouraged my children to help out in the kitchen and both of them are more than happy to help. I'm slowly trying to get them to do more things in the kitchen on their own in the hope that one day they will be able to manage themselves in the kitchen and maybe cook a little something for us on their own.

A few posts back, Sarah helped me out with a batch of Choc Chip Banana Muffins and in fact, since she did most of the work, I gave her all the credit for it!

This time, Michael wanted to help me make a pesto as The Lovely Wife (or in this case, The Beloved Mother!) wanted a pesto pasta for lunch. This is the step by step of Michael making the pesto - with just a little help from me.


We used Cashew Nuts instead of pine nuts. After weiging out the nuts, the first thing with Cashews, as I learnt from MY Mother, is to always break them in half to check for sand, mites or any other foreign object. Get your sister to help out too!



Next, wash the basil leaves and place them in a colander to shake the water dry. Get the nuts and the basil leaves ready.



Get the food processor out and place it together with the basil leaves, nuts, olive oil and cheese on a table.
Yes, we forgot the garlic but more on that later...




Process the Basil leaves into a nice smooth paste.




Add in the nuts and process till smooth. Some people like the pesto a bit chunky so process it however fine you want it.



Oopps!! This is where I realised that we had forgotten the garlic. No matter, add it in as everything is going to be whizzed up anyway!



Next, Add in the cheese and process together. The mixture will get a little thick at this stage. Use a good quality cheese like Pecorino or parmesan although cheddar works as well.



Next, Add in the olive oil, a little at at time till the pesto forms a nice paste. The more oil you add, the thinner the paste - again, a matter of choice.


Finally, add some salt, dip you finger in, scoop up a little bit and taste it, adding more salt as required!



Hey Presto! Here's your Pesto!

Ingredients
3 Cloves Garlic
50g Sweet Basil Leaves
100g Cashew nuts
100g good quality cheese - grated
Olive Oil

Method
Blend everything up together in a food processor, adding the oil a little at a time at the end till the right consistency is achieved. The consistency is basically up to you.

To make a Pesto Pasta, boil your pasta of choice till Al Dente, then drain and toss together with your pesto. Again, how much you want to use is all a matter of taste.



I whipped up some meatballs to serve together with the Pesto Pasta for a little more body. The Lovely Wife however, preferred to have it just with some sliced cherry tomatoes. Did I mention she loves Pesto??!!



Michael was very proud of himself and so was I! As usual after eating, both kids thanked us for the meal. This is when I quipped, "Thank yourself! You made the pasta!"

You should have seen him beam!

Michael is proudly bringing this pasta over to Aqua from Served with Love who is hosting Presto Pasta Nights this week. Presto Pasta Nights is the brainchild of my friend Ruth over at Once upon a feast



I hope you not only enjoy this dish as much as we did but have just as much fun in the kitchen making it! Remember, kids are never to young to help out in the kitchen and cooking with kids is such good fun!