Pasta with pea shoot and baby leaf pesto and sundried tomatoes

The weather in England today is so nicely warm and sunny. People in the Nordic countries are celebrating Midsummer in not so warm conditions, but I wish you all a nice Midsummer nevertheless.

Pasta with pesto is pretty much perfect summer food for me. Throw a tomato and mozzarella salad on the side and it can be close to heaven. Pesto is so incredible as it can be made from so many different summer greens, and this time I chose to use pea shoots and baby leaves. I added some sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, hazelnuts and vegetarian pasta cheese to the dish and here's my recipe.

Pea shoot and baby leaf pesto:

90 g mixed baby leaves and pea shoots

1 garlic clove

4-6 tbsp olive oil

10 g pine nuts

Other ingredients:

10 sundried tomatoes

1 tsp olive oil

Fresh basil

Handful of hazelnuts

Vegetarian pasta cheese

Amori pasta

Method:

First make the pea shoot and baby leaf pesto by puréeing all the ingredients together. Then the pesto can wait in the fridge for the rest to be made.

Cut the sundried tomatoes into smaller pieces and soak them in water for about 10 minutes.

Cut the hazelnuts in halves and roast them in the oven until the flavour are released.

Briefly cook the sundried tomatoes in olive oil in a pan and add the basil and hazelnuts.

Make shavings from the vegetarian pasta cheese.

Cook the pasta until it's al dente and then mix it with the tomatoes, nuts and pesto. 

This is how my summerly pesto pasta dish is done and I want to share it with two cooking challenges. Firstly due to its greenness, I'm sharing this recipe with this month's Eat Your Greens challenge by Shaheen from A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. 

I also want to add this to this month's Pasta Please challenge, which is a cooking challenge by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes and hosted this month by BakingQueen74.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

Sun-dried tomato spelt bread

I was so excited when I had the idea of making sun-dried tomato bread. Only later, during the baking I realised that I have made a similar one before. I posted it here and used a recipe from the Great British Chefs page. Today's bread however was a quick and spontaneous one and I didn't consult that recipe before. Once again, this bread is baked with spelt flour. As I have so many tomatoes, I decided to add one fresh one as well, maybe to add just some colour.

Ingredients to make one loaf

1 tomato

4-6 sun-dried tomatoes

1 tbsp dry yeast

150 ml lukewarm water

6 dl spelt flour

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

Poppy seeds for the top

Method

Peel the fresh tomato by dipping it to boiling water for a couple of seconds. Then the peel comes off well. Crush the tomato to the lukewarm water.

Chop the sun-dried tomatoes finely and add them to the water. Also add the dry yeast to this mix. Leave them in the water for a couple of minutes while you measure the other ingredients.

Mix the flour and salt. Add the tomato and water mix and olive oil. Knead the dough and let it rise for about one hour.

Shape a loaf of the dough and place it to a bread tin. Let it rise for further 30 minutes.

Then bake at 220C for about 25 minutes.

Enjoy it quite fresh, as then it's at its nicest.

Your VegHog

Spinach, sundried tomato and pepper pasta

I thought I'd post a quick weekday pasta dish. Basically just throw everything into the pot and enjoy a nice pasta. This is how it's made.

4 sundried tomatoes

1 onion

1 yellow pepper

2-3 garlic cloves

50g baby spinach

2tbsp olive oil

2 dried red chillies

1tsp salt

½tsp black pepper

100g grated mozzarella

250g rigatoni pasta

Chop and soak the sundried tomatoes for about 15 minutes. Chop the onion, pepper, chilli and garlic.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and lightly fry the vegetables for about 15 minutes (first add onions, then pepper, garlic, chilli, sundried tomatoes and spinach). Onions should be glassy, spinach wilted and pepper tender and slightly sweetened.

Cook the pasta al dente. Add the cheese to the vegetables, and then the pasta. Just stir through and serve. That's it!

Your VegHog