Leek & Spinach Pesto Sauce

When I'm not cooking, cleaning or playing with my kids during the day, I'm searching the internet for tasty and interesting recipes to fix or new cooking techniques to try my hand at.  I recently found a very nice food forum and have enjoyed, for the most part, all the regular people who participate in the cooking community there.  A lot of the people who contribute have very diverse backgrounds and quite a lot more experience than I could ever claim to have.  I now consider them to be a very valuable resource and have learned quite a lot from them all.  I am amazed at how gracious a lot of them are...always willing to suggest a recipe or answer my questions.  After I made my Pureed Broccoli-Leek Soup, I was staring at all the green tops and wondering what in the heck I was going to do with all those tough leaves.  Were they even useable?  The recipe called for only the white bottoms....maybe the tops weren't edible?  Although, in thinking about how much they resemble a scallion, I found this very hard to accept!  If anything, I supposed they could be composted, but before I settled on this fate for the tough green parts, I figured I'd throw out the question to the food forum.

Are the green parts useable??  The resounding answer was YES!!  They are actually quite versatile and can be pretty much interchanged with scallions in most recipes.  They can be sauteed or used to make soups and stocks.  One lady, Chris, gave me the most interesting suggestion and was awesome enough to give me a recipe for a basic pesto sauce she had made that I could easily adapt to ingredients I already had at home.  She described this pesto as "tasting like Spring" and boy was she right!!  Everything was fresh, green, very light yet very filling at the same time and so flavorful.  It actually made quite a bit and I was able to turn the leftovers into a very tasty appetizer for a game night I hosted the following weekend.  It would have been equally good as leftover pasta...cold or warm!!  This recipe is definitely a keeper.  So many thanks again to Chris.  She has a very cool website, http://www.figsfoodie.com/, which I very much enjoy looking at from time to time.  Her blog is interesting reading and I love her pictures.

Leek & Spinach Pesto

1 leek, green parts only, cleaned well and chopped into 1/4" slices (If you want to know how to clean leeks, check out the Pureed Broccoli-Leek Soup.  I explain how to easily clean them in the first 3 pictures).

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 c frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed of excess moisture

2 tbsp parsley (I used one of my frozen parsley cubes )

2 tbsp. walnuts

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tbsp. shredded Parmesan cheese

1 tbsp. olive oil (plus more for thinning the mixture)

1/4 tsp, black pepper

1 tbsp. honey

1 1/2 tbsp. red wine vinegar

2 tbsp. dried basil 



In a saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add the chopped leeks and salt and cook approximately 15 mins until the leeks are tender.

Add the spinach and parsley and saute another 2 - 3 mins.  Transfer to a separate bowl to cool slightly.

In a second pan, lightly toast the walnuts.

Add the leek mixture, toasted walnuts and remaining ingredients to a mini food processor.

Process the mixture well, drizzling additional olive oil in until desired consistency is reached.  Pesto should still be thick, not runny like regular pasta sauce (Sorry...I apparently forgot to take a picture!).  Toss a heaping spoonful of pesto with cooked pasta and any other ingredients of your choice.  I tossed mine with diced tomatoes, black olives and peas.

Recipe for: Leek & Spinach Pesto Sauce

www.momsaysjustonebite.blogspot.com

To prepare: You will need a food processor (or blender) for this recipe.

Ingredients

Directions

1 leek, green tops only, cleaned well and chopped into ¼” slices. ½ tsp. salt ¼ c. frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed of excess moisture. 2 tbsp. parsley 2 tbsp. walnuts 2 tbsp. shredded Parmesan cheese 1 tbsp. olive oil (plus more for thinning the pesto sauce) ¼ tsp. black pepper 1 tbsp. honey 1 ½ tbsp. red wine vinegar 2 tbsp. dried basil

1.       Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat.  Add the leeks and salt and cook for 15 mins. until the leeks are tender. 2.       Add the spinach and parsley and continue to sauté for another 2-3 mins.  Transfer to a separate bowl to cool slightly. 3.       In a separate pan, lightly toast the walnuts. 4.       Add the leek mixture, walnuts and remaining ingredients to a mini food processor. 5.       Process the mixture, drizzling in additional olive oil until desired consistency is reached. 6.       Toss a heaping spoonful of pesto sauce with cooked pasta and other vegetables or proteins of your choice until all is well coated.

Roasted Red Pepper, Garlic and Parmesan Sauce over Linguine, Shrimp and Spinach

I love roasted red peppers.  I love garlic.  I love Parmesan cheese.  So I figured why not combine them all to make an easy pasta sauce for some whole grain linguine I was making that night.  I had half a bag of frozen shrimp (sorry, but shelling, deveining and cleaning fresh shrimp isn't my cup of tea) that has been sitting in there for awhile and half a bag of fresh spinach leaves that needed to be used up in the next few days.  I figured those would make a nice addition to my throw together pasta dish.

Roasting garlic is so easy to do and tastes amazing which makes it well worth the time...especially when most of the time is spent baking it in the oven.  There really is very little prep work to it and roasting it in the oven is pretty fool proof.  The texture of roasted garlic is super creamy...almost like butter.  I like spreading a whole clove on a piece of toasted baguette and sprinkling a little pepper and Parmesan cheese on it or better yet turning it into a bruschetta.  YUM!

I have yet to try roasting red peppers, but I do plan on planting a red pepper plant in the garden this year so I might try my hand at it sometime this summer.  This seems slightly more intimidating than roasting garlic.  I do always have a jar of roasted red peppers on hand in the fridge though because I do like to dice them up and throw them on or in a lot of dishes...especially ones that have pasta in it. 

The pasta dish turned out great and the leftovers reheated nicely...I'm going to be finishing them up today for lunch which will be a nice compliment to the rain, thunder and lightning that has unfortunately been forecasted for THE ENTIRE DAY.  Maybe Brenna will feel like doing some baking when she gets home from school today.  I need something to distract her from not being able to play outside this afternoon.  I'm thinking zucchini chocolate chip muffins or sugar cookies might do the trick!

Roasted Red Pepper, Garlic and Parmesan Sauce

1 whole bulb of garlic

1 small onion, cut into quarters

1/2 of a whole roasted red pepper

1/3 c Parmesan cheese

Olive Oil

Salt & pepper to taste

Slice off the top part of the garlic bulb exposing the tops of the cloves.  There is no need to remove the skin from the bulb just yet.

Place on a large sheet of foil and surround with the onions.  Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Wrap the garlic and onions up in the foil.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 mins.  Once it's done baking, place it aside to cool slightly.

Unwrap the garlic and onions.  It should look something like this.  Roasted garlic...YUM!

Remove the cloves from the skins and discard.  Place the roasted garlic cloves, onion, roasted red pepper and Parmesan cheese in a small food processor and puree well.  Drizzle in olive oil and continue to puree until smooth.

The finished sauce.

In a small pan I steamed the half bag of spinach.

The defrosted shrimp.  Like I said, I don't peel or devein shrimp, but I did remove the tails myself...does that count?!?

In a medium pan, melt 1 tbsp unsalted butter and dd 1 tsp minced garlic, parsley, salt and pepper.

Add the shrimp and saute for about 3 mins.  The shrimp are already precooked so don't overcook them or they will be rubbery.  Nasty!

In a bowl, combine the cooked linguine, shrimp, spinach and sauce.  Toss well to coat.

I served mine with a little more sauce on the top and some steamed broccoli on the side.

Quick, easy and delicious!