Paper Plates and Pesto

That little bit of back pain that I mentioned last week ended up morphing into something much more debilitating, but with the help of some great friends I'm finally back on my feet. I'm still moving relatively slowly and gingerly, so I'm keeping things as simple as possible around the apartment and especially in the kitchen. We're talking paper plates, folks, so that I don't have to stand over the sink washing dishes.

In the interest of said simplicity, this post is going to be a short one- in part because the recipe I'd like to share is just so darned easy. During last month's heatwave, the last thing I wanted to do was spend much time cooking over a hot stove. What's perfectly delicious and requires little to no time at the stove? Pesto!

I didn't have any fresh basil on hand, but I had recently purchased a lovely bunch of garlic chive blossoms at the Providence Alternative Market. Garlic chives were a brand new ingredient for me, so I took to the interwebs for some advice. While the herb is typically used in Asian cuisine, I found a few garlic chive pesto recipes out there. I improvised a little to create something low(ish) in Points Plus values: I cut out the nuts, cut down on the oil, kept the cheese.

Have you used garlic chives at all this spring? What's your favorite way to use the herb?

Garlic Chive Pesto

Servings: ~6 Serving Size: ~1/2 tbsp Points Plus*: 3 pts

 

Ingredients

1 bunch Garlic chives, chopped (I ended up with roughly one heaping cup)
1/3 cup Shredded Parmesan cheese
1 tsp Basil paste
1 tsp Lemon juice (I only had concentrate on hand, fresh is always better!)
4 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
Black pepper, to taste (I've been cutting down on salt, but you should feel free to add a pinch or two to taste)

Directions

Chop the garlic chives into 1/2 inch pieces.

Combine the garlic chives, Parmesan cheese, basil paste, lemon juice, two tablespoons of olive oil, and black pepper in a food processor.

Blend the ingredients until finely chopped. Add the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil and blend until smooth. If the mixture is too thick, add a little more olive oil and/or lemon juice; blending again to combine.

Serving Suggestion:

It's easy to turn this pesto into a full meal in under half an hour.

Before getting to work (and I use the term lightly!) on making the pesto, I set a pot full of water over high heat and preheated the oven to 425° for my PERDUE® SIMPLY SMART® Lightly Breaded Chicken Strips. When the water came to a boil, I added 4 oz of whole wheat linguine- that's approximately two servings- and put the chicken in the oven. At this point my pesto was already blended.

When the pasta was al dente, I strained it, reserving about 1/4 cup of the liquid. The chicken needed another few minutes in the oven, and in that time I returned the strained pasta to the pot, adding one tablespoon of the pesto and the reserved liquid. I also tossed in a half cup of roasted spaghetti squash that I had in the fridge. A quick stir, and "Presto!" Your pesto dinner is ready.

*PointsPlus values calculated using the Recipe Builder on the Weight Watchers website