Spinach Arugula & Basil Pesto Pasta

It’s been pretty hot here in NYC.  We had a few days where I actually just couldn’t take it.  When it hits 90 and above, I’m done!

The last thing I want to do is cook but I don’t think my girls would go for that.  (I tried!)  So, I try to make it easy with quick recipes and minimal cooking time.  Pasta is definitely a go to quick and easy meal and my girls love pesto so I tried a slight variation.

Traditional pesto is made with basil and pine nuts but I just decided to use whatever greens and nuts I had on hand and I have to say, it came out great!  If your kids like  pesto, this recipe is  a sneaky way to get them to eat more spinach.

I start with a whole bag of spinach & arugula salad combo  by Fresh Express and a handful of fresh basil all cleaned and dried.

I didn’t have pine nuts but I did have sliced almonds.  I toasted 1/4 cup in a pan for a few minutes. Stay close to the nuts while they toast – they can burn easily!

Everything is going to get mixed up in the food processor.

Along with the greens and nuts, add 1 peeled clove of garlic, and 1/8 tsp kosher salt.  While it’s mixing, I drizzled in the extra virgin olive oil.  I used 1/4 cup plus 3 TBS to get to the consistency I like.  Once it’s all mixed, at the end add in 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese and do one last quick mix.

This is how it came out…

Boil up your favorite pasta and when it finishes cooking, just mix in some of the pesto.  So easy, right?!?

I made a second version – slightly more decadent.  A few years ago I took my girls to the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy.  It’s something we did as kids – a way to mark the end of summer.  We would come back from our bungalow colony in the Catskills, unpack a whole summer’s worth of stuff, then our cousins would pick us up a few hours later and we’d head into the city for the festival.  It was always fun and I wanted my girls to see what it was like.

They weren’t thrilled but we ended up eating at  a restaurant in Little Italy called Positano which unfortunately isn’t there anymore. My daughter ordered pasta with… you guessed it… pesto!  It was like nothing I’d ever tasted before.  It was so rich and creamy and when I was making my pesto, it brought back memories (ahhh!  food memories!) so I wanted to try and make it.

To make  the pesto cream sauce, in a pan I heated up 1/2 cup heavy cream with 1 TBS of butter.  Once it started to simmer, I added in 1/4 cup of the homemade pesto that I just made, a pinch of kosher salt and a handful of grated Parmesan cheese.  It became a lighter green and very creamy. We tried both versions.  Both really good but the cream sauce was over the top!  Definitely brought me back to that day in Little Italy!

What do you like to cook in the summer?