Couldn’t decide what to make for dinner tonight….needed something quick and with leftover things in the fridge. You should be able to make this with most of your stocked ingredients. Also, a change from quinoa, brown rice and lentils was needed….so I decided on PASTA! We hardly ever eat pasta. However, brown rice gluten-free pasta is so much more gout friendly for my husband. I had some extra arugula and spinach and they were screaming “make me into a pesto!” For you new vegans, this makes a great side dish. You can add any extra veggies to it that you like after making the pesto.
A lot of pestos are just fresh cold ingredients, but I decided to carmelize the onions and cook the garlic for added flavor. It turned out delicious and my husband gobbled it all up. Ssshhh don’t tell him there is spinach in there! He doesn’t like spinach but it’s amazing what people will love when it is turned into a sauce!
Recipe: Serves 4 Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 25 mins
1 heaping cup fresh arugula (use all spinach if you don’t like the bitter taste of arugula)
3 heaping cups fresh spinach
About half of a 14 oz bag of brown rice gluten-free fettuccine pasta (use as little or as much as you want depending on how saucy you want the dish)
1 red onion roughly sliced
3-4 large garlic cloves, or 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
¼ cup whole almonds toasted
1/2 cup low sodium vegetable broth
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil leaves or fresh basil is amazing with this!
Couple dashes of chipotle chili spice to desired taste
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2-3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon sea salt
Several grinds of fresh black pepper
Directions:
Roughly slice the red onion and the garlic, they will be processed later. Add the vegetable broth to a frying pan and turn the heat to low. Add the red onions and salt and stir. Cook over low heat for about 20 minutes until they become very tender and translucent, stirring occasionally. Once they are almost done, add the garlic and cook a couple minutes more. Turn the heat off.
In a food processor, add the cooked garlic and onion and all the spices, nutritional yeast and lemon juice. Pulse. Add in the spinach and arugula in batches, if necessary and pulse until very smooth. Now toast the almonds in the same pan just for a couple minutes to brown them, do not cook too long or they will burn. Add the almonds to the food processor and pulse until smooth and the almonds are broken up and mixed in well. Taste and add any additional seasoning, if desired. Serve over brown rice fettuccine. Add some toasted garlic Ezekiel bread for dipping!
