Before I got all healthy, I used to eat Spaghetti al Pesto at least once a week. I'd use standard white spaghetti (the dried stuff) and Sacla's pesto.
On Friday I was really craving it so I went out and bought a huge packet of fresh organic basil, stocked up on pine nuts and some Del Ugo Chickpea spaghetti (Waitrose stock it with the fresh egg pastas).
At home, I popped the pine nuts, a couple of huge cloves of garlic, some extra virgin olive oil, loads of basil leaves and a teeny bit of sea salt in the blender bowl and blended it all up to make my own pesto paste. It took all of about 3 minutes!
The pasta took 7 minutes to cook and once it was, I drained it and added the pesto with a little more oil to make it a bit more liquid.
It was completely delicious!
I was a little bit naughty though. I love fresh parmesan. Since it's a dairy product, I shouldn't really have it, but I occasionally grate a little bit over chargrilled asparagus and I had some in the fridge so sprinkled some over the top of my healthy pasta dish. At least I resisted adding any to the pesto itself!
Chickpea spaghetti is gluten free, an excellent source of fibre, is carb and protein rolled into one, provides B vits and is gentle on the digestive system. So much so that you get all the taste of the unhealthy version but without that stuffed, heavy, bloated, feeling you'd normally get.
Try it - you'll love it.
