Pesto Pasta with Grilled Chicken

Look what someone who loves me gave me today?  Oh happy me!

My daughter, Kassia, lovingly gifted me with a jar of her healthy but-oh-so-yummy pesto (and luscious balsamic reduction)!  This is precious stuff…what to make, what to make?  Eventually, I just decided to keep it simple: I took a couple of tablespoons to marinate chicken tenderloins, which we then grilled; and then topped off sauteed zucchini and onions with another couple of tablespoons and combined it all together with some gluten-free penne pasta. So yummy!

Kassia graciously is sharing her pesto recipe with us today…. This recipe is vegan and dairy-free (along with being intrinsically gluten free, soy free). Her secret ingredient? “Nutritional yeast.” Yup! Don’t knock it ‘til you try it! (Oh, speaking of trying it…dust your freshly popped popcorn with it!) Here’s a fun link loaded with lots of good info about nutritional yeast, or noosh, and some ideas where to purchase it. Enjoy!

Pesto

ingredients:
1/4 cup walnuts
1/2-1 tablespoon finely minced garlic (she uses jarred garlic, like her momma!)
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1 cup fresh basil (leaves only!)
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup+/- extra virgin olive oil
sea salt, freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

directions:

• in a food processor, process the walnuts and garlic until minced
• add the spinach, basil, nutritional yeast and lemon juice; process by pulsing until spinach is finely ground
• with food processor running, s-l-o-w-l-y pour the oil down the food chute ‘til all is well incorporated
• season with salt and pepper, to taste
• this will make approximately 3/4 cup (about 12 tablespoons) of pesto. I only used 5 tablespoons in the entire dish pictured above which made 4 generous servings!

♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥

God loves you!  ♥  (Please don’t ever forget that!)

♥  coleen

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