Quick, Easy and Tasty...

What more can you ask for?


Recipe #61: Broccoli and Pesto Tagliatelle

First things first, I hate jared pesto and when I saw that this recipe asked for jared pesto I immediately turned my nose up and thought Ew!! but knew I had to give it a go. Now a few weeks ago my friend Katie had the girls over for dinner and a movie and called me to tell me what she wanted to cook for dinner and if it sounded ok, it sounded delicious apart from the pesto she mentioned that she was not going to make from scratch but buy jared. I instantly held my tongue well aware it gets me in trouble at the best of times and said it still sounded delicious even with my silent fears of jared pesto ringing in my head. But as I helped her cook the dinner I sampled the jared pesto and there must have been a revolution in jared pesto world since the last time I tried it because this one was delicious. I instantly took a shine to this jared pesto and would say its the only one to buy. EVER. Its doesn't tastes the same as home made as it lacks the potent punch home made pesto has but with a but of extra cheese, garlic butter and S&P it was so yummy it has made an appearance at home a couple of weeks later. I have named it 'Katie's Pasta'.


But on to the dish I cooked the other night; Broccoli and Pesto Tagliatelle. It was yum but I do prefer Katie's Pasta... I think I over cooked the pasta slightly and under cooked the potatoes. I didn't have a choice though... either cooked pasta and slightly underdone potatoes or cooked potatoes and mushy pasta. I couldn't win.

So to start with Jamie asks you to cut the florets off your broccoli then slice the stalk in half (discarding the  very end bit) and finely slice. I used two small bits of broccoli but I think one would have been plenty like he says but I got greedy as usual and slice your potato using a speed peeler. The pasta (I used spaghetti as we didn't have tagliatelle at home) goes into salted boiling water with the sliced broccoli stalks. 2min before the pasta is done you are meant to add the broccoli florets and the shaved potato and cook for 2 min. Drain it all, reserving some of the cooking water and return everything to the pan. Stir through the pesto and halved baby cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes are my little touch as I know they go well with this jared pesto. Add a little extra parmesan cheese, a good amount of seasoning of S&P and a slosh of the reserved pasta water if it looks to dry. 

We served this with fresh sourdough bread smothered in butter. Mmm I love real salty butter :)