Arugula Walnut Pesto

Most people think of basil and pine nuts when they think of pesto sauce. And there's nothing wrong your pesto being made up of basil and pine nuts . I like it quite a bit. But sometimes you need a change. Or the pine nuts are just too expensive and the basil doesn't look so hot. I've played around with different pestos and I find that arugula is a pretty good substitute for basil and toasted walnuts are a good compliment to replace the pine nuts. Not to mention the omega-3s in the walnuts and the multiple vitamins in arugula.

Ingredients

5 ounces of arugula (about 4 or 5 cups)

1/2 cup crushed toasted walnuts

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large cloves of garlic

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons lemon juice

pepper to taste

Directions

Combine the walnuts, salt, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice in a food processor until smooth. Add the arugula about a cup at a time, scraping down the sides as necessary. Add pepper to taste.

I tossed about three servings of whole wheat linguini with some of the pesto and there is still about half of it left. As for the rest...I'm thinking it might taste good smothered on some bread, on a wrap with sauteed vegetables, or maybe just some spinach pasta.

Vegan Spinach and Walnut Risotto

I've always made risotto out of a box. You know, the kind where you mix a powdered flavor packet in with the rice. I would try to fancy it up by using vegetable stock and adding vegetables or nuts at the end. It was good. But I wanted to see if it really was that difficult to make risotto from scratch. And it turns out it's not that hard. A lot of risotto recipes call for cheese or butter or both but I wanted a healthier recipe. I found a vegan recipe on The Post Punk Kitchen and decided that was the one. It's a pretty basic recipe that lends itself to infinite variations. 

I knew that once I started stirring the cooking risotto I wouldn't be able to stop. Therefore, before I started I toasted about 1/3 cups of crushed walnuts and defrosted about half of a bag of frozen spinach. I would say that it is definitely wise to prepare any additions before you start. 

The actual process of making the risotto was pretty simple. Basically, stir stir stir! The recipe said that the whole process of adding stock should take about 15 minutes but it took closer to 25 minutes for me. I mixed in the spinach before I started adding the last cup of broth. As for the walnuts, I mixed them in at the very end with the olive oil. The result was a pretty nice and tasty risotto if i do say so myself. I will be making it again!