Home made Pesto

Who knew that making delicious pesto is that easy? I mean there is soooo many junk in a simple jar, fresh pesto stays good for about 1 week in your fridge, yeah you can imagine, the jar you buy is not cooled so they have to add a lot to keep it good.
Well if you do have some time left, and you have a food processor, you will have an amazing red pesto in 5 minutes with just a few ingredients.

Ingredients

A handful of fresh basil leaves
40 gram Parmesan cheese
30 gram dry roasted cashew nuts
2 small garlic cloves
75g sundried tomatoes
75g tomato pasta
extra vergine olive oil

Put all the ingredients into a food processor or blender and blend until everything is pureed. You can add a bit of the oil of the sundried tomatoes and then add as much as olive oil needed until you've reached the right consistency. Now add some salt and pepper for your taste!

You can use this pesto for your salad, whip it up with some yogurt as an amazing dressing. Use a big spoon as a sauce for your pasta of "zugghetti", or on a piece of bread/wrap with some roasted veggies (damn delicious) the exact recipe will follow this week on the blog!

"Spaghetti di Salme"

This dish makes a wonderful dinner, packed with nutrition, less on the calories! It contains 3 very healthy ingredients that can contribute to your health and is amazing for when you are watching your diet. 

First up: Spinach. A plant with remarkable abilities to restore energy, increase vitality and improve the quality of blood. Why? Primarily the fact that it is rich in iron, iron plays a central role in the function of red blood cells. Further it contains heaps of vitamins, like vitamin K, A, C and magnesium and vitamin B2. 

Next up: Zucchini. One cup of zucchini only has 36 calories and 10% of the RDA of dietary fibre, which aids in digestion, prevents constipation, maintains low blood sugar and curbs overeating. 

Number 3: Salmon. Of course the salmon contributes to the dish, an excellent source of high-quality protein, vitamin and minerals (like potassium, selenium and vitamin B12) but their content of omega-3 fatty acids is what we would like to receive the most.  

Just scroll down and see how to make this vitamin, mineral and omega-3 packed healthy but most importantly damn delicious dish!

Ingredients

1 salmon fillet with skin
a big handful of fresh spinach
1 small zucchini
fresh lemon
1 tablespoon genovese or home made Pesto (20g)

Optional home made pesto
small handful of roasted pine nuts
olive oil
bunch of basil
1 garlic clove
piece of Parmesan
salt and pepper

When you have a spiralizer, make "spaghetti" of your courgette. If not grab your (cheese) peeler to make a nice spaghetti/tagliatelle kind of shape. In the meanwhile heat some olive oil in a frying pan and bake the salmon with some salt and pepper, skin side down for about 7 minutes on medium high heat. Now when you want to make your home made pesto, blitz everything together in your blender. Basicly add as much olive oil as it needs to become runny enough (and the good part is that the left overs can be stored in a jar in your fridge). If you don't want to make your own one, just put the home bought pesto on your cutting board ;-). Now it's time to check your salmon, bake the other side for as long as it needs, depending on the thickness of your fish. It's best when it's still pink in the middle and it will cook trough a bit when you remove it out of the pan. Pack your salmon in some foil, so it stays warm and than it's time to add your zucchini to the same pan, add the pesto, a big handful of spinach and just swirl the pan around for a about a minute. Just until the zucchini is starting to melt a bit with the pesto and it all gets gooey and warm. Transfer to a plate and arrange the salmon on top, serve with a slice of lemon.

Seriously, damn tasty!