Mushroom Pesto Pasta

I've been lucky enough to work from home on a few Mondays. The best thing about days of work at home is I get to have a home-cooked lunch with J. This is the kind of meal that would be just as easy to make the night before work (I took some as leftovers and it was still awesome), but I wouldn't have thought to do it. I find my make-ahead lunches are all in such a comfort zone.

Anyway.

I highly recommend this. And I'm very grateful that we have started to use our Magic Bullet and our new food processor. All meals seem to be a bit more creative.

As I only made about three-servings, I just used the Magic Bullet for this one....try it out! Do it. .. Now!

This recipe is adapted from the Maitake Mushroom Pesto recipe found in the January 2011 issue of Clean Eating Magazine.

Mushroom Pesto Pasta

3 tbsp of grape seed oil, divided
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 cup of white onion, chopped
mushrooms, chopped (I just used as much as 'felt right' for the amount of onions and pasta I was using)
1/4 cup of walnuts
basil and parsley (I used what I had: some fresh basil leaves, some basil paste and some fresh parsley, equalling about 1 cup of herbs)
pinch of salt

1. Cook pasta.
2. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan. Add garlic and onion and saute for about 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and salt and saute for around 6 minutes.
3. Transfer mushroom mixture to the Magic Bullet (or regular food processor). Add walnuts, basil, parsley and remaining oil. Pulse until finely minced.
4. Add mixture to pasta!
*I, of course, added some parmesan on J's portion*


This pesto would be great on pizza, on crackers, pita - anything - I think. :)


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