Green, greener, greenest - Avocado Pesto

You rarely meet someone that doesn’t like pesto. I don’t think I ever have. The Italians invented something amazing when they decided to simply mix basil and garlic. So simple, and yet so heavenly. Another thing that is deceivingly simple, delicious and also contains garlic (Coincidence? I don’t think so) is guacamole. From the other side of the globe comes this wondrous mash of creamy avocado and garlic that almost everyone enjoys. There are exceptions, but let’s consider them oddities, random errors in the statistics. So what would happen if you mix the two? As you well know, 1 + 1 can equal 3, which definitely goes for this dish.

This avocado-basil pesto is creamy, flavorful and super easy to make. Close to all the ingredients are green, avocado, basil and kale. You can use spinach is the place of kale if you have that at hand. Put it all in a mixer with a lot of garlic and lemon and tadaa! An exceptional pasta sauce! You can add any other green vegetables (or other color) to the pasta and sauce, such as broccoli, asparagus, peas or maybe more kale. It’s up to you! The recipe includes green soybeans (edamame) just because I love them and they look great and boost the protein content. Feel free to mix it up!

Enough for about 3

For the pesto

1 avocado

30 g basil, stalks and all

30 g kale, coarse stalks removed

2 tbsp. lemon juice

Zest from 1 lemon

Salt and pepper

4 tbsp. reserved pasta water

For the rest of the dish

300 g pasta

3 dl frozen green soybeans, frozen

3 tbsp. sunflower seeds

3 tbsp. pumpkin seeds

Heat a dry pan to medium heat and roast the seeds until they start getting golden.

Start heating the water for the pasta. Once it’s boiling, add the pasta. At the end of the cooking time, when about 3 minutes remain, add the beans.

Mix all the ingredients for the pesto except for the water, using a blender. Mix until smooth.

Once the pasta and beans are done, drain and reserve the water. Add water to the pesto, about 1 tbsp. at a time until desired thickness. It took me 4 tbsp.

Mix the pasta and beans with the pesto and half of the roasted seeds. Sprinkle the rest over the pasta before serving! Yum!