Skip to main content

Vegan Pasta with Pesto, Potatoes and Cannellini Beans







I peeled two medium floury potatoes (like agria) and sauteed them in a pan with a little olive oil, then I added a pinch of salt, a little water, and a lid! Simmer until the potatoes are soft, then add the content of a can of cannellini beans. Simmer until all the liquid has been absorbed and keep warm.

 I made the pesto with a mortar and pestle: basil, garlic, salt and olive oil (no cheese, this is a vegan pesto). I cooked the spaghetti (would have been nice to have trofie pasta, but never mind...) and then drained them al dente and straight into the pan with the potatoes and beans.

Finally I added the pesto and tossed everything together. To some it may be strange to see pasta and potatoes in the same dish, but this dish is not uncommon in Italy, and for me it is a great way to make a one pot dish when I have little time. Incredibly filling!







Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Comments

  1. Dear Alessandra
    The tomato sauce was a great success! Thank you so much !!! My wife sends a special thanks to you. She is too busy as a doctor , so I make great dishes to please her ha ha !!!
    I like this recipe I will try your pesto recipe...I thought pine nuts and Parmesan had to be used for a pesto.. I can get good Indian pine nuts here , but Parmigiano or Grana Padano , very difficult to get.
    Have a nice week

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pasta and potato! This is new but I am going to give it a try!

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Ushnish

    Glad that your wife liked the pasta sauce, say hallo from me :-).

    Yes, usually pesto has pinenuts and parmesan or pecorino cheese, but this is a vegan version with beans and potatoes... and I didn't have any pinenuts!!!

    ciao
    A.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Simply filling and irresistible pasta..yumm!

    ReplyDelete
  5. pasta looks wonderful
    http://torviewtoronto.blogspot.com
    http://creatwithmom.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. super yummy pasta! Love the stuffing too :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book  Sweet As...  where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content