Do you know those dishes and meals that you could have over and over again, without ever getting bored? Yep, I knew you would. I also call them comfort food classics – these are foods that make you feel better, are nutritious but still very easy and fast to prepare – we all know how demanding life can sometimes be.
I was happy to get an opporturnity to create a recipe using Risenta’s organic chickpea pasta, and when I was looking at it’s beautiful color, I instantly knew that I wanted to pair it with beetroots. And so this lovely, nutritious and delicious dish was born. Beetroots are a perfect base for pesto, and together with seeds, lemon, garlic, cilantro and olives they make a really nice dish (and it’s so pretty too!).
A while ago I wrote about legumes, and how I’ve only recently started to include more of them in my diet, as I’m eating more plant based than I used to. Chickpea pasta is one of the newcomers, and I’m totally in love with it: it’s easy, nutritious and filling (it has 20 grams of protein in 100 grams of pasta!), and even though it’s made of legumes (or chickpeas, to be precise – it has nothing else) my belly seems to love it too.
So, if you still don’t have meal plans for the weekend, I warmly recommend trying this lovely beetroot pesto – maybe it’ll make it onto your comfort food list, too!
Tuulia xx
Lovely vegan beetroot pesto with chickpea pasta
serves four
beetroot pesto:
4 medium sized beets
1,5 dl sunflower seeds
1 dl virgin olive oil
1 organic lemon
2 cloves of garlic
about 20 pieces of pitted green organic olives
0,5 dl nutritional yeast ( / or a bit more olives)
chickpea pasta:
1 bag of Risenta’s chickpea pasta (300 g.)
salt
1 bunch of fresh cilantro
1. Start by preparing the pesto: peel the beets, and dice them (the smaller the pieces, the faster they’ll cook. Put into a kettle, cover with water and let boil until the pieces are soft.
2. When the beets are almost cooked, you can prepare the pasta: add water and salt, and let it boil for about 10-15 minutes. Pour the water out, and add some oil.
3. Pour the water out from the beets as well, when they’re boiled. Add the rest of the ingredients into the kettle. Use a hand blender to mix everything together, until you have a creamy pesto. Check the flavor, and add some olives / nutritional yeast, if needed.
4. Ready, enjoy!