Farfalle with cilantro pesto

Pesto is an aromatic paste made with fresh herb, nuts, garlic, olive oil and cheese. Italian home is filled with many flavor of pesto jar. Depending the region, they toss with pasta, spread in sandwich, mix in soup. Their traditional way of making pesto is always chopped by a sharp knife or mashed in mortar pestle. In a modern world, the commercialized pesto is prepared in blender, which is more time saver. When it comes to herb flavor for me, either you like it or hate it. My favorite is Cilantro and very adaptable for my palate. I decided to recreate the cilantro pesto into vegan version just by omitting the cheese! I found the recipe here.

 

Cilantro pesto (vegan) 

  Ingredients:

Ciantro Leaves : 3 cups washed 

Garlic cloves: 5

Olive oil: 1/4 cup

Walnuts: 1/2 cup

Jalapeno peppers: 2 num 

Ice cold water: ¼ cup (but I omitted- as I used a dry grind mixer jar) 

Salt: ¼ tsp 

Method 

Combine all the ingredients in the blender (use water if necessary to move the blade). Store in airtight container but this recipe yields very less quantity. 

For the pasta and pesto sauce I cooked the bow-tie/farfalle pasta until tender, that is the way we eat it and mixed the pesto with little more cooked pasta water to just make a thin sauce.

  Note: If you are using Basil pesto never cook it. The basil turns bitter taste! 

  Serving suggestion: Can be topped over seafood, spread in bread, bruschetta, etc... I am sending to My vegan cook Vaishali for her event It’ s Vegan World: Italian Aquadaze is hosting Let’s go nuts with Walnut/Pecan Have a great weekend!