Spaghetti with pecan-pistachio pesto and tomato confit

Pesto is a fun way to add variety and color to pasta. You can get creative with it by changing up the greens, the nuts, make it spicy, make it colorful and even add texture. It's hard to mess up, and you can be done in less than half and hour. What's not to love?

Since I almost always stick to the usual basil-pine nut routine, I wanted to add some crunch and flavor to it by way of the pesto and the pistachio. I also thought the tomato confit would be a nice elegant touch.

Ingredients:


Tomato confit
cherry tomatoes- whole or halved
1 tbsp olive oil
some salt

Spaghetti
Cooked wheat spaghetti
1/2 cup pistachios
1/2 cup pecans
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup basil leaves
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
salt

Directions:

1. For the tomato confit, preheat the oven to 320 F. Toss the tomatoes in olive oil and salt and leave them to bake for around 40-45 minutes, checking to see if they're done.

2. For the pesto, grind up the pecan, the pistachios and the basil leaves with the olive oil and process thoroughly. The mixture should be a brownish-green. You can either have it be a smooth mixture, or it can be crunchy depending on your preference.

3. Chop up the onion and garlic and sautee them in an additional tbsp of olive oil. Once the onions have become soft, toss in the pesto, and cook for around 2-3 minutes. Then add the cooked spaghetti to the mixture.

4. Top the spaghetti with the tomato confit and serve. 

Rose hazelnut macarons with chocolate ganache

So if you've been on Foodgawker long enough, you'll know that anyone who maintains a food blog is obsessed with macarons. I don't mean to imply that I consider mine a full fledged professional food blog, but given that all my entries so far are mostly food-related, it's the closest parallel for now. So yes, after months of macaron exposure and overdose, I decided I had best try this monster out. I'd heard horror stories on how difficult they are to make; how you had to be super careful with preparation and execution. I pretty much followed Eat.Live.Travel.Write 's recipe. She does a great job of describing exactly what worked for her, and what didn't. 

To add a bit of a twist, I added some rose essence instead of the regular vanilla, and paired the cookies with some chocolate ganache. I, for one, am totally addicted to macarons- both eating them and making them. Simply thinking of all the combinations and permutations makes me just so happy! 

Ingredients:

French Macarons

115 g hazelnut flour

230 g powdered sugar

144 g egg whites (I used 5 eggs)

72 g sugar

rose essense

1/2 tsp salt

Chocolate ganache

1 cup whipping cream

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Sift the dry ingredients. TWICE.

2. Dump the egg whites and the sugar into the mixer. I followed her instructions exactly. 3 minutes at level 4. 3 minutes at level 6, 3 more minutes at level 8. One minute at level 10. The meringue should be stiff.

3. Add the sifted mixture to the meringue and add in the rose essence.

4. Pipe the mixture into waxed or parchment paper.

5. Bake for 12 minutes at 350 F. I baked my second batch for longer- around 16 minutes. I liked the second batch better.

6. I had to make sure the cookies didn't stick to the pan. Baking them for longer helped. The cookies tasted great, but the shells were not perfect. Not bad for a first attempt though!

7. Heat the whipping cream to a simmer and add the chocolate chips forming a thick mixture.

8. Assemble by piping the ganache on one side of a cookie and attaching the other end to another cookie.

Black bean burger with sweet potato wedges

I've been obsessed with the vegetarian burger for as long as I can remember. I think it's something about being a vegetarian and STILL getting to enjoy the burger. I get so tired of running out of options at places. Besides, vegetarian burgers are genuinely amazing, and shouldn't have to resort to second tier standing. After my standard research on foodgawker, I settled on a delicious looking black bean burger recipe at http://www.keepitsimplefoods.com/vegetarian/spicy-black-bean-burgers/

The process was somewhat time consuming, and I think I made way more than I needed to, but it was fun anyway. I initially found the batter to be too runny. I ended up adding more bread crumbs, and also some flour in the mixture, and that seemed to have solved the problem. The trick was also replacing the egg with the egg replacer. I'm not typically the biggest fan of the egg replacer but it worked rather well here.

And here's the how:

Ingredients:

1 (16 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 yellow bell pepper

1 medium onion

3 cloves garlic

1 Ener G egg replacer

2 tbsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

handful of cilantro

1 cup breakcrumps

hot sauce

2 tbsp olive oil

Burger buns 

Directions:

1. Process the bell pepper, onion and garlic in the food processor. 

2. In a mixing bowl, mash up the black beans and add the bell pepper mixture to the black beans. 

3. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the egg replacer, cumin, onion powder, chili powder and cilantro. Add this to the black bean mixture. 

4. Depending on the consistency of the mixture, add in flour/ bread crumbs. Shape the mixture into burger patties. 
5. Heat oil in a skillet. Place them on the skillet and cook until cooked evenly. 

To accompany the burger, I also made sweet potato fries. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I LOVE sweet potato, and sweet potato fries hardly ever disappoint. I also wanted to try baking them instead of deep frying them, and this recipe at Smittenkitchen was exactly what I craved:

Ingredients:

1 medium sweet potato

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp dried oregano

2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil, or enough to coat all the sweet potato evenly

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 425 F. In a coffee grinder, create a spice mixture from all the spices listed above. 

2. Cut the sweet potatoes lengthwise to make thick wedges. 

3. Toss the wedges in the oil and the spice mixture. Bake for around 20 minutes until the sweet potatoes are golden. Bake for another 15-20 minutes after turning the wedges over.