Spring emerging, there are foods coming back to the market that have been scarce as of late. One of my favorites is arugula. It’s spicy, peppery flavor is works well with so many others, especially alongside creamy dairy products and sweet fruits and veggies. This particular recipe has a lot of room for variation depending on what you have around. Right now recipe flexibility is important!
In my recipe today, I started off with an arugula pesto over pasta, topped off with tomatoes and ricotta cheese. The ricotta can easily be substituted for the same parmesan that goes into the pesto. Additionally, tomatoes add a nice contrast the pasta, but are not essential. This just happened to be the pasta shape I had on hand, but many others could work well. Additionally throwing a fried egg on top is always a good option if you’re trying to make it more hearty.
I was really happy to be able to use ingredients from a wide variety of vendors for this meal. The baby arugula is from Vertu Farm; the cheese (parmesan & ricotta) are from Bootleg Farm; the spinach fusilli pasta is from Frali; and the tomatoes from Adam’s Farm.
Ingredients
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 tablespoons of walnuts
- 2 cups of baby arugula
- salt
- 1/2 cup of olive oil
- 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
- pasta of your choice
- ricotta cheese
- cherry tomatoes
- First, go ahead and put on a pot of salted water to boil for the pasta. Then turn to your food processor and blend the two garlic cloves till they stick to the sides. Scrape the sides down then add in the walnuts. Scrape the sides down again and add the baby arugula and some salt. Once a paste has formed, add in the olive oil while the processor runs, until the mixture is smooth. Then add in the parmesan. At this point, your pesto is good to go!
- As the pesto is done, the water is likely boiling and ready for you to put in the pasta to cook. As the pasta is boiling away, take a couple of cherry tomatoes and slice in half. You can also go ahead and clean all the dishes you’ve dirtied while you wait – dried on pesto is no fun to clean!
- Once al dente, strain the pasta and add it back to the pot, along with a little bit of olive oil and stir. Then add in the pesto until you have enough to generously coat the noodles. Place pasta in a bowl and put tomatoes and a couple of spoonfuls of ricotta on top. Eat immediately! Leftover pesto can be stored in a jar in the fridge for at least a week.
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