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Sounds a bit unusual doesn’t it? Pea pesto.

Well it’s actually surprisingly tasty — and it even has a few health benefits that regular pesto doesn’t have. But I’ll talk more about that in a minute. First let me tell you how we came up with the idea in the first place.

I’ve talked previously on this blog about my deep affection for pesto — especially home made pesto. But it’s always nice to mix things up a little, so Trudy and I sometimes make variations of classic pesto by using other types of nuts instead of pine nuts (such as cashews or walnuts), or other herbs instead of basil (such as flat-leaf parsley or cilantro), or by adding other ingredients to the base recipe (such as sun-dried tomatoes or olives).

But never before have we added peas to our pesto. What actually gave me the idea was that years ago Trudy had shown me a guacamole recipe in a food magazine that used a mixture of peas and avocado to reduce the calories and up the protein and fiber content. Even though we didn’t end up making the recipe, for some reason the whole idea of using peas this way stuck in my head.

Anyway fast forward to last week, and we were making a decision about what to have for dinner. We often have our meals for the week planned out in advance, but sometimes we just fly by the seat of our pants and rely on whatever ingredients we’ve got on hand in the pantry and refrigerator. (Luckily we’ve always got a well-stocked MediterrAsian pantry.)

We were both really in the mood for pesto, and we had most of the ingredients needed: pine nuts, Parmesan, garlic and extra virgin olive oil. But we didn’t have any fresh basil.

However, as I mentioned, it’s easy to make tasty variations of pesto by using different herbs — and we’ve found that flat-leaf parsley works especially well as a replacement for basil. Luckily, flat-leaf parsley grows like a weed in our garden, so it was no problem just picking some and using that.

But we’d done that a few times before, so we really wanted to try something different. That’s when the whole pea and avocado guacamole idea came into my head. “If peas can be used in a green sauce like guacamole,” I thought, “why couldn’t they be used the same way in pesto?”

Green peas are sweet and juicy as well, so I thought they’d add a unique character to the pesto. When I also worked out in my head that this concoction could be called “peasto” (pronounced pee-stow), the deal was sealed — we had to make it!

So we decided we’d use a combination of green peas and parsley, and also a little bit of mint (which also grows profusely in our garden) because it goes so naturally well with peas.

After we blended it up we were impressed with how vibrantly green it looked. Then we tossed it with fusilli pasta, chunks of canned tuna and some roasted red pepper. It tasted really good, although fairly different in texture and consistency compared to regular pesto because of the high water content of the peas. But we actually quite liked that. In fact we had the rest of the pesto the next night tossed with spaghetti, zucchini and a little diced bacon. (The smokiness of the bacon worked particularly well with the peas.)

The peas don’t just reduce the amount of calories in this pesto (1 cup of peasto contains around a third less calories than a cup of regular pesto), they also add a whole lot of nutrients. Peas are a terrific source of plant protein, and contain many healthy-giving vitamins and minerals including vitamin C, folate, iron and potassium. And peas are a very good source of dietary fiber, which helps keep you regular, reduces the risk of heart disease and some forms of cancer, and also fills you up without filling you out.

Peasto

Makes 1 1/4 cups (enough to serve 4)

• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 1/2 cup packed flat-leaf parsley
• 4 fresh mint leaves
• 1/3 cup pine nuts - lightly toasted
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 cloves garlic — roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

POUR boiling water over the peas and stand for 2 minutes, then drain. PLACE the peas, parsley, mint, pine nuts, parmesan, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a food processor and drizzle in the olive oil as you blend until well combined.

I adore cheese in more ways than can be counted. There’s something about the creaminess and the “mouth feel” of real full-fat cheese that I find purely addictive. Cheese also has a magical ability to add multiple dimensions of flavor to food from pasta dishes to bakes and risottos.

But isn’t eating full-fat cheese bad for me? Well, no, actually. For thousands of years people throughout the Mediterranean region have been enjoying full-fat dairy foods like cheese and yogurt, yet rates of heart disease are traditionally very low.

The main reason is because dairy foods have never been eaten in great quantities. A common trait in cooking throughout the Mediterranean region is that the flavor of the food should shine through. Instead of drowning food in cheese, for example, it’s used sparingly and often it will be a full-flavored cheese like Parmesan, where a little goes a long way.

Other diary foods like milk, butter and cream have rarely been consumed in Mediterranean populations because these foods easily spoiled in the warm Mediterranean climate in the days before refrigeration (so the milk was turned into cheese and yogurt to help preserve it).

And that’s pretty much how Trudy and I enjoy dairy foods too. We eat full-fat cheese and yogurt regularly, but in small amounts. This way, we get the satisfaction of eating real food, while only consuming small amounts of saturated fat.

Now on to the recipe, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that it contains cheese! One of my favorite cheeses actually, feta. I’m a huge fan of Greek food, and part of the reason is because I love feta so much. Its crumbly yet creamy texture makes it such a unique cheese — and it also happens to be lower in saturated fat than most full-fat cheeses.

This feta and white bean dip is velvety smooth, and ridiculously creamy. In fact you’d never know it contains white beans at all because its texture is similar to cream cheese. Yet the white beans add lots of fiber, protein and goodness.

You can use this dip for dipping (of course), or it makes a great spread on top of bruschetta or whole grain crackers. When you combine it with fresh, crisp salad vegetables it also makes a great filling for sandwiches and wraps.

Feta & White Bean Dip

A creamy combination of feta cheese and white beans with herbs and a hint of garlic and lemon.

Makes 1 1/2 cups

• 7 oz (200g) feta cheese (use a creamy feta instead of a crumbly feta for best results)
• 1 cup canned white beans (such as cannellini) - rinsed and drained
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 clove garlic - minced
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons water

PLACE all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth.

I like to spend a couple of hours on the weekend preparing a few food basics that, once made, take the hard work out of cooking meals for the week ahead — a strategy I refer to as ‘weekend cooking for weekday eating’. In addition to curries and soups I invariably make some kind of tomato-based Mediterranean sauce for its sheer versatility.

Apart from a classic bolognese sauce or a piquant puttanesca sauce, one of our favorites is this rich sauce made with a medley of vibrant red ingredients including tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red onions, red wine, and red chili. I really enjoy the process of making up batches of this sauce, it brings out the Italian mama in me, especially when I put on Italian opera while I’m cooking.

Producing my own homemade sauce rather than buying the store-bought stuff in jars gives me a feeling of self-sufficiency, and it’s healthier and cheaper as well. Just knowing that I’ve got a supply of this delicious and nutritious sauce on hand fills me with a real sense of satisfaction. Over the past week we’ve had this sauce drizzled over grilled fish on a simple couscous salad, and then a couple of nights later tossed with rigatoni, broccoli and canned tuna as a quick pasta meal.

The sauce can be stored in the fridge, covered for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Robust red sauce

Serves 4 (or enough to make the following 2 meals, each serving 2 people)

• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 red onions — diced
• 4 cloves garlic — finely chopped
• 28 oz (840g) canned tomatoes — chopped
• ½ cup red wine
• ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
• ½ teaspoon dried red chili flakes
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• 4 red bell peppers — deseeded and quartered

HEAT the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and cook the onions for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring regularly. ADD the tomatoes, wine, rosemary, chili flakes, salt, pepper and sugar and bring to the boil. COVER, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 20 minutes. WHILE the sauce simmers, place the peppers (skin side up) under a hot broiler (griller) until the skin blackens all over, about 10 minutes. REMOVE and cover the charred peppers with a clean dishcloth or plastic wrap for 5 minutes to allow the steam to loosen the skins from the pepper flesh. PEEL off the blackened skin from the peppers and roughly cut the flesh into pieces then add to the sauce. PLACE the sauce into a food processor or blender and process until smooth.

Grilled fish with robust red sauce and couscous salad

Serves 2

• 4 tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic — minced
• 2 x 6 oz (180g) firm white fish fillets
• 1 cup couscous
• 2 small zucchini — quartered lengthways and very thinly sliced into quarters
• 1¼ cups boiling chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 scallion (green part only) — thinly sliced on diagonal
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh mint
• 2 oz (60g) crumbled feta
• ½ portion of the Robust Red Sauce recipe — heated

MIX together the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic in a bowl. POUR half the lemon/oil mixture over the fish fillets and marinate, covered, in the fridge for 1 hour. COMBINE the couscous and zucchini in a bowl, pour over the boiling stock, cover and allow to steam for 5 minutes. FLUFF the couscous with a fork and toss with the scallion, parsley and mint. DRIZZLE over the remaining lemon/oil mixture and the crumbled feta and toss well to combine. SET the couscous salad aside while the fish continues to marinate. HEAT a cast iron grill pan over a high heat until very hot. COOK the fish fillets in the pan for around 3 minutes each side until just cooked. SERVE each fillet on a bed of the couscous salad and spoon the heated robust red sauce over the top.

Variations: Grill chicken breast fillets instead of fish. Serve any leftover couscous salad tossed with strips of smoked salmon and cubed avocado (drizzled with lemon juice to prevent browning).

Rigatoni with robust red sauce, tuna and broccoli

Serves 2

• 8 oz (240g) dried rigatoni pasta
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• ½ portion of the Robust Red Sauce recipe — heated
• 6 oz (180g) canned tuna in olive oil — drained and broken into chunks
• Shaved or grated Parmesan cheese to serve

COOK the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water, adding the broccoli to the pot for the final 5 minutes of cooking. DRAIN the cooked pasta and broccoli, put the sauce in the bottom of the pot and top with the hot pasta, broccoli and tuna chunks. TOSS together gently to combine well and heat through. SERVE the pasta with a little shaved or grated Parmesan on top.

In Italian cuisine, the use of spinach and ricotta together is quite common, and this is a combination that I personally love. Unlike French cuisine, vegetables aren’t usually transformed into completely homogeneous creams in Italy, so a typical Italian dish with spinach and Ricotta will have the ricotta with tiny pieces of spinach.

I must confess that I do like some French-like creamy fillings, and when I found out I had spinach and ricotta on my refrigerator last week, I had to make this very versatile pâté.

Besides the rich flavor of this mix, an interesting thing is that ricotta cheese is relatively low in calories and fat, so it is a great creamy substitute for other cheeses and even mayonnaise, cream and other high fat ingredients.

Ingredients

• 1/2 Onion
• 300g (10 oz) of fresh spinach
• 4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 300g (10 oz) ricotta

Directions

• Wash the spinach leaves and dry well;
• Finely chop the onion and smash the garlic;
• Put the olive oil in a pan on low heat and add the onion and garlic;
• Cook until the garlic and onion are slightly golden, stirring occasionally;
• Add the spinach leaves, stir well, cover with a lid and cook in low heat until the leaves are tender, stirring occasionally;
• Remove from heat and wait until the spinach mix reaches room temperature, then pass it through a food processor until thoroughly mixed
• Still in the food processor, add the ricotta and mix until creamy

Serving suggestions

• Use it in pasta like you would use pesto. After the pasta is cooked mix it and serve;
• Use as a filling for crepes or pancakes;
• Use it as a topping for Bruschetta or simply spread it over toasts;
• Serve it as a pâté with appetizers;
• Use as mayonnaise substitute.

The other night, Trudy and I dropped into our local supermarket to pick up a few staples, and while I was in the refrigerated section something really caught my eye. It was a flashy looking new brand of pesto.

Now, I’m a pesto lover from way back, but I’m usually pretty wary of pre-packaged pesto — simply because I’ve had some rather dismal tasting pre-packaged stuff in the past. But the packaging was so slick, and the contents looked so remarkably good that I at least had to look at the ingredient list to see whether it was made to the classic Genoese recipe. (The Italian city of Genoa is where pesto originates, by the way.)

I scanned the ingredients list, and wasn’t disappointed.

Basil. Check.
Garlic. Check.
Extra virgin olive oil. Check.
Parmesan. Check.
Pine nuts. Check.

And there weren’t any bizarre sounding additives or preservatives either — a definite bonus.

At this stage I was getting seriously tempted to just throw the pesto in the cart, but I knew that Trudy would need some convincing first. Like me, she’s very aware that pre-packaged pesto can be very hit or miss. But after showing her the authentic list of ingredients, and pointing out how incredibly tasty it looked, she agreed that it was at least worth giving a try.

Well, the pesto might have contained all the right ingredients and looked glorious, but when we got it home and tossed it through some pasta with shrimp and green beans, it tasted far from glorious. It had a slight vinegary undertone, and the consistency was way too dry (I think this was because they’d skimped on the extra virgin olive oil, and probably the pine nuts as well — both relatively expensive ingredients).

Anyway, the upshot of the evening was that we vowed never to buy pre-packaged pesto again, no matter how flashy the packaging! And besides, we have our own pesto recipe that we both really adore. Yes, it takes a little more work than pulling the top off a package of store-bought pesto, but not that much more.

We don’t take the time-consuming route and use a mortar and pestle to pound the pesto into a paste by hand. We’ve found that the results in a food processor or blender can be excellent, and we actually prefer the slightly more textural consistency of pesto made this way.

And speaking of consistency, we’re definitely not fans of pesto that’s either too oily or too dry. So we’ve found a great trick is to add a little water along with the other ingredients before processing. This gives the pesto a perfect consistency — moist, but not too oily. It also helps the blades process the other ingredients more easily into a paste.

We’ve also found that it’s a good idea not to go overboard with the garlic. Raw garlic is very pungent, and it can easily overwhelm the flavor of the other ingredients in the pesto. Of course, if you’re a bit of a garlic fiend, feel free to add more!

Pesto

Makes roughly 1 cup

• 1 cup tightly packed fresh basil leaves
• 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
• 1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

In a food processor or blender, combine the basil, Parmesan, pine nuts, garlic, water, salt, and pepper. While you process, slowly pour the olive oil into the mix until all the ingredients turn into a smooth paste (you may have to scrape the sides occasionally). Store in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Serving Ideas: Pesto has a myriad of uses, such as tossed with hot pasta, spread over bruschetta, used as a pizza sauce, stirred into soups just before serving, mixed with mayonnaise to dress salads and sandwiches, used as a filling for baked potatoes, or served as a dip with vegetable crudités.

Variations: Walnuts, pistachios, macadamias, almonds, or cashews can be substituted for the pine nuts.