Pea and cashew pesto with spaghetti

I bought this HUGE bag of frozen organic peas at BJ's recently with the idea of making pureed peas for baby.  I made his baby food which had this amazingly bright beautiful green color and tasted AWESOME and the idea of turning into something for adults.  I was between making a soup of some kind, or pesto.  Pesto won mostly because I had 3 strips of bacon in the refrigerator, approximately one ounce of cashews in the pantry, and a lonely box of spaghetti.

So on a Monday night after making some baby food this is what I did with the aide of my handy dandy stick blender.

I filled a small casserole dish with frozen peas and added water (just enough to barely cover them).  I then microwaved them for five minutes.  Meanwhile, I mashed up the cashews.  I used the immersible blender, because I HATE taking out  a food processor to mash up 2 cups of food for baby.  As it turns out the immersible blender works great for making nut butter.  Who knew?  Anyway I roughly mashed the nuts without liquid, and pushed nut to the side of the container.  I then poured about 75% of my undercooked peas into the container, and made layers of peas and nut-butter (this way my blender wouldn't get stuck...

 

I also added about 1 cup of the water that was used to cook the peas.  I blended until most of the peas had been mashed.  I then added 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and 3 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, and continued mashing until I achieved the consistency I wanted.  At this point you could also add any desired seasoning.  I did not add any since I figured there was plenty of salt in the cheese and nuts, and the bacon I was going to garnish my pasta with.  However, a little black pepper, some fresh herbs etc would probably be a nice addition.

 

 

 

 

Once you're done making the pesto boil some pasta, I had spaghetti, but this would be really awesome with farfalle (bow ties) or penne.  and chop the bacon and cook until crispy (I use kitchen shears to chop bacon, as I am also anti contaminating a cutting board for 3 strips of bacon).  Drain bacon on paper towels.

 

Once pasta is "al-dente" take a glass measuring cup and remove 1-2 cup of pasta water (this will help mix pesto and pasta), toss the remaining 25% of your peas, and then immediately drain in a colander.   Place pasta and the pea mixture back into pot and then toss with the pesto, add reserved pasta water as needed.  When you plate the pasta garnish with crispy bacon, and serve with a large  green salad.

 

Enjoy!