Low fat, tangy and spicy Tomato pesto and a beautiful napkin from Greece

I was bored !!!! (of cooking ???? Oh my GOD !!!!...............)

It happens if I have been in the kitchen for really long stretches (3hrs or more) deep frying something. This Diwali season I made 5 types of savories and 2 sweets. Recently, we had this Diwali get-together at my house (It was so much FUN !!!!), and I had served these savories and sweets that I had made. I was feeling like a blushing kid who had won a prize, when our friends were complimenting me for the snacks :) (Thanks guys !).

Ok now back to where we were. The day on which I had fried so many things, I wanted to prepare something that can tingle my tastebuds. Something simple to put together. I already had some fresh salad, and I had to prepare something complementing that. Pasta ! that was the immediate thing that came to my mind which will go along well with a salad.

Now, I was thinking of how to make a different type of pesto for the spaghetti that I was going to make for dinner. The basic ingredients had to be tomatoes and a BIG NO to table spoons and table spoons of oil !

And also I wanted to make something original and unique to my recipe book. OK ! I have an idea as to what I can prepare. I used the following to prepare the pesto for two servings of sphagetti;

Tomatoes - medium sized & ripe - 2, diced

Pearl onions - 6, whole and peeled

Garlic (big cloves) - 6, flattened and peeled

Basil leaves, dry - 3 pinches

Walnuts - 5

Cashew nuts - 5

Extra virgin olive oil - 1 tsp

Pepper powder - 1/4 tsp

Chilli powder - 2/3 tsp

Corriander leaves - 6 sprigs, finely chopped

salt - to taste

This is what I did,

1. Preheat the oven at 220°C for 15 mins.

2. During this dice the tomatoes, peel the onions (this takes some time), flatten the garlic with the blade of your knife and peel them.

3. Put all these in a bowl sprinkle some dry basil leaves, pepper powder, salt and the olive oil. Toss all these and spread them on a oven resistant plate or you can use a disposable aluminium cake pan like I did.

4. Put this in the middle rack of the oven and bake it at 190°C for 40 mins. During the last 10 mins of the baking you can start smelling the tomato, basil and pepper.

5. Cool it, blend this with the nuts to a coarse paste (not too coarse also).

6. Heat a pan, heat the pesto adding the chilli powder and around 2- 3 tbsps water. Once hot, switch off the heat and immediately add the cooked spaghetti (cooked as per the instructions on the pack). Mix so as to coat each of the spaghetti with the sauce. Now, add the chopped corriander leaves. Serve the spaghetti immediately.

I had bought myself a beautiful Greek napkin on a trip to Hersonissos :)

Here are some pics.

Thanks for visiting my blog :)