Sometimes at the end of the day, we often feel as if we are too tired to make anything healthy.  Healthy food takes forever.  Who has time to cut up all those veggies? To wait an hour for your tofu to press? Or wait the forty minutes it takes brown rice to cook?  While I think, for me, taking the time away from all the other things I have to worry about to make something that I’m proud of making and proud of eating is relaxing, I don’t always want to take 2 hours to make dinner.  That’s why I love pesto and you should, too.

Hailing from Northern Italy, pesto is made from few ingredients and takes the same amount of time to put together as it takes to boil the angel hair pasta that it goes on top of.  You can use such a variety of bases (basil, arugula, cilantro, and sun dried tomato are some of the most popular), that anyone can enjoy a pesto.  It can be made with or without cheese (I love cheese too much for a without on this one), and it can be made with a variety of nuts although walnuts and pine nuts are the most common.  I don’t use measuring cups, so I can only give estimates about what I used.  Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

Arugula (maybe 2.5 cups)                   3-5 cloves of garlic

Parmesan cheese (I sprinkle it in and add more if the sauce is too wet)

Pine nuts (1/3 cup, perhaps)                Lemon Juice and Olive Oil

Cherry Tomatoes                                 Jalapeños

1.      Put a pot of water on to boil.  Once it does, put that pasta in.

2.      Add the arugula (or whatever you’re using), garlic, parmesan, and pine nuts into the food processor (some people like using a mortar and pestle, but we’re trying to save time here, right?), and turn that sucker on. 

3.      Once everything is pretty mixed together, slowly add in the lemon juice and olive oil while the machine is running.  Stop and taste every once in a while.  Remember, this is a sauce that’s going on some pretty bland pasta.  You want it to be a little liquid-y and taste pretty strongly of garlic.

4.      Your pasta should be ready.  Drain it and pour the pesto on top.  I like to add cherry tomatoes and jalapeños on top.  Sautéed onions and bell peppers aren’t a bad choice either.

2 ½ cups of arugula contains 10% of your daily value of calcium, 25% of your Vitamin A, and 70% of your Vitamin K (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/3025/2).  This is to say nothing of the health benefits garnered from garlic and olive oil, which are two of my favorite things.  Just be careful of the Parmesan (it’s where all the saturated fat is hiding).