Meatless Monday with Genovese-style Pappardelle

Welcome (back) to the Miratel blog and thank you for joining us for another Meatless Monday recipe share. Did you know that producing 1lb of beef uses as much water as taking 60 showers and as much fuel as driving a call 32 miles? That is why Miratel took the Meatless Monday pledge to support reducing meat consumption 15% by eliminating it one day per week to preserve the health of our planet.

We consider our support of this great movement part of our CSR business strategies as it spreads awareness of the impact of our food choices on our environment. We share a recipe each week to help make going meat-free easier. Our flavourful Genovese-style Pappardelle recipe today will help that along. This delicious dish comes courtesy of Green Gourmet Giraffe and is an adaptation from a Jamie Oliver recipe.

Genovese-style Pappardelle Ingredients

• 40g pinenuts
  

  Image courtesy of gggiraffe.blogspot.ca

• 1 small garlic clove, chopped
• 1 big bunch basil
• Juice of half a medium lemon (or more to taste)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 75g parmesan cheese, finely grated
• 100g baby potatoes
• 250g fresh papperdelle
• 2 bunches (about 400-500g) asparagus (preferably purple and green combination)
• cherry tomatoes and extra basil leaves to serve (optional)

Method

1. Blend pinenuts, garlic, lemon juice, basil and half parmesan cheese in food processor. Add enough olive oil to make a paste. Set aside.
2. Peel potatoes and discard peel. Then use potato peeler to produce fine sliced (or peeled) strips of potato. Chop asparagus into 1-2 inch pieces. If asparagus is thick, slice it lengthwise.
3. Bring large saucepan of salted water to the boil and add potato, asparagus and pasta to the pot. Cook about 3 minutes til pasta is al dente and potato is soft. Drain and keep some of the pasta water. Return pasta mixture to the saucepan and mix with enough pesto to lightly coat (I used about two thirds of the pesto mixture). Add a little pasta water if too thick. Taste and season.
4. Serve with parmesan cheese, cherry tomatoes and basil leaves scattered over the pasta.

If you can’t get fresh pappardelle, you can use your favourite dried pasta found at your local grocery store. Pappardelle doesn’t have to be the pasta of choice either as any long, wide-type pasta will do but pappardelle works best. When choosing a dry, egg-free pasta, you may want to try a 100% whole grain or whole-wheat pasta to add fibre to the dish. You can easily make this dish vegan by using egg-free pasta and either omitting or substituting the parmesan with a vegan alternative.

If you haven’t already, we encourage you to visit the Meatless Monday website and join us in taking the pledge today. Spread the word at home and at work and promote CSR business initiatives to make your green call centre, office, factory, shop, restaurant or salon even greener.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.