As I was finishing off at work today and given a rather small lunch my thoughts naturally turned to dinner and the eternal question of what I should cook for dinner (well, not that eternal for me given that I eat a fair amount of dinners at my desk in the office). Not knowing how my week would pan out, my weekly shop was pretty meagre this week. However, one staple I did pick up was cooked beetroot – perfect for throwing into goat’s cheese quesadillas, for use in sandwiches and as tasty bulk for any big salad bowls.
Today I was keen to try something else though, beetroot pesto! A quick search on Tastespotting and Foodgawker did not reveal any inspiring recipes so I had to come up with my own. And fortunately, I had everything I needed for my made-up recipe at home (I leave it to you to decide whether what I had on hand may have influenced the direction of my recipe …). And, given that this was a 2 pot (well, if you consider the body of my food processor a pot that is) wonder that allowed me to have my dinner on the table in the time it took to cook the pasta (while giving me leftovers for tomorrow’s dinner), I had to share this (and I do hope you give this a try – we all know that beetroot goes well with goat’s cheese and walnuts, throw in some parsley to lift the creaminess a bit plus some salt and pepper to round out the flavours, and you have a pretty stellar, cheap and quick mid-week dinner).
Trofie with beetroot pesto for 2
Ingredients
200g Trofie pasta
2 medium beetroots, cooked and cut into chunks
1 small handful of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
30g goat’s cheese, I used one that had a consistency similar to cheddar, creamy ones would work well too I guess, grated
2 tbsp good quality olive oil
1/2 small handful of walnuts, roughly chopped
2 small garlic cloves, chopped
Salt, pepper to taste
Directions
1. Cook your pasta according to package instructions.
2. While your pasta is cooking, place the remaining ingredients in your food processor and process until the mixture is fairly smooth (you can process it as long as you like, I went for a pretty smooth texture with a tiny bit of texture).
3. Season to taste (even some fresh lemon juice would not be amiss here).
4. Drain your pasta once al dente and mix with your beetroot pesto.
Enjoy!
(I used Trofie as this is the typical Ligurian pasta common,y served with Pesto Genovese. It was also what I had to hand …)
REAL SIMPLE FOOD 
Did you try it cold?
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I did try it cold and it tasted fantastic (so good in fact that I think it would be fantastic spread on a piece of sourdough toast). Here I ate it fresh on the hot pasta so the goat’s cheese go all creamy and melted a bit from the heat from the pasta, hmmm.
Have you tried beetroot pesto?
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