Pesto Pasta

Tasty, easy and nutritious, this is one of my go-to meals during the week.
There's eat least three different vegetables in here (not including the garlic, spinach leaves or sugar snap peas) AND chickpeas, so it's full of goodness. And the pesto means it's full of flavour!


I use raw red peppers in this dish as the sweet crunch is a perfect complement to the pesto.
I would like to say that I made my own pesto to use in this dish, but unfortunately that requires some expensive cheese, nuts and more basil than you can acquire from a Lidl's own basil bush. All in all, its easier to use a ready made pesto, but given enough basil, I would definitely make my own.

Cooking time: 12 mins
Prep time: 5 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 of a golf ball sized potato, cut in to small chunks.
• Half a red pepper, roughly chopped
• Handful of frozen sweetcorn, defrosted
• Half a Jar of green pesto
• Enough pasta for 2 people
• 1/4 tin of chickpeas
• one garlic clove
• lemon juice
• freshly ground black pepper
• handful of spinach (optional)
• sugar snap peas (optional)

Method:

• Boil the kettle and use the water to fill a medium pan. Add the pasta and the potato peices to the boiling water and let it boil for 12 minutes.
• When the pasta is done, remove the potato, place it on a plate and mash it roughly with a fork (no butter of milk needed here!).
• Put the sweetcorn in a colander and drain the pasta over it.
• Put the pasta and sweetcorn back in the pan and add the freshly mashed potato.
• Mince the garlic on to the pasta.
• Add the rest of the ingredients, apart from the spinach and sugar snap peas, and mix it all up.Taste to check the seasoning, and serve!
• Add the spinach and peas as a side if desired.