Creamy Pesto Farfalle

I personally prefer spinach pesto than traditional basil pesto. I find it more creamier and wholesome in taste than the traditional pesto. My spinach pesto contains cashews, which definitely adds on to the creaminess and gives it a delicous flavor. I absolutely love cooking with spinach pesto because most of all, spinach is available most the year while basil is hard to find in large affordable quantities for recipes like these. Many of my Italian recipes that include pesto is usually spinach pesto. I've used this pesto for pesto bread, pesto stuffed lasagna roll ups, stuffed manicotti and other recipes that I'm looking forward to sharing with you. You can even make the pesto ahead of time and store it up to 2 weeks or more. This particular recipe is pretty quick and easy to make especially during the weekdays if you're looking forward to making a quick and tasty meal. As you can see, I've used farfalle pasta because personally I prefer it with this recipe, however feel free to use it with any other pastas if you'd like. I think it would be good with penne, spaghetti, rotini, fusilli, etc.

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Creamy Pesto Farfalle

Pasta

Ingredients:

- 8 oz of Barilla farfalle pasta

- 1.5 to 2 cups of spinach pesto (see recipe below)

- 1/4 cup of Philadelphia Cream Cheese

- 1 cup of broccoli florets

- 1/2 cup of thinly sliced red onions

- 1/2 tbsp of garlic and Thai chili paste

- 1 handful of minced cilantro (for topping)

- 1/3 cup of shaved parmesan (for topping)

- Fresh cracked black pepper (for topping)

Spinach Pesto

Ingredients:

- 16 oz bag of spinach

- 1/4 cup of EVOO

- 3-4 garlic cloves

- a pinch of salt

- a pinch of black pepper

- about 6-7 cashews

- 1 tsp of lemon juice

- 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese

Directions

1 - Blend all the ingredients for the pesto and set aside.

2 - Boil the pasta as instructed per box and set aside.

3 - Heat some EVOO in a skillet and throw in the sliced onions and broccoli florets and cook them for about 3 to 4 minutes until the broccoli is tender.

4 - Add the cream cheese and let it melt with the veggies and get creamy for a minute.

5 - Add the Thai chili and garlic paste and the pesto and mix it all up into a sauce and cook it for about 30 seconds.

6 - Add the pasta and mix it all together and cook it in the sauce for 2-3 minutes.

7 - Serve with fresh shaved parmesan, cilantro, and fresh cracked pepper on top.

Note: Add salt as necessary; although the cream cheese, the pesto, and the parmesan cheese have a a lot of salt in them so I try to be careful with salt in this dish.