#214 Linda McCartney meets Chloe Coscarelli

I went over to my parents house to make dinner. My plan was to make Linda McCartney's pasta genovese with potatoes and green beans. My dad is way allergic to nuts, so my plan was to make a pesto with pepitas instead of pine nuts. I've done it before and loved it. Unfortunately, my mom's food processor wasn't chopping up he pepitas the way I wanted. The food processor needed to be filled with more to get the pepitas thoroughly chopped. I was getting frustrated until I remembered chef Chloe's avocado pesto. Woohooo! My parents had two perfect avocados. I threw them both in and the pesto was saved. We all loved it...even my meat loving cousin, Doug!

#20 Pasta Genovese with Green Beans and Potatoes

This is a recipe from the Linda McCartney On Tour cookbook. Linda has always been one of my heroes! I bought this book many years ago and continue to use it. It's out of print now but you can still buy used copies.

Pasta+Pesto+Potatoes+Green Beans = My favorite dish from the cook book.

I buy the bag of mixed baby potatoes and fresh green beans from Trader Joes. You absolutely have to use fresh green beans-not frozen. Part of what makes this dish so good is the little crunch you get from the steamed green beans. I like using the bag with the red and purple potatoes for some extra color. The recipe says to boil the potatoes until they are “soft but tender.” I did that this time (I think it’s hard to get them to a good consistency without stabbing them a million times to check), but most of the time I just fry them in a little olive oil so they keep their shape and don’t fall apart.





I love those purple potatoes!



This wasn’t one of cookbook's vegan recipes because traditional pesto has parmesan cheese. Instead, I used the leftover pumpkin seed pesto I mentioned on the 8th. Sean modified it by adding a little vegan sour cream to it. This made it creamy and extra delicious! We topped it with a little estra basil and pumpkin seeds.