Healthy Baked Pesto Rigatoni

I have this thing called green foodsession and it’s not going away.

Last month when Bjork was putting together the income report, I accused him of choosing all green photos for the cover image. People don’t want to see all that green on there, babe. This is starting to look like the Grass Eaters club or something. Except then he pointed out that he had no other choice because all my recipes from last month are, in fact, green. Touche.

I accept that this is my current food calling. Green, delicious, fresh, healthy foods made into tasty, saucy food? This is the hill I will die on.

How To Make Our Baked Pesto Rigatoni:

But let’s follow up that bold statement with some red and yellow.

My food processor is my most used kitchen appliance by ten hundred miles. I try to force myself not to use it in some recipes because sometimes I worry that the homemade sauce and textured food thing is overkill for you foodie friends. But you guys. This little machine (mine is a tiny little 2 cup off-brand machine that’s missing one of the grippers on the left back corner so it slips around on the counter every time I use it – fun) is a force to be reckoned with. Anything that can take masses of green vegetables and turn them into something that has me licking my fingers like yes yes yes moooore is a good tool.

I mean, we all like green vegetables, right? We just like them better when they’re sausay.

Another thing we like: noodles.

I’m carb-loading for tomorrow when I’m going to need the energy to make this again. Gettin’ carby smart, yo.

So let me tell you a little bit about this healthy baked pesto rigatoni.

First, the healthy pesto is the green part involving the food processor. It’s a creamy concoction of Parmesan, pine nuts (or almonds because maybe you don’t like spending 200 dollars on nuts? I dunno), olive oil, garlic, spinach, kale, basil, and a little lemon juice that will seriously call for a mini-spatula-straight-into-mouth pesto cleanout of all the crevices of your food processor. You can judge or you can be a real person who likes flavor bomb pesto that packs a nutritional one-two punch. Up to you.

The pesto gets tossed up with that pasta and saucified with a little water, freshified with some little heirloom tomatoes, and yummified with a little cheese. I am so annoyed at myself right now.

You bake it, you eat it, you love the leftovers even more.

Friends? I hope you enjoyed this installment of Pinch of Yum Green Foods and I hope you enjoy it even more when it’s in a big bowl on your dinner table tonight. Topped with a little extra Parmesan, because that’s what we’d do if we were eating dinner together, I’m 900% sure.

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