This recipe is an extremely healthy and easy side dish for a mid-week meal. I highly recommend serving it with my recipe for Roasted Garlic & Paprika Tilapia. The only tricky part of this recipe is the timing of the vegetables, but it’s really quite easy to put together. If you aren’t good with time, just use the timer on your iPhone and you’ll be golden.

Vegetables

Bring up a pot of salted water to the boil and get all your vegetables ready to add to the pot. This means trimming the Green Beans (if they aren’t already trimmed from the store) and cutting your Broccolini so any large pieces are the same size as the smaller pieces.

Once your water has come up to a good boil you’re ready to start. Below is the timing you want:

1. Add your potatoes and set a timer for 13 minutes
2. Once the timer goes off add your Green Beans to the water and set a timer for 2 1/2 minutes
3. Once the timer goes off for the Beans add your Broccolini and set a timer for 2 1/2 minutes
4. Once the timer for the Broccolini goes off all your vegetables will be cooked

Drain the vegetables at this point and toss them in the Pesto while they are still hot. You only need a very small amount of Pesto, maybe 1 – 2 tablespoons. All we’re looking to do is lightly coat the vegetables in the Pesto, not drown them. Don’t worry about having leftover Pesto, it stores really well and you’ll be making Pesto veggies a lot once you try this recipe out. Once the vegetables are nicely coated they’re ready to be served.

In the end the cook times for the vegetables are as follows:

• New Potatoes – 18 minutes
• Green Beans – 5 minutes
• Broccolini – 2 1/2 minutes

Definitely feel free to experiment with different vegetables, just figure out how long they take to cook and implement the method above for their cooking time.

Pesto

If you’re looking for a way to pimp out your veggies, look no further than adding a Pesto to them. It doesn’t take a lot, and you can add a load of flavor. You can also opt out of making the Pesto and just use a store bought one. Lot’s of stores have really great Pestos, and with the price of nuts it’s sometimes cheaper and easier to just buy one. If you do want to make you’re own though this recipe will guide you through it.

The first thing you want to do is lightly toast your nuts in a dry non-stick frying pan. Be sure to keep the nuts moving to avoid burning them. The classic nut to use is a Pine Nut, but you can definitely use things like Peanuts or Almonds instead and it will still be delicious. Any kind of nut will work so experiment with different kinds.

Once the nuts are lightly toasted, put them in a bowl and set aside. Place the Garlic and a pinch of Kosher salt into your pestle and mortar and grind to a paste. Next add your nuts and grind them down to a paste. Next add your Basil and – big surprise – grind the leaves down until they incorporate into the paste as well.

Once you have the Basil turned into paste, add about a tablespoon and a half of Olive Oil (extra virgin is preferred since it’s going in uncooked). Finally grate in your 15g of Parmesan, add your Lemon zest and juice and mix the Pesto well to get the cheese throughout.

Alternatively if you don’t have a pestle and mortar, just use a food processor and throw everything in all at once. This will work just fine. You can even add in the Olive Oil, Parmesan and Lemon zest and juice to the food processor and make the entire Pesto in there.

Once you’ve done that it’s ready to go. If you’re making this Pesto for the vegetables you’ll get some leftover, but it stores really well and can be used on a lot of different things so you’ll have no problem using it up.

Garlic & Paprika Roasted Tilapia

As mentioned at the top of this article – I highly recommend serving this dish with my Roasted Garlic & Paprika Tilapia. If you want to do this then you can use the following timing to add the fish to the meal:

Once your water has come up to a good boil and your oven is preheated to 400F you’re ready to start. Below is the timing you want:

1. Add your potatoes and set a timer for 8 minutes
2. Once the first timer goes off add your fish to the oven and set a timer for 5 minutes
3. Once the timer goes off add your Green Beans to the water and set a timer for 2 1/2 minutes
4. Once the timer goes off for the Beans add your Broccolini and set a timer for 2 1/2 minutes
5. Once the timer for the Broccolini goes off all your vegetables will be cooked

This way everything will be done at the exact same time and you’ll have a complete meal.

As always thank you for reading and if you try out this recipe let me know how it goes in the comments below. Please also let me know any recipes, cuisines or techniques you want to know more about and I’ll try my best to either share something I’ve already done or find something new.