Spaghetti with Broccolini and Peas in Pesto Sauce

Ah... the intention of cooking healthy food can sometimes be derailed because of last minute improvisation (like adding too much cheese...). I'm not sure if this is a healthy and nutritious dish or not but I'd like to think so, specially since Porgy said that it's a very 'green' dish.

It's all started when I read this Recipe for Health article on NYTimes. I thought to myself 'Hey, that's a good idea to make simple, healthy and delicious vegetarian dish!' so I decided to make it over the weekend. Since I didn't have any parsley and edamame, I substituted spinach, arugula and dandelions for parsley and frozen shelled peas for edamame. And since I wanted to make extra 'pesto sauce' to use for pizza topping later on, I tripled the amounts of the olive oil and added extra Parmesan cheese to the sauce.


Ingredients:
4 large garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
1 packed cup of spinach
1 packed cup of arugula
1 packed cup of dandelion
1/3 cup of olive oil
1 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
1 package of dried spaghetti
1 cup of frozen peas
1 handful of Broccolini
1/2 cup of dry white wine

Directions:

• In a food processor, pulse-chop the garlic for a few seconds. Add in the spinach, arugula, dandelion and Parmesan cheese and then pulse-chop some more until finely chopped. With the machine running, drizzle in the olive oil. Taste and season with salt and pepper accordingly.
• In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the dried spaghetti pasta according to the direction in the package.
  
• About 5 minutes before the spaghetti is done cooking, add the frozen peas and Broccolini into the pot. Drain well.
• Using the same pot, cook the 'pesto sauce' with the dry white wine for a couple of minutes until it boils and then add in the spaghetti, peas and Broccolini.
  
• Toss the mixture together, add grated Parmesan cheese, salt or pepper if necessary.