How do you get your three year old to eat greens??? Make a pesto and put it in a pasta salad!

Once you get the pesto prepared, you feel unstoppable. You pretty much have dinner on the table because whatever you add it to is instant flavor and will most likely get eaten. Although if you have a three year old like mine then nothing is a guarantee. Ever.

If you do have a picky kid (like I do) then don't do the kale. Even my husband, who will generally eat pesto, won't put up with the bitterness of kale. Put all things kale on the back burner for a later date like when your kids are grown up and you're cooking for yourself inside your little tiny house deep in the middle of Hippytown, USA. But I digress. 

Use a more mild green like spinach if you have picky eaters in your family. I love, love pesto because I never really have to measure anything, I just throw it in the food processor and adjust from there. Too dry? Add more oil. Too wet? Add more walnuts. Then suddenly you have your own little powerhouse of greens, nutrition, and flavor.  I used bowtie pasta in this but rotini, penne, or orzo would also work well. Ideally something with lots of crevices for the pesto to hide in. The addition of sweet peas works very well with balancing out the saltiness of the pesto.

Recipe:

1 lb bowtie pasta 

1 lb frozen peas (thawed)

1 cup prepared pesto

Cook pasta in salted water. Once it is just at the al dente stage, add in the peas and cook for 1-2 mins. Long enough for the peas to heat but not really cook. You want to keep the peas as fresh and green as possible.

Drain and let cool.

Toss with pesto and serve!

*My three year old was at first hesitant but once I made him try a small bite of peas and then the pasta he immediately liked the flavor even though it looked a little "weird" and he finished his plate!